Archives for March 2019

As a business, every day, you get the opportunity to communicate your message and it’s no secret how important it is to articulate the right message so the people that we are talking to pay attention to what we have to say. This is why it is so important that you learn how to find your business voice.

A few days ago I got a message from someone telling me that I didn’t talk enough about online marketing strategies.

That person is probably right.

The decision to talk less about strategy was intentional

You see, I started to notice that Strategy isn’t the biggest problem that stops the majority of business owners from being successful.

It wouldn’t surprise me that you disagree with me when you read this:

You might be thinking, if the problem is not the strategy, then what is the problem?

A few days ago I was talking with a friend that was telling me that she had decided to hire someone to help her with her marketing.

She was describing how the process of delegating her marketing had caused her to lose her voice.

Now, all her content, from her website, social media posts, and emails don’t sound like her.

I could sense the pain in her voice.

If she felt this, it’s very likely that everyone that has been in touch with her business feels the same thing.

In her case, it doesn’t matter what strategies she uses.

It doesn’t matter how many social media followers she has, it doesn’t matter how much she spends on ads.

If the people that she is attracting don´t connect with her content, her marketing efforts won’t take her anywhere.

She explained the logical reasoning that led her to hire her marketing and delegate her voice.

It was as simple as not having enough time to do it all.

And I think we can all relate to that.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day.

And the key is to choose wisely where to spend our time and attention.

Your business voice is what is going to help you to sell more.

The only reason why someone will hire your services is that they want to work with you.

Because your voice is what attracted them in the first place.

Because you inspired more trust than your competitors.

Your voice is your secret sauce.

And when you don’t have a voice, you have nothing.

If you don’t promote your services through the Internet, you may not fully understand what I mean by this.

You might have to live it to believe it.

But if you have tried to promote your services online, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

If I had to pick a reason why the majority of businesses’ marketing fails, this would be the main one.

It’s not the lack of strategies, it’s the lack of voice.

It’s not knowing how to properly articulate your message.

It’s having a boring message that lacks personality, doesn’t connect with anyone and is similar to everyone else’s.

This is what keeps you invisible and stuck

When you have a message like that, your marketing can’t make miracles.

And that’s the reason why I write about online marketing strategies less frequently.

What happens is that the majority of business owners don’t wrap their heads around the fact that the only purpose of marketing is to position your brand so that you can increase your sales.

Promoting your brand simply because everyone tells you that you´re supposed to do it is not the answer.

When you don’t understand this, the idea of delegating your marketing because you don´t have enough time is the beginning of the end.

4 Steps to learn how to find your business voice (and stand out from the crowd)

1. Focus on your audience first.

One of the main reasons why businesses fail to communicate their voice is because they’re afraid of what other people might think about them.

To stand out, you have to run the risk of being different.

I understand how this can be a challenge.

Nevertheless, what people don’t seem to understand is that there is a bigger risk being just like everyone else.

What you need to do
Change your perspective and move your attention from yourself to your audience. What this means is that instead of worrying about what people will say about you, you have to create content that brings value to your audience.

In the blink of an eye, everything will become easier when you are able to focus on serving your audience.

2. Know what to say

When I talk about what to say, I don’t mean the text you will put with an image on social media.

That’s not enough.

It goes beyond social media.

You need to learn to express your message with the right words so people can understand how you can help them and what makes you different.

You might think this is as simple as delivering a short, concise and to the point message.

In this case, I couldn’t disagree more.

Having a short message is not enough to persuade anyone to hire your services, you need to explain why they need your services and why you are their best choice.

What you need to do:
It all starts by knowing your audience, understanding their problems and showing them that you know how to solve their problems. You can do this with your blog, with videos and/or audio and social media.

Your content will allow your audience to get to know you and will help them realize that they want to work with you.

In order to do this:

• You don’t have to be a genius to know what to say.
• You don’t have to be the best or have all the answers to have an opinion.
• You don’t have to be an extrovert.

It only takes practice and using a system that allows you to do exactly that.

3. Use images to connect

It doesn’t matter how good your message is if nobody sees it.

The best way to capture the attention of your audience is to combine your message with images that connect and make them curious about your services.

This is not something you can achieve if you use the same images as your competitors.

What you need to do
You need to develop a visual brand style that makes you stand out and that allows your audience to identify you.

I understand that this sounds like something expensive or complicated and I want to clarify that it’s not.

Again, this is something that you can achieve through practice.

Before continuing, I want to share an infographic that illustrates:  4 Steps to learn how to find your business voice (and stand out from the crowd)

4. Your message must be highly visible

Of course, none of this works if your audience doesn’t know you exist.

It doesn’t matter what your message is or what image you use if your message is not easy to find for your audience 24 hours a day.

What you need to do
You need to understand where the people in your audience search for the solutions to their problems.

And most likely, they search Google and social media.

This means that your content should appear in the results when people search, otherwise you’re just wasting your time.

Conclusion
It doesn’t matter what strategies or tactics you use, it doesn’t matter how much you pay for ads and it doesn’t matter how many followers you have.

Not understanding the importance of communicating your voice through a highly visible message is like trying to drive a car without an engine.

I want you to ask yourself: What step can you take today to find the voice of your business and successfully communicate a message that connects with your audience?

If you’re thinking of learning online marketing, you need to know why free online marketing courses don’t work.

A few years ago, I was feeling burnt out. I thought that maybe learning something new would help me feel better.

Back then, I dedicated all of my time to design websites for clients and I also offered online marketing services.

I wanted to learn something new that wasn’t related to my work.

I’ve gone through these phases in the past and I know how important it is not to go against my intuition.

I had a new camera and I decided it would be fun to learn how to use it.

Of course, the first thing I thought of was finding free information available on the Internet.

After a few days of research, I realized the following:

1. There wasn’t any specific information about the camera I had, which was a huge problem for me

The question kept going through my mind “How am I going to take good pictures if I don’t know how to use the camera?”

2. I also realized that these are two very different things

a) Learning how to use the camera

b) Learning how to take good pictures

3. Even if I found all the instructions on a tutorial, I would still be missing the most important thing

Someone to tell me if I’m doing a good job and more importantly, to tell me what I’m doing wrong and how to improve it.

These three things made me realize I needed to pay for a course.

I had a lot of time-based limitations since I worked during the day and tended to my family by night.

I basically had no time.

Regardless, my desire for experiencing something new was bigger than the “not enough time” excuse, and that’s how I began my search for a photography course.

After some research, I decided that it would be too difficult to attend a class in person because I would lose many hours commuting back and forth from the class and this would have an unnecessary impact on my life.

I realized it was the perfect opportunity to find an online course.

When I told this to my friends and family, they were sceptical.

After all, how would I learn to use my camera if I didn’t have someone next to me telling me how to use it?

Still, I was determined and confident that it wouldn’t be an issue.

The hardest step was deciding which course to take.

In other words, who did I want to learn from?

Once I made that decision I simply couldn’t contain my excitement.

This would become my first experience as an online course student.

The experience exceeded my expectations. I learned a lot and I also had the flexibility to study by night and go out on the weekends to take pictures.

Probably the most important part of it all was that as a student I experienced firsthand how important it is to have these kinds of alternatives.

Not only because they enrich our lives and helps us solve a specific problem.

But also because they give us the possibility of learning from people that if we were to hire for private coaching, the cost would be completely out of our range.

The person I chose is a world-renowned photographer who teaches photography all around the world.

At the moment I signed up for the course, I didn’t have enough time to even take it in the city I live in, and even less so if I had had to travel.

Why am I sharing this?

Because despite the fact that at the time it seemed that the experience had nothing to do with my work, it actually did.

And because investing in that experience changed my life.

Why free online marketing courses don’t work (4 lessons that can change your life)

1. It was an experiment where I put myself in the place of those who want to learn online.

This experience allowed me to validate that in fact, it is possible to teach and learn using online courses.

This was a very important lesson for me to learn since I wanted to experience this for myself.

2. Isolating knowledge is impossible.

After I finished the class, I took several others. These photography courses helped me change my way of thinking, or rather, my way of looking at things.

But perhaps more importantly, these courses sparked my curiosity for the visual side of communication, which nowadays is so important in the work I do every day.

You see, I had some many photos I wasn’t using that I decided to start using them on my blog posts. This was the beginning of a new chapter in my business.

3. Free information online only offers more information

You can’t learn anything by simply consuming information.

If you want to learn something new, doing more research isn’t enough. What matters is the change that occurs when you go from point A (where you are before learning) to point B (where you are once you apply what you’ve learned). We call this the transformation.

At that time, I could have convinced myself that I could learn everything on my own.

But that wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted to learn from someone who would give me feedback, who would tell me if I was doing a good job, what I wasn’t doing right and that would guide me into improving.

Being able to ask questions and obtain answers was essential to me.

Before continuing, I want to share an infographic that illustrates:  Why free online marketing courses don’t work (4 lessons that can change your life)

4. The transformation lies in the transaction

The level of commitment we have is different when we spend money on a course than if we don’t.

I understand that this can be a hard to swallow pill for some.

I understand because that used to be me.

Everything changed for me when I paid for a course and experienced it myself.

I needed to be sure I was making the most out of the experience.

And that is so important that it can mean the difference between success and failure.

Perhaps one of the biggest surprises was what I learned from the people who took the class with me. Turns out, we can’t measure the value or the impact of being surrounded by people who share the same interests that we do.

Conclusion

If you really want to learn something new and you want to do it right, you need to invest in the learning process.

Because in doing so, you’re making a commitment to yourself.

Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

Thinking you can learn all on your own closes you off to certain learning opportunities. Without realizing it, you take on an ignorant attitude which won’t let you learn anything and will keep you stagnant.

This experience changed me and reminded me that it’s important to invest in things that help my business.

I’d like to encourage you to be open to new learning experiences that allow you to reach your goals. Experiences that will help you go from point A to point B, where your goals and dreams await you.

Because in life, you can’t replace experience with knowledge.