Four ways to keep connected & productive

With Melbourne (me!) in hard lockdown and the rest of the country starting to enjoy a normal life again but knowing a huge economic hangover is coming, it's more important than ever to stay connected. Especially for business owners working at home by themselves. 

 I write this from my 10-year-old son's room, looking out at the view of the trees as Spencer has the best view in the house! Sometimes I just need some variety of workspace seeing I have been spending 90% of my time in my house for the last 3 months. My trackies and coffee machine is getting a serious workout! 

 Can you relate? 

I'm grateful that I have a place that I can work from. Other business owners aren't as lucky so check in on your mates. Thanks for all those that have been keeping in touch with me, you don't know how much it helps :) 

So a few things to help business owners out there. Some free and some paid...

• Free book. As I start writing my second book (why not...) I am giving away copies of my first book 'Creating a Powerful Brand'. Get it here free (no email required)

• Free Social Club. If you are a business owner and want some company, come join our BYOB Social Club which is now free to join. Stay connected with fellow business owners.  Join the Facebook Group here.

• Grow Club. If you want to build your business and need more support, join the Grow Club for business owners. I will personally coach you through the e-ttraction Leverage techniques that I use with my high profile clients. It's $97 per month limited to 10x people. (free access to my Launch in 12 Weeks course)

• Personal Branding Course. I have partnered with Social Media College to produce a University course for people wanting to build their brand. Check it out here if you are serious about your online branding. 

It's your time to make a difference in the world. Get off the couch, turn off the TV and kick start your idea into reality from your own home.

What am I doing? Yesterday I started Emily Gowor's 30-day book writing challenge, wish me luck! 

Don't waste this opportunity. Grow your own business while you can.

Cheers Andrew

P.S. Be quick as I only have 10x spots for my group coaching.  Join me in the Social Star Grow Club for $97- month.

 P.P.S Have a question? Book a call with me to discuss your specific needs here.

Get a job, get a client, get a niche...

In previous blogs, we have discussed the importance of referrals. Having clients and friends recommend you by name will lead to the best jobs and clients. In this process, being found for your name and business name is the best use of your marketing time and money. However, there are many cases where referrals are not enough to give you the e-ttraction you need. You may have moved to a new country, be just out of university or changing industries. In these cases your name and company won't be enough, you will need prospects to find you for your service. Being found for what you do is a whole different marketing approach. This blog will help you identify your niche and give you some strategies of how to be found for it.

Company niche

If you are running your own small business, the methodology is the same. Think about what problem are you solving for the customer, and what value can you create for them. This isn’t the product you sell, but the solution. An old marketing adage is people don’t buy a drill, they buy a hole. New marketing would argue, they don't want a hole, but to hang a picture.

If you really understand your customer's pain, it is a lot easier to create a product that solves their problem and marketing but communicates this to the right people.

The niche solution you provide needs to be super-specific.

To ensure you have it clear in your mind, follow this simple process. Start by writing a description of your target client. Picture them as a single person and detail their habits, behaviours, demographics, lifestyle and problems. In a job situation, this is the person hiring you. For a business, it’s your preferred client.  Then write the way you can solve their problem with the skills you have and also why they would get you to solve that problem and how valuable it is to them.

Let’s take the example of a real estate agency. You open in a new area and need to stand out amongst the many other competitors in the area. It is an affluent area and so you define the target client as Mary the mum. She is educated, 42, with 2 children at private school, works part-time in a corporate role and very savvy. In this household, she makes the decisions and demands quality service. Mary is wary of salespeople and doesn’t trust agents easily. You decide your niche will be providing advice and education to Mary and her friends to achieve word of mouth marketing. Your business runs monthly sessions in their homes to educate them on property investing and portfolio management. Over time you establish trust with Mary and her friends and receive many referrals for house listings because of this relationship.

Job niche

The first step is to establish what exactly is your niche. If you are reading this to boost your career, a niche is a specific job you are looking to do. It is the service you are providing to the company who is employing you to solve their problem. It is important to realise that the value you provide to the business isn’t in your job title or even your skills, it is based upon what value you can provide to their customers which they can turn into revenue.

When you begin to change your mindset to the employer's problems you can solve with your skills, rather than your own, you begin to open up a whole range of new career opportunities, some of which you might not have even thought of. These are the sort of roles that are created around you, rather than you apply with 1,000 other people.

Let’s use an example to clarify this process. Jim has been working in mining all his life and at 60 is looking for a final senior role for a few years in a large manufacturing or mining company reporting to the CEO. Jim would create a buyer persona for the CEO he most wants to work for. ‘Chris the CEO of X Mining, is a 45-year-old first time CEO who has been an executive in a similar company for 10 years. He is a bit nervous taking on such responsibilities at his relatively young age, but has confidence in his abilities and knows his MBA will help him navigate the role. His problem is he is new to this industry and hasn’t had any hands-on experience so understanding the nuances of the business is tricky so he is advertising for a COO with industry experience.’ Jim knows that his hands-on experience and personal contacts in this specific industry will be of huge benefit to Chris. Now Jim just needs to look for changes in his industry where the CEO requires a more experienced mentor. 

Marketing your niche

Once you have clearly identified your niche, you need to market it in the same ways that you market your personal brand and your business brand. On your social media and website, you need to talk to your target person in the language you use. Highlighting the problem you solve, your solutions and your strengths. Then you need to take action. Connect to your target market in LinkedIn, write content that is useful to them on your blog, share articles that would interest them and answer their questions. Help them solve their problem and they will reciprocate with referrals for your niche.

Google will also look after you if you have a clearly defined niche. In the real estate example, if you were writing about your specific workshops for mums in a particular suburb a search for that would easily find your website. Google is looking for the best match to a search query and a lot of searches are very specific. You can be found for your generic service ‘Real Estate Agent Kew’ with the other competitors or try the niche process and be found for ‘Free Property investment seminars for mums in Kew’, and be the only result.

Once you have your niche defined the real works starts and the psychological battle. Why would they want me, I'm going to go broke as I'm missing out on all the other business opportunities etc etc This is emotional noise. Focus on logic and results. Be passionate but not emotional and this strategy will work.

Cheers Andrew

If you are looking to start a business or grow your current one, building a powerful personal brand can have a massive impact on getting new clients, partners and staff. That's why we partnered with the best L&D company in Australia to build a brand new Personal Branding course - check it out here. (link https://www.socialstar.com.au/personal-branding-course-from-social-media-college)

P.S. For more information about how to turn a niche into a business, grab a copy of my eBook. Fair exchange rules apply - 1x email address for the 20x hours I put into writing the eBook contents :)

Real Branding is How You Act Now

I talk and write a lot about branding. Specifically Personal Branding, so I wanted to add my 2 cents on what really matters right now for your brand in this age of uncertainty.

Some people believe their brand is a logo, a website or even their social media. But it's not. Real branding is what your tribe thinks and more importantly feel about you. How you act and the policies you decide upon when things are hard, will be far more impactful than what you say. Particularly in times of crisis, people show their true colours and now is a critical time for all people to put up or shut up.

Live your brand.

The Corona Virus has hit a lot of people really hard. Particularly small hospitality and travel businesses, so what can you do to help? They need your sympathy of course, but they need your money more. Here are some awesome ways to help that I have heard from my clients and friends which we can all apply ourselves to our favourite cafe, restaurant or bar:

1. Offer to buy a gift voucher for the future

2. Order take away from them, even if it's not a normal delivery organisation

3. Go out and sit at their place, we are not all homebound and having people there will attract more people to come

4. Post on social media that you are there, so others might head out of their homes and support the businesses too

5. Buy some stock from them if they have it available. i.e. your local bar might have stocked up on booze and needs to reduce this (of course, check licensing laws)

6. If you are a supplier, offer longer credit terms

7. If you are a landlord, relieve rent so they can keep paying their staff

8. Donate some hard to find goods to them as they can't operate without hand sanitizer, toilet paper and other mandatory items

This is presuming you kept your job or your business is less impacted than others. It may cost you a little in the short term, but you will keep your clients loyal for the long term. Plus it's just the right thing to do.

Of course, we all need to practice social distancing and quality sanitisation which goes without saying.

So what are you going to do? Let's take some action as even the smallest gesture will be well received and lift the pressure off a local small business in your area. If we can lift the mood and add a few dollars to those in need it will go a long way to improving the mental health of small business owners.

I would love to hear of other ideas to help those in need.

Keep well,

Andy

P.S. If you are looking to start a business or grow your current one, building a powerful personal brand can have a massive impact on getting new clients, partners and staff. That's why we partnered with the best L&D company in Australia to build a brand new Personal Branding course - check it out here. (link https://www.socialstar.com.au/personal-branding-course-from-social-media-college)

Rebirth of the Salesman in the digital age (a lesson from my grandpa)

Sales is a much-maligned word. Some people would hate to even consider what they do as sales. Images of pushy people who are inauthentic and smarmy spring to their minds. But sales is a necessary part of business, particularly if you leave the cushy walls of corporate and start your own business, so how do you it and maintain your credibility?

When I was a young lad, all I ever wanted to do was to work for my grandpa. He started a commercial stationery business in High Street, Preston in 1949 after the war and called it RH Grierson & Co. He wasn't one for branding or creativity, unlike his youngest grandchild!

We specialised in importing Pegasus carbon paper from England in huge reams and cutting it down to A4 for secretaries so they could type documents in duplicate. If this sounds like some ancient process, it was. But at the time it was cutting edge entrepreneurship and made my grandparents quite wealthy. He was a hard man, but fair. He imbued the importance of looking after the business by knowing your products, working hard and serving our clients to the best of our abilities. 

I joined the company when my time came and after a few years doing the hard yards in the warehouse, joined the sales team. Armed with a box of catalogues and a cheap suit he gave me all the training of 'go and cold call son'. Being all of 21 and looking about 16 off I went around the industrial areas in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. 

Half a day I lasted until I thought there has got to be a better way. So I pretended to cold call but really just serviced my existing clients. But so eager to please, I was, that I would go over and above for my clients. I knew my industry well and would serve my clients so effectively and with authenticity that they became my friends. I loved visiting them each week had a great relationship - then a strange thing happened.

When Betty would leave one company she would make sure I was well entrenched there and then take me with her to the new company. My business grew. Word of mouth started and I started getting referrals. All of a sudden I was the fastest-growing salesperson in the company without one cold call. Amazing.

Fast forward to life in big IT in the 2000s and I'm in the big league (so I thought at the time). Working for the biggest IT company in the world, Hewlett Packard, so I applied the same principles to my new customer, a computer wholesaler turning over $1m a week. Amazingly the same results. It appeared that if you look after customers and try your best, they will look after you, regardless of the industry and size of business.

"Nice story Andrew but how do we apply this lesson now?" I hear you ask.

In today's fast and furious social media landscape where Gary V says post 64 times a day, it's easy to become impersonal to our clients. We hide behind our computers, do the click funnel courses and believe Facebook ads will make new relationships. Sometimes we forget that it's a good product with genuine value, with quality service and a personal approach that people actually resonate with. If you try your best to help your clients, they will feel that and want to help you. They introduce you to their friends and colleagues and your business will grow slowly but surely.

This is not a story of Internet unicorns, selling for 100x multiples based on a dream, but it's a story of how my grandpa worked hard for 40 years and built a family upon a quality small business. These are most businesses in Australia and ones that I like to work with as they feed most families and teach kids valuable lessons. 

My advice is to slow down, reduce the hustle and focus on your clients. Solve their problems as best you can and act with honour. You can't always fix everything for them and clients will come and go as their business and personal lives change. But if you do your best they will often return or send you their friends when the time comes.

Selling isn't dead, it's just been reborn with a digital edge. My methodology is called e-ttraction, creating digital attraction with authentic storytelling. I believe the same rules of relationship building apply online the same as offline. The difference is, you now have a much more efficient medium to show prospects what you are like as a person and business. 

Remember the energy you bring to your work is felt by all the people around you. Authentic energy is attractive. So stop trying to sell and start helping people and you will do well.

Andrew

Predicting social media trends 2015-2020 and beyond

Back in 2015, I wrote a blog that LinkedIn would surpass Facebook by 2020. I even had a US$100 bet with the global head of sales from Facebook! 

See the original post here.

So was I right? Well, I would argue that LinkedIn has surpassed Facebook in attention from business people. Gary V is onboard and Hubspot states that "LinkedIn beats Facebook when it comes to generating tangible leads" and the best platform to share content.

Sure Facebook the company is going strong, but that isn' t the product of Facebook by itself. Take out Instagram, Messenger and Whats App and Facebook, the stand-alone social media site, is still useful but not as important as it was before. It's a great ad machine but without user attention, it can't last forever. 

Of course, it depends on your country, who your target market is and your type of business. However, I would argue that LinkedIn has risen to be one of the top social media channels over the last five years and Facebook has dropped during the same period.

So I was about 80% right on that prediction.

So what is the next prediction? I feel there will be a reaction against social media and towards more authentic communication. It's already started. People are switching off. I think people will start buying retro phones that only text and make calls. Nokia resurgence! (gezz I loved my 6510, bring them back haha)

I haven't seen any new social media that fills the gap between self-promotion social media and an authentic way to communicate with others, but it will come and take over quickly. Just like when iPhone came out and instantly made my Blackberry redundant. (loved that phone too)

I give LinkedIn one year to become annoying because of all the spam messages people are getting. I'm still amazed that no one has come out with a serious competitor to this business platform. If anyone has a lazy $10m let's go build one!

Facebook will start to crank up prices to keep making revenue targets, whilst user experience drops. That's what big public companies do. It's a death cycle and in 5 years it will be a shell of what it used to be.

But Instagram will continue to grow and peak in two years before influencer marketing becomes too annoying and we switch off. It has great marketing currently so for product-oriented businesses, make a cool ad and this is your platform.

Tik Tok is already taking teens attention from the Facebook/Instagram team and growing massively. Influencers there are raking in hundreds of thousands a year. They will find ways to be more mainstream and this Chinese team will create more compelling social media sites. They are on point and could really challenge Instagram for dominance of youth marketing. Adults stay away, like seriously.

The other stand out performer has been YouTube. It's been a solid performer over the last five years, based on its influencer marketing efforts and will just keep growing.

So how does this impact you as a business owner? My advice is to build your own brand independent of any social media site. Get a website and use the social media site that best suits you for now. Then change when the market changes. But keep your core content assets on your own personal website and keep building your contact list alongside your social media following. Build a home base you own, not rent.

Social media is here to stay, but in 2025, there will be a whole suite of sites that we haven't seen yet that will dominate the current ones we have today. Anyone wanna bet? :)

Cheers Andrew

What does a birthday mean?

Self-celebration is a strange concept, but here is why it's so important.

You have probably realised by now that I am a pretty outgoing guy. I don't mind a selfie or putting myself online from time to time. I'm a personal branding guy so kinda goes with the job!

The goal of my personal social channels of Instagram and Facebook is to keep in contact with my many varied friends across the world. I have been blessed to have met so many awesome people in my life and like to keep in touch with them, which is pretty much why these channels were first invented. If we haven't connected yet, come say hi!

My business social channel of LinkedIn is to benefit my connections with some sort of learning or idea and not just 'hey look at me' fluff, so I hope that comes across.

One thing you will notice on social media is that your birthday get's alerted to all your contacts. Some people love this feature and some don't. Interestingly, a few years ago as I got more birthday messages on LinkedIn than Facebook - that's when I knew it had tipped to a business social channel.

But back to the birthday story; once a year we all have this strange thing called a birthday. A change in number for our age and a lot of emotional baggage that goes along with that too. Some feel elated and celebrate with a party, others hide away and don't even want to acknowledge it. I had a close friend that told me recently that "it's just another day". How sad I thought. It's a special day so why pass it off like it doesn't matter?

I think the main reason so many want to avoid birthdays is the fact it makes you compare yourself to others and also the high expected goals you once set for yourself. It's hard to live up to societies expectations of what you 'should' have/done/earnt etc It's even harder to let go of some of the goals we wanted for ourselves, careers/houses/children/relationships...

My thinking around birthdays is it's a time to get honest and celebrate our real selves. We can always focus on what we don't have, but how about what we do have? Find your personal success and celebrate it in some way to show yourself that yes you are important and yes it is a special day. It's called self-love and it's not a dirty word.

This year, because of a particularly difficult 2019, I took myself to Japan with some great old mates to go skiing. A treat to myself. It's the one time of year I put myself first and to be honest, it's hard to do! Getting away was pretty tough with all my commitments, but if last year taught me anything, we could be gone tomorrow so might as well live for today.

So my advice to you is when it's next to your birthday, do something you really love. Think of all the ways you are awesome, write them down if you need some focus. Be a little selfish, and treat yourself like you are important. Because you are.

Andrew