4 Mistakes You Are Making Marketing Yourself

If you are not marketing yourself online, you are doing yourself a disservice. Building a personal brand and using social media to promote yourself and what you do is pretty essential.

When I’m speaking at events or hosting live broadcasts, I always have a few people who approach me with a problem.

They tell me they are doing lots of marketing activities, posting, engaging and talking with prospects but nothing seems to be working.

They are at their wits end and ready to give up.

Online marketing and social selling is a minefield. There is a ton of information out there and it’s confusing.

Having done this myself, I teach people what I’ve done.

So, I’ve put together 4 of the most common reasons people are struggling to market themselves online.

Specificity of Message

One of the big issues I see for people who want to build their business and acquire new clients online is message clarity.

A high level message isn’t strong enough to punch through the noise.

We’re busy people, we are strapped for time and we only pay attention to what is top of our minds.

That’s usually a problem; situations we are worried about and goals we want to achieve.

The No.1 mistake I see people making is not speaking in their message to the specificity of peoples problems.

They talk at a high level about the problem.

For example, if you help people with time management, don’t talk about ‘time management’ as that’s not specific, it’s a high level topic. 

Instead, talk about managing your diary better so that you don’t get double booked and have enough time to get the most important tasks done.

Talk about managing your day so that you can do all of your client calls and still find time to get the marketing done. 

Talk about how frustrated they may be feeling knowing that their to-do list never gets shorter.

“If your message is speaking to specificity, you will get the attention of the people who are experiencing that situation”

Specificity of your message is important.

When you talk about specific situations that your ideal clients might be facing, you will gain influence and authority. 

When you speak to their reality, they really will pay attention.

Unclear Offer

Some of us have lots of things that we can sell. 

I have courses, programmes, events and workshops.

But… 

It’s hard to go into the market and let my prospects get their heads around how I can help.

It is also hard to create the bandwidth in my own head to market all of those things, that’s why I have a team.

If you don’t have a big team, you need to have at least one offer out in the market which helps your prospects understand how you can help. 

I don’t mean promotion per se, it could be as simple as putting content out explaining how you help people so that they have a level of understanding of the value that you can bring.

I often look through profiles of people on LinkedIn and see no indication of how they help people.

When you go into the market with one clear offer, people see ‘ah this is how Dean helps’.

I went into the market with one course back in 2018 and sold that course 5,000 times. I taught people a simple method – the seven steps – showing them how to engage their prospects on LinkedIn and get calls booked.

From there I built more courses, upsold past customers and had enquiries from people who wanted help but in a different format.

The fear is often that focusing on one, clear offer might stop you from getting enquiries or limit what enquiries you do get. 

In fact, it does the opposite. 

Unpredictable

Being unpredictable sounds fun and exciting, but in marketing, it can be a terrible mistake.

You want your audience to get to know you deeply. 

You want them to expect value from you.

That means being predictable.

I’m an avid Star Trek fan and if you’ve seen my videos, you’ll see my line up models in my office.

Having been a trekkie for years, I have grown attached to the style, storytelling and themes in the episodes. There have been different series, films and settings, but the underlying themes remain the same.

In 2017, when they released a new darker Star Trek, it didn’t feel right, there was a disconnect. All the good things I expected from it were absent.

I didn’t like it.

Predictability in your output, style and themes is important.

McDonald’s makes a lot of money by being predictable. You can go into any restaurant in the UK and have the same experience.

But you can also be predictably unpredictable. Some people do some wacky things online and people can’t wait to see the next crazy thing they do.

Predictability isn’t about being boring. It’s about your underlying themes being consistent.

As you build out your personal brand, you want to be predictable – That’s how people align with you and attach to your way of thinking.

Fear of Self-promotion

I read a quote recently stating that people who are successful are generally good at self promotion. This doesn’t come naturally to many of us and it can feel a little uncomfortable.

I’m not here to die on the hill of why self-promotion is not good. 

I’m not here to fight the cause of why people should be recognised for their merits. 

I’m here to make money, grow my business and help people. So are you.

So don’t die on the hill, whilst others are self promoting.

It’s the reality of the world these days.

Am I worried about being criticised – yep

Do I worry about saying the wrong thing or looking arrogant – every day.

Being the best kept secret is not a compliment – it’s an insult.

I never want to be the best kept secret.

I want the world to know how I can add value.

I want people to comment, share and message me thanking me for sharing my content and wanting to buy from me.

So do you.

You’ve got to embrace self-promotion.

Will you go too far? Possibly, but I’d rather go too far than be invisible.

You’ll find the balance pretty quick.

It’s always going to be uncomfortable, it’s always going to be scary.

There will always be the thought that you’ll fall flat on your face but that’s not going to go away, so push past it.

If you’ve got value from this article, please share it, it helps me with the algorithm Gods!