Tag: personal branding

Working Remotely? Here’s How to Get to Know Your Clients

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Collaborative post – may contain affiliate links

If you are a Millennial, you might be enjoying the lifestyle of a remote freelancer, even run a company using workers from all over the world. Being an entrepreneur requires a clear direction and a plan. If you are clear about what you want to achieve, what you offer, and who your ideal clients are, you can develop your business into something big. Below you will find a few tips on how to get to know your ideal clients.

Market Research

The first thing you will have to do before you position your brand in the marketplace is your market research. Find out what people are looking for. If you work online most of the time, you can utilize social media research and join related groups to find out what the most painful problems of your audience are. The good news is that you don’t even have to invest in industry reports; most of the data you need is freely available.

Finding Your USP

If you are working remotely, you will need to find a way to create personal connections and communicate your unique selling proposition. One of the things you should do is compare your brand and offers with the competition, so you can identify what makes you stand out. Once you are clear about this, you can create a social media strategy or a sales funnel built around your USP.

Identifying Your Ideal Client

One of the most challenging tasks you will have to complete is identifying your ideal customers. When you start a business, you might think that you have to please everyone. This is not the case. You don’t have the budget for marketing trial and error, so it is best to focus on the people who are the most likely to buy from you.

Branding

When building a brand online, your main challenge will be to get people to stop and listen. There is simply too much white noise and distraction, so your brand has to be interesting, engaging, and unique. On social media, for example, your main job is to get people to stop scrolling past your posts. Consistency is also crucial, so your prospects can recognize your brand on every platform.

Asking Qualifying Questions

If you want to stop wasting time chasing after cold or dead leads, you have to find a way to get to know your customers. Asking qualifying questions before you arrange an interview or follow them up will save you a lot of time and resources. There are some great business intelligence software solutions out there designed for remote workers, like you. Click here to visit this website to find out more about the benefits of getting to know your customers and asking the right questions.

Remote workers and companies face a lot of challenges when it comes to branding and getting to know their ideal clients. To stand out from the crowd, you will need to have a clear direction and a strong USP.

What McDonalds Can Teach You About Failed Branding

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ronald-mcdonald-sad

Have you seen the recent McDonald’s commercials featuring wholesome ingredients in family settings?

That’s a far cry from their previous campaign geared towards a “cool” hip-hop crowd…

Confusing. That’s what McDonald’s marketing is currently.

Apply that to your professional life. When you’re asked the question, “Why should we hire you?” in a job interview would you state what makes you unique or go with what’s trendy nowadays? (I hope you choose the former)

My point is when it comes to branding it’s important to know your identity.

Using McDonald’s as a bad example, they’ve flip-flopped on who they are trying to be and to whom they’re trying to be it to. Newsflash: people don’t buy McDonald’s products because of sustainable procedures, family values or the perception of being part of the “in-crowd.” It’s sole appeal is: it’s cheap, fast-food. I guarantee if they spent more money marketing their dollar menu, combo meals and sale items profits would rise quickly.

Trying to be the jack-of-all-trades results in being a master of none.

That’s why tools like the StrengthsFinder are helping in defining your identity (personal brand).

Your strengths determine your style which reveals your brand.

Don’t be afraid to niche yourself according to your speciality. People need to know who you are and what you do clearly.

If you communicate various descriptions it sounds confusing…and the problem is when someone is confused they will always say “no” to buying you.

Don’t be like McDonald’s. Be clear about you.

Video Marketing 101 w/ Sunny Lenarduzzi

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sunny

Today’s interview in our Personal Branding Series is with Digital Marketing Guru Sunny Lenarduzzi. I stumbled upon Sunny’s work via Twitter and love her work and personality. She’s mastered the You Tube Tutorial so if you’re trying to figure out technology on your own, stop! I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting her in person yet, but I’m sure we’ll eventually cross paths once she’s dominated Canada and moves her way down south. Hope you enjoy her brief, but powerfully clear words of wisdom.

1) How did you get into video marketing as a career?

My career started in broadcasting and after years of reporting and hosting on television and radio, I fell in love with the digital space. Now, I feel like I’ve combined those two passions into my dream career. I love creating video content and working with brands and individuals to help them grow their influence and create tangible results through a visual medium.

2) What do you consider your biggest strength as a communicator?

Perhaps it’s a strength and a weakness, but I’m very straightforward. I like getting right to the point and I do my best to deliver messages as clearly and concisely as possible.

3) What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

It’s funny, I can’t think anything that I would consider a big challenge. Have there been hurdles? Yes. But I love what I do so much that I see every challenge as an opportunity for growth. I would say one of the most difficult aspects of my job is to stay ahead of the trends and keep up with the fast pace and information overload.

4) How would you describe your style/personal brand?

Simplistic. Joyful. Informative.

5) What advice would you give other entrepreneurs trying to build their audience/brand?

Know your audience and what their needs are. You have to start with researching your target audience extensively to ensure that every aspect of your marketing initiatives matches what they want and need to hear.

Scott Asai is a speaker/coach that has been developing leaders for 20+ years – athletes, companies and individuals. His focus is helping people develop leadership skills to advance in their careers. Scott tends to attract a large audience of Millennials and Introverts to his programs/events. His professional background consists of: B.A. in Psychology, M.A. in Organizational Leadership, Certified Professional Coach and Certified Strengths Coach.

An Interview w/ @TheNoLookPass

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the no look pass, rey rey, rey moradle, no look pass twitter

If you know me or listened to any of my podcasts I have a deep love for sports, basketball in particular. In addition to starting Lakers Fans Unite, Twitter has given me the unique opportunity to meet some sports bloggers/media and get a first-hand perspective of covering athletes for a living. I admire how these professionals both view their role and have built their personal brand/following. A little over a month ago, I met Rey Moralde a.k.a. The No Look Pass for coffee and we chatted it up about basketball. I asked him if I could interview him for my “How to Build Your Personal Brand Series” and he graciously agreed. I hope you enjoy his story and can learn from him how to build your personal brand the right way.

1) How did you get into sports blogging as a career?

I just kind of stumbled onto it. I used to be obsessed with playing ball years ago before I rolled my ankle severely. While on the shelf, my friend suggested I write and blog about the NBA. After a couple of weeks, my little writings somehow caught the eye of an old sports blogging network called Most Valuable Network. It went from there and here I am, still writing and blogging nearly six years later.

2) What do you consider your biggest strength as a writer?

I don’t think I’m the best technical writer, far from it. I don’t think I’m the best basketball tactician, either, and I’m definitely far from that. But I do think that basketball is fun and writing about it should be fun. I like keeping it lighthearted and, at the end of the day, we use basketball (and any form of entertainment) to escape from the real world. People get so invested over sports that it turns into something we get angry over and that’s just unhealthy. I like to keep it fun and I’m glad that people have recognized that. So I would say “not taking it too seriously” is my biggest strength as a writer, if anything.

3) What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced?

Trying to avoid burnout. You need breaks every once in a while and I get obsessed, sometimes, over this entire thing. While I do say that not taking it too seriously is my strength, I also feel you’re “only as good as your next write-up.” And it can be a marathon; the NBA pretty much goes every day for eight months (playoffs included). I’m going into my 7th season and I think about quitting every summer, believe it or not. It becomes more of a relief than an accomplishment after the final game is over. But when the summer goes too long, I clamor for the NBA to come back. Figure that out. I’m hoping to pace myself better this season. But, yeah, avoiding burnout is my biggest challenge.

4) How would you describe your style/personal brand?

Fun. Silly. And it should be. I’m not sure if I’m a universally funny guy but I do like to make people laugh. You can see that attempted poor humor on my Twitter feed and in my blog entries. I think my style does stand out because I have no problem integrating things like 90s music, video games, teen dramas, wrestling, and my dating experiences into my NBA talk. Besides, having everyone do the same ol’ thing gets boring, anyway, right?

5) What advice would you give to other bloggers trying to build their audience/brand?

Be yourself and don’t give up. Never apologize for being yourself. That’s definitely helped me along the way. If you’re a serious guy, then be serious. If you’re silly, then be silly. Stay in your lane. And blogging about a sport takes a lot of time. Not only do we have to write but we also have to watch a lot so that we know what we’re talking about. What we do isn’t easy; we don’t snap our fingers and produce a blog entry over 45 minutes. We honed our craft over the years when it comes to writing and being a student of the game. People can definitely do it; if I made something out of it, I don’t see why others can’t.

Oh, and don’t burn any bridges. Because you never know if you’re actually going to need that person’s help down the line.