Friends, I built my career by working as everything: from a social media manager to a digital director, to literally every role in marketing for national nonprofits, political campaigns, and small businesses across the country. But when it was time for me to make the transition from working in a more corporate structure to being a full-time entrepreneur, I decided that I would throw away everything that I knew about launching and marketing and instead I would just heed the advice of the internet girls and how they were marketing and launching their business. I thought that there was some magic secret sauce to the whole thing, and that my decade of experience was somehow moot because I was transitioning into running my own business. And now I know that that's not true.
I think often about what I would do differently when I planned my first launch, mostly because it was a complete failure. I didn't use any of the tools that I knew from my experience. I did not implement any of the strategies that we use in corporate America. I just kind of like popped on the internet like, "Hey girls, I'm hosting a webinar, click the link and sign up." Maybe six people signed up and none of them bought into my signature offer. That experience was very discouraging because I knew that I knew how to launch, and I knew that I knew how to market. So why did I not trust myself? Why did I not use the tools in my toolbox?
I would have shared my story.
One of the key things that I did wrong in my very first launch is that I came onto the internet and I started talking about how I was an entrepreneur and how I had this business, but I really didn't talk about where the business came from or that I had experienced doing this. I didn't really position myself as someone who was trustworthy in the space because I was so busy trying to get people who I didn't build a relationship to buy from me. I didn't prepare them to buy into my story and who I am as a person and why I do things differently. As you all know, people buy from people who they like, who they know, and who they trust. And if they cannot connect their needs or their desires to your why and to your story, then the chances of them buying into it are just slim to none.
Looking back, I should've spent more time talking about my role as a digital director. I should've talked a lot about my why–why I decided to go full-time and why I decided to basically help other entrepreneurs because it's directly connected to the work that I was doing as a digital director.
Starting out I didn't expect my business to be a personal brand. That's not what I wanted it to be. But I realized that for me, personally, building that relationship, building that connection was how I was able to get in front of my ideal clients and help them understand that I didn't just want to be another service, or another business, or another coach on the internet who they bought from.
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I would have highlighted my experience.
As a black woman who is very high achieving and hella smart, one of the things I really struggle with is not wanting to be braggadocious and not wanting to make anyone in the room feel uncomfortable with my expertise or with the work that I have done. So a lot of times I just don't talk about it. The problem with not talking about your expertise and not talking about why you are the best is that people don't know that you're the best and they don't know why they should trust you or why they should work with you.
The more that I started talking about my work as a digital director, about the campaigns that I have run, about the success of those campaigns or the success of my clients, the more that people started to look at me as an actual expert. There is a difference between you calling yourself an expert and your ideal clients in the marketplace seeing you as an expert. One of the things that I had to work on is not wanting to see myself as an expert while, at the same time, wanting the marketplace to not only see me as an expert but to value my expertise. That work started by just sharing more. I started sharing case studies. I started sharing screenshots. When the girls would DM me, I started putting it on my Instagram stories and talking about why they got this result.
Before this point, I would screenshot the things that they were saying to me, and I would just put it on my story and I wouldn't bring it around full circle, talk about it, or provide context to what was really going on in the screenshot. Once I added in the narrative, my ideal clients were able to connect the dots.
I had to talk about the work that I did. I had to talk about my roles as an intern, my roles working for my dad, my roles growing my business a number of times. I had to talk about the fact that my business has been a business for seven years and it took me five years to figure out, okay, this is how I want it to look. This is how I want it to be done. And I could not be embarrassed by that. I had to lean into it because that honesty built a community of my ideal clients.
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Final Thoughts
The more time that we spend highlighting our expertise and sharing our story, the more open the audience will be to engaging, not just through buying but through comments and true online community building. Once I figure that out and I started investing more in those relationships, my ideal clients were able to buy into me and what it did was it shortened my buyer's life cycle.
Tell me, friends, what's the number one connection that you have to your ideal clients that you're failing to share, that you're skipping over? And why are you skipping over it? Let me know in the comments.
Let's Chat:
Tell me, friends, what's the number one connection that you have to your ideal clients that you're failing to share, that you're skipping over? And why are you skipping over it? Let me know in the comments.