0 Four Questions to Ask of Any Public Statement

Here are four questions to ask routinely about any public statement, written or spoken.  Note these are not judgemental questions; their aim is to help you work out whether the statement is reliable.  You will still need to make a positive or negative judgement!

Who is Saying it?

The same statement made by a billionaire and by someone just sanctioned and finding their benefits suspended, will carry very different meanings.  Words do not carry only their surface meaning.  Their context is just as important, if you are to interpret their underlying meaning.

Remember, words may have more than one context.  If I quote someone else, it may be worth asking this question of both the originator of the words and me.

Why Are They Saying it?

This questions both the speaker and the listener.  The listener needs to understand the speaker’s motivation.  The context may help you decide about their motivation.  Remember too, the motivation may be layered.  A story about personal hardship may be intended to be inspirational but at the same time may be a way to build trust as part of a sales talk.

Words spoken by a wealthy business person may be intended to be helpful but they should meet a degree of suspicion.  The speaker is trying to build credibility and will meet suspicion of their motives.  This is a real challenge for people in business.  On balance the more suspicious your audience is, the better.  There’s not a lot you can do about the fact of suspicion.  You simply need to take up the challenge of building trust.

Who Benefits?

If a billionaire business person, standing for election, promises to cut taxes for the wealthy, you have the answer to this question.  It cuts to the core of any message, however the speaker dresses it up, other wealthy people will benefit.

No amount of speaking the language of the people, promising them real change, etc will make one iota of difference.  Of course, the answer to this question can just as easily be good news for the most disadvantaged.  The challenge is to spot what is genuine and take the rest as window dressing.

Who Loses Out?

This can sometimes be the hardest of the four questions.  We all want to believe the promises we hear from politicians and preachers.  A message that speaks my language and offers easy solutions to my problems can be very seductive.  The challenge is to listen carefully and work out who will indeed lose out.

I don’t mean the obvious.  A speech, like so many we hear these days, may blame immigrants for our social ills.  This question is not so much about the truth of this claim but pushes us to ask, who actually will lose out.  History is littered with populations who, carried away on a tidal wave of rhetoric, vote against their own interests.

By all means leap on the next passing bandwagon but it is always worth checking you know exactly where it is taking you.

Do you have any questions that help you test whether what you hear or read is valid?

0 Working on Your Inner Capacities

Last time, in this series about self-employment, I touched on why paying for personal development is important.  As I approach the main body of this sequence, about developing a new business, I shall consider the inner capacities you need to build a business.

What are Inner Capacities?

An inner capacity is something behind the scenes that helps make your business viable.  Someone observing your working day, will see you do things to deliver your offer to your customer.  This may mean various meetings, technical work, paperwork, preparation, etc.   Your customer might not see all this but they see the results. Much of the work, behind the scenes, is not an example of an inner capacity.

Inner capacities are not activities so much as those factors that build your resilience to setbacks and keep you going.  So, here are three examples of inner capacities:

Emotions

You need to work consistently and so being able to handle emotions is essential.

Let’s say you have an interview with a prospect and it goes well but they don’t take up your offer.  Or they say yes and then change their mind.  It is difficult not to feel emotion when this happens but the key thing is being able to process it and move on.

Not dwelling on setbacks and being ready to keep going is essential to the success of any business.

There are several ways to deal with negative emotions and the one I use is to walk.  Walking allows my mind to settle.  There is some value in rehearsing what you said and asking if you could have done things better.  If you can take note and do things better in the future, that is good.  But there comes a point when dwelling on some event and going over and over it becomes counter-productive. You really must move on.

Expectations

Every internet guru makes promises of untold wealth if you follow their prescribed path.  Many have a lot to offer and can point to the success of their business and the businesses of those they have helped.

There is, however, a problem, rarely voiced.  Not everyone will get access to untold riches and more to the point most people don’t want to and don’t have to.  Why?  Lots of reasons:

So, there is scope for variation in expectations.  I suspect most people would settle for a reliable income that covers their outgoings.  Their needs may vary over their working life but the key is understanding what you need and how to get there.

If you do exceed your current needs it is worth considering what you would do with any surplus.  Consider the following:

If you get the first in the list right, you may find you are able to do at least one on the rest of the list.  These are expectations of not so much your own wealth but your contribution, as a business-owner, to your local economy.  If you get your financial affairs on a secure footing you are free to make sustainable financial contributions to the local economy.

Time

Patience is critical and most business people have stories about their failures before they were able to find a sustainable business strategy.  You can be sure you will fail, repeatedly and be frustrated by making the same mistakes several times.

Your vision for a better future will keep you going.  Remember your aim is sustainable wealth and not necessarily vast sums of money.  If you think in terms of wealth, for you and your local economy, you will know what to do should good fortune bring in massive riches.

If your focus is solely on making money, you will crash and burn.  Business owners need to visualise a future for themselves, their families and their communities.  Without that money becomes a numbers game, a game of power untempered by humanity.

I have been in business for a few years and these are some of my observations.  If you have other observations, please comment.

0 One-Time, Occasional and Regular Purchases

There are two ways to think about one-time, occasional or regular purchases.  For the purchaser, a one-time purchase may be desirable, buy it and move on.  However, for the vendor, regular purchases are desirable as they guarantee a regular income.

For the Purchaser

One-time Purchases

Often a one-time solution appeals because the purchaser has resolved their problem and won’t need to think about it again.  Almost anything can be a one-time purchase, although they may be infrequent occasional purchases.

Perhaps an example is courses.  People are unlikely to pay for the same course twice.  Someone who markets courses may be able to sell different courses to the same customer but each course is likely to be a one-time purchase.

Occasional Purchases

Occasional purchases are perhaps most common.  Most of what I buy are occasional purchases because I buy them when something runs out or stops working.  Some things run out regularly but in principle I buy them when I remember to and they are not part of my daily routine.

Regular Purchases

Regular purchases are things like subscriptions.  The big advantage is you don’t need to think about them.  You set up a standing order or direct debit and forget about them.  I suppose this also covers routine purchases; “it’s Monday, so I must buy bananas”.  However, routine purchases are more like occasional because in principle I can skip a Monday if I have bananas left over.

For the Vendor

One-time Purchases

For one-time purchasers, think about how to extend your market.  There are two ways to do this.  One is to build your reputation and ask your customers to recommend you to other potential customers.  The other is to make new offers.

Someone selling online courses might do both.  They sell more through marketing, often via past customers, and at other times create new courses that might appeal to past customers.

Occasional Purchases

Occasional purchases are perhaps more of a headache, especially for businesses with few offers.  A supermarket probably benefits primarily from occasional purchases, although some people shop for the same things on the same day each week.

The occasional purchaser needs to be brought back and reminded you exist.  This is fairly easy to do online and emails from businesses who sold us something years ago and still send reminders, plague many of us.

My nephew is or was interested in skateboards and outdoor activities.  I get emails because I purchased relevant presents in the past.

Regular Purchases

The regular purchaser is like gold.  If they sign up to a monthly subscription, however small, it is guaranteed income.  So long as you continue to provide the service, the chances are most people forget about it and continue to subscribe indefinitely.

Your main challenge is to increase the number of subscriptions.  There are some interesting approaches to this but I’ll leave those for another time.

How do you manage your customers’ journeys between one-time, occasional and regular purchasers?

0 How Your Location Benefits Your Business

On Wednesday 9 November, I shall lead the first of a series of 6 workshop in Sheffield, UK.  The series title is ”Shop Local! How to Improve The Local Economy”.  This link will take you to the Eventbrite page where you can register.  In my workshop, “It’s where your feet are: why a sense of place is important for your business”, I shall show how your location benefits business.

I’ve often written about how business contributes to community, helping build sustainable regeneration in our neighbourhoods.  In the workshop I’ll show how support for a locality can benefit your business!  By locality I mean a neighbourhood, city or possibly even a region.  What matters is being grounded somewhere.

Perhaps this is not important for all businesses.  Clearly as businesses grow they naturally loosen their moorings in their community of origin.

The Making of a Ruling Class

Part of the River Tyne, close to the earliest shipbuilding industry. 1681551 / Pixabay

I’ve lost my copy of “The Making of a Ruling Class: Two Centuries of Capital Development on Tyneside”.   Benwell (Newcastle upon Tyne) Community Development Project published it in 1978.  I doubt it is possible to get a copy now, so the link is to a library citation.  What follows is from memory.

The report, one of 12 final reports from Community Development Projects around the country, studies the ruling class.  There are statistical methods for studying poverty and they work because there are many poor people.  It isn’t possible to survey the ruling class statistically and so the report uses genealogies or family histories.

What the Report Says

The major trade in Benwell was ship-building and the housing in the area is at the top of the hill, overlooking the River Tyne.  Most of the terrace housing runs up or down the hill, their windows look along the hill at other houses.  However, a few large houses originally belonged to the families that  founded the ship-building industry and they face the River and the shipyards.  This enabled the owners to keep an eye on their shipyards and so make timely interventions.  I see similar houses in Sheffield overlooking the Lower Don Valley, where the large steelworks used to be.

I’m going to write loosely of generations.  It is possible at each stage several generations passed, the exact timescales may be in the report.  The point is if you follow the genealogies, the same family names appear in the same industries and they inter-marry.  However, their location moves first to market towns in Northumberland, eg Hexham, then to London and now they are distributed in financial centres all over the world.

Presumably, these moves reflect changes in communication.  In the early years, they would walk down the hill, then travel in by car and now use telecommunications.  The same family names persist from generation to generation and from place to place.

Business and Community

Many of us will recognise this happened in our towns and cities.  There is some inevitability about it.  The moves ever further away reflect changes to business contacts and the need to mix with other similar businesses.  For many today, these families will be directors of multi-national corporations.

However, it is not inevitable, many businesses remain rooted in their place and I shall explore their experience in the workshop.  It is not inevitable that a successful business should cease to play a part in its community of origin.  You can trade with anyone in the world these days and it does not necessarily mean you lose your local presence.

But how and when does commitment to a particular place become a liability or irrelevant?  More to the point, is there an advantage for businesses that stay in one place and become central to its economy, building sustainable business relationships?

This is the question my talk will cover, so please go over to Eventbrite Shop Local! page and book a ticket now.  It’s on Wednesday 9 November, 12 noon to 2 at a Sheffield City Centre venue.

0 Your Business Outgoings

Last Wednesday, I described sources of income for your business and this week’s post is about your business outgoings. They can be divided into two main types; your drawings and the costs to your business.

How you manage these depends on how you structure your business.  For example, additional rules apply  for incorporated businesses.

Drawings

Your drawings are the money you spend on your private life so this covers food, housing costs, transport – everything you need to live.

The point to remember is if your business breaks even on costs, it may not break even when you include drawings.  So, it is important to think of your drawings as you would staffing costs.  You need a business plan that takes your drawings into account.

Your business will break even when your income equals or exceeds your business costs plus drawings.

Remember though your drawings are not counted as business costs for tax purposes.

Business Costs

The costs counted for tax purposes depend on the tax legislation local to you.  And it is always best to refer to your tax authorities’ guidelines direct and not through a blog.  Your accountant will do this for you.

So, avoiding the fine detail of your tax returns, how can you decide what makes up the costs of running your business?  You will need to find some or all of what follows to keep your business going, irrespective of whether you can count their cost against tax.

Business Development Costs

These are the direct costs to your business and most people recognise them as legitimate.  They include things like supplies, office costs, staff, marketing, travel and subsistence.  Some trades need special tools, clothing or premises.

In short this category covers everything necessary to actually do the work.  If you are unable to do the work without something, it is a business cost.

Personal Development Costs

These are expenditure on what you need to keep up to date or learn new skills.  They might include books, DVDs, training courses (live or online), coaching.

This may be a grey area but make sure you budget these costs because personal development is essential for all business owners.  It’s all very well arguing you shouldn’t set out in business unless you have the necessary knowledge and skills but in reality, you cannot manage without personal development.

The Case for Self-Development

How much development does anyone need to keep going? It is possible to spend a lot of money on personal development.  Some offers are better than others but commitment to personal development is important and if you can find something that works for you then build on it.

Being in business is about marketing and marketing is primarily educational.  If you are setting out to educate the public, it is important you commit to self-education.  You need to create space for strategic thinking.  Daily pressures of keeping your business going can overwhelm good intentions to do essential thinking.

Some coaches offer not only organised knowledge or tuition in skills but also space to do your thinking.  It introduces accountability.  If you’re paying a coach, it helps to do the work if you want your money’s worth!

Many businesses get stuck because whilst they are able to work in the business, ie delivering their offer, they are poor at working on the elements of the business that will make it work in the market place.

This is why I offer a consultancy to local businesses and organisations, where I help them take their first steps in understanding what is involved in marketing their business.

Can you show how self-development has helped your business?

0 Alternative Solutions to Your Market’s Problem

Alternative solutions are an important step in your sales funnel or marketing campaign.  On the Awareness Ladder, rung 2 is awareness of solutions to your problem.

Any prospective customer will know they have a problem and right or wrong, they will set out to find solutions.  They may find several solutions, possibly including yours.

Rung 2 is interesting because it best illustrates why marketing is important.  Your prospect has not necessarily identified the right problem.  If they have, how do they choose between the solutions on offer?

You can see why it is important to educate your market.  Identifying the wrong problem can be an expensive mistake.  Trying the wrong solution can be frustrating at best and may have serious consequences.

The Dash for a Solution

It is worth pausing here to recognise something I’ve experienced many times as a development worker.  Often when someone has a problem, what they present to me is a solution.  They will approach me to help them with their solution: “Chris, can you show me how to …”.

Often they are aware of a problem and reach for the first available solution.  It is worth back-tracking to the original problem.  The first solution to hand is not always the best, even assuming they have correctly identified the problem.

This question in the circuit questionnaire challenges you to consider all the solutions available and it is worth taking time to consider which is best under the circumstances.  The circumstances include costs, effectiveness, the skills of the people involved, long-term versus short-term consequences and there will be more.  It is always worth doing this, even if you stick with the original solution in the end.

A common example is: “We need a website”.  My first question, which can be asked in many ways is: “What for?”  This is a good example of a solution to a non-existent problem.  “Everyone else has a website” is not a reason to have a website.  If you do want a website, it has to be a good idea to design it to solve some problem.  Even better to solve the problem some other but better way!

Identifying Possible Solutions

Part of your marketing approach is to find alternative solutions to the problem and show how yours differs from them.  Some alternatives may be better for some prospects and that is fine.  Your task is to find the customers for whom your solution is most appropriate.

Helping people find the right solution to their problem is a valuable service any business can offer.  You will meet people who have come to the wrong person and it is better to move them on in their search for the right solution.

So, assuming we know what the problem is, here are some solutions to consider:

Do It Yourself

This is an attractive solution for businesses and organisations that are not cash rich.  They still need to consider whether this is their best use of time.  Another issue is whether they have the necessary skills in-house.

One option is to pay for training and development so that work can continue in-house once someone has developed the skills.  This may work so long as it is a good use of time.  Similarly, appointing a member of staff with the skills may be another option, so long as the attendant overheads are less than using a commercial service.

It is possible DIY is a false economy but not necessarily so.  After all most organisations do some things in-house.  Sorting out what needs to be bought in is a challenge.

Commercial Competition

Another thing to consider is whether your competitors can offer a solution.  For some prospects a referral is the best service you can offer.  If you understand their problem and know someone who can offer the solution they need, that’s fine.

If it is a good referral you will have impressed both the prospect and your competitor.  Another advantage of doing this is it helps clarify what you offer in the eyes of the world.  If you take on prospects who don’t really fit your offer, not only are you likely to disappoint them, you confuse your genuine market.

Of course, if you are with a prospect, reviewing the competition can be helpful as they may see you are the best offer for them.  If not, make the referral!

Doing Nothing

It is tempting to say this is the worse option but it depends.  Is the problem real?  Is it urgent?  Are there other priorities?  It might be desirable to have a website but is it worth it?

If something is desirable it may be worth scheduling it.  This means you may put it in for review in a few months’ time.  You don’t have to forget about it but recognise there are not enough hours in the day to do everything.

Of course, some problems are really tempting to ignore but must be tackled.  You need to name these and make sure they are not in the “do nothing” category.

What’s your experience of solutions masquerading as problems?

0 On Finding Your Voice

Perhaps the biggest challenge any solo entrepreneur faces is how to find their voice.  Last Friday, I wrote about personal branding and this follows on.  There are two senses in which you may need help finding your voice.

Public Speaking

The obvious dimension is having the courage to speak out.  This challenges many people, be they entrepreneurs, politicians, religious leaders or anyone with a message they need to convey.

The underlying principle is confidence.  Not only confidence in the message but confidence to stand up and speak.  For many, fear of speaking inhibits their voice.

Actually, once you find your voice as a public speaker, you will find expression through other media becomes easier.  Once I can stand up and speak about a personal experience, it becomes less of a challenge to write about it and publish online.

I headed this section “public speaking” because it is perhaps the most challenging approach to communication most of us encounter.  But many business people worry about everything they put out, particularly if it means telling their own story.  There is something empowering about speaking to others because that way you get feedback and through feedback perhaps hear yourself for the first time.

Personal and Business Voices

Everyone in business has both a personal and a business voice.  It is possible to unpick the two but it is not always beneficial.

Let’s say you’ve studied for many years and deliver a coaching service based on your studies.  You are brilliant at what you do.  Your problem is finding clients.  How do you put the message out?  You can list your qualifications, explain how you work and point to testimonials from happy clients.

We fear yawns when we are finding our voice! (Why are there no pictures of business people yawning?) mattysimpson / Pixabay

Yawn!!

Why does any of this matter to me?  Tell me a story about how you solved a problem like mine and now I’m listening.

That is of course too simple.  But the point is you need to find a voice that does justice to who you are as well as what you offer.

You can be entertaining, educational, inspirational, challenging and the chances are your business is none of those things without the essential element that is you!

Ah ha – I hear you ejaculate – but doesn’t that mean you are selling yourself?  Precisely!

Finding your voice is hearing what is unique in your delivery and integrating it with your offer, to make something people want to hear and some may be willing to pay to follow-up further.

The chances are you don’t know your own voice or if you do, you do not how to use it to become most effective.

Maybe now is the time to gather the fragments of your life together and make something of it that people will pay to hear because they need to hear it.

What is unique about your voice?

1 Income for Your Business

It is impossible to write about how you finance your business because every business is different.  But there a few things about business income everyone should consider.

Keeping Track

Keeping track of your finances, income and outgoings, is paramount.  This is where many businesses fail.  You need to monitor your financial situation carefully because:

Sources of Income

So, as a self-employed person, you need to work out where your income will come from to cover both business and household costs.

There are four main sources of income available to you.  They all have their pros and cons and some are more important than others.

Earnings

This is the obvious one and the one that entails most work.  Most of your work will focus on increasing earnings.

Beware this is not as straightforward as it may seem first.  If you are self-employed you must do everything.  This means your product or service is only one demand on your time.  There are other things you need to do and pre-eminent among these is marketing.

If you’re excellent at what you do but can’t market it, then you do not have a business.  You need to plan things so that you balance what you do with your marketing.

Let’s assume you have a service and can handle 6 clients at any one time.  They pay upfront for a 6 month contract.  If you have 6 clients at a given time, you’re living off the fees they have paid upfront for 6 months.  If you don’t have time to market because you have 6 clients, you will have no new clients at the end of the 6 months.  This can play havoc with your cash flows.

Also consider, if you do have time to market during that 6 months, what happens if you land a new client and don’t have space in your schedule for them?

The good news is this problem comes with success but don’t let success draw your attention away from your business, you need to work on it as well as in it.

Investments and Loans

If you can persuade someone to invest in your business you are in luck.  You have something for which someone else is prepared to risk their income!  The chances are they will not only offer financial support but also expertise.  This needs to be agreed before you accept the money.  Will they offer support?

It is worth agreeing in advance the type of support they will offer.  Are they going to advise you or expect you to make changes to your business?  If so, what is the nature of these changes?  Their expertise may be really helpful but it is always better to be prepared.

If you don’t want someone who expects a say in your business in return for investment, you may be seeking a business loan.  Loans are more arm’s length.  Where an investment grows or shrinks with the business fortunes, loans are repaid to an agreed schedule with interest.  Loaners demand interest irrespective of the business performance.

Grants and Other Support

Some ethical issues apply to grants and so they are not usually a source of income for businesses.  They are generally available for social enterprises and so there is a temptation to become a social enterprise to qualify for grants.

There are generally two criteria for social enterprises; if either or both apply, you have a social enterprise.

It is a mutual or self-help group.  This means a group of people work collaboratively to improve some aspect of their lives or community.  So, a group of people who share a disability might work together on an enterprise that benefits their community.

The second is to have a charitable object, such as providing a service for people with a disability.

Sometimes businesses with no track record go down this route before they have a proven market.  This may be more of an issue for the second type, the first type will be a group of people who clearly exist and will benefit themselves.

Funding bodies often focus on financial management and not so much on the effectiveness of the business.  I have seen businesses receive awards for their planning whilst unable to show a market exists for their products or services.

The other issue is cash flow.  A cash rich business can quickly spend its money if its focus is not on reaching its market.  Front loading a business is not always the best way to approach it.

Savings

Savings support some businesses.  Obviously, this cannot continue indefinitely but it is a way to get started.

The downside can be the business owner lacks urgency.  They know they can keep going  and hope that they’ll work it out in time to recover financially!

However, savings can be an advantage because they allow a business time to experiment.   Many businesses fail because they run out of money and others fail because they run out of patience.  If you have savings, you have independence to try things, learn from mistakes and so build a business on sound foundations.

Assets

By assets I mean anything you own that generates income.  Assets cover things like stocks and shares, rental income, intellectual property and so on.  Pensions may be included here although they come into play in later life.  Assets do not include possessions such as your home, car or other things.  These are really liabilities because most of them depreciate in value, add to your expenditure or both.

Some people add to their assets consistently during a lifetime of work because they understand assets allow financial independence.  Anyone who has assets that cover their business and lifestyle costs are in an enviable position but they will be a small minority of the self-employed.

0 Finding Attractive Opportunities

Whilst naming problems and showing how to solve them is bread and butter for marketing campaigns, there is another way to think about them.  An attractive opportunity can be just as compelling as a solution to a problem.  Many solutions are equally attractive opportunities.

The mousetrap may solve a problem but it is not an opportunity for me or the mice. steinchen / Pixabay

This doesn’t always work.  I have mice, on and off and from time to time contemplate mouse control products.  Mice are a problem and there are several possible solutions.  All of then involve killing mice, hardly scope for an attractive opportunity!  A house without mice is an attractive concept I experienced before the mice arrived!  Mice are a problem that requires a solution, not an opportunity.

I mentioned Utility Warehouse (affiliate link) in my post, Indirect Benefits of Your Offer and they are an example of an attractive opportunity.  Like all genuine business opportunities, they are an opportunity subject to you putting in the work.  Usually people become distributors for Utility Warehouse to build up their income through assets.  They receive rewards for the work they put in and soon discover they are part of a supportive community.

An attractive opportunity can be a solution to some problem.  The challenge to any marketing campaign is to ask, is it better to emphasise the opportunity or the problem?  This will depend on your audience.  Anyone who responds to your offer will get everything you offer.  Some may opt for it because it solves their problem and others because they find the opportunity attractive.

You have options when you market your offer and you are fully equipped when you know what they are!

Website Design: An Example

Many organisations benefit from a website designed to meet their purpose.  The problem is they don’t always know their purpose or see they have something to market online.  A website can present an overview of their work but they won’t necessarily understand how a generic presentation of the opportunities they offer can work for them.

The challenge for a website designer is getting across how online activity opens up a world of possibility for most organisations.   They may need help to see the potential to uncover and meet their desired outcomes.

Sometimes this is a problem.  One prospect could not see how building lists now would benefit them in the future.  Their attention was on the developmental phase of their project and taking on a website was an additional burden.  They have improved their site but still have no list.

Another prospect has the potential to generate much-needed income online but has a designer who is not interested in what they’re doing and has other priorities.  In a few years their projections show they will have to close because they will run out of money.

These examples show how immediate problems can lead to neglected opportunities, no matter how favourable those opportunities may be.

Can anyone suggest an attractive opportunity that does not solve a problem?

1 Personal Branding

I’m not sure I know what to make of Personal Branding.  We’re all familiar with branded products and retailers.  If we think about it, we can see their point.  A familiar brand is trusted, memorable.  You pay your money and know almost exactly what you’ll get in return.

But personal branding?  I am not a product or a business of any description.  Why should I be branded and what does it mean?

I’ve based the following thoughts on a new book, “Branded You: How to Stand Out in Business and Achieve Greater Profitability and Success” by Adele McLay.  (The book will be published soon, follow the link and scroll down to register your interest.)  The book brings together all the ideas you need to build your personal brand.  It is really helpful to find them all in one place.  It is an easy read and short enough to return to for deeper reflection, as you work through each part.

I’ve had the following thoughts in response to the book.

Outer Branding

Don’t make the mistake of thinking outer branding is somehow superficial.  If your branding is superficial, then you haven’t done the work.  Integrity is a core principle here.  There needs to be coherence between you and what you sell.

Your story, your appearance, your public persona are all elements of your personal brand. These need to be consistent with each other and coherent with your offer and your market.

The challenge is to make the right choices.  If you help people overcome their problems through outdoor activities, do you approach your market dressed for outdoor activities or in regulation business clothes?

There is no correct answer because the question is a challenge.  Your brand is to accept neither option but to seek something that works for you.  Find a creative solution to build your brand.

Your Brand as a Mask

The masks in ancient Greek theatre communicated the character through sound (Latin: per sonar) Clker-Free-Vector-Images / Pixabay

The paradox is the outer brand is a mask.  But the mask you wear is you!  It may be a heightened version of you but it must be genuine.  The Latin word persona goes back to Greek and Roman theatre and refers to the masks Classical actors used to wear.

Their masks concealed the actor’s identity and amplified their voice.  The paradox is the character depicted through the mask was always more real than the actor behind the mask.  The personal brand similarly amplifies the person behind the mask but with coherence between the brand and the actor.

Inner Branding

You can see there is an inner discipline to personal branding.  You need to work on congruence between how you present yourself and what you promote.

This always feels awkward to me.  I am naturally disposed to being a grumpy old man.  When I was a teenager, someone referred to my husky exterior.  So, I’ve been a grumpy old man for many years.  I am sceptical that I can present myself as relentlessly positive.

On the other hand I know I can be engaging.  I can inspire people through spoken words. I speak with humour, energy and passion.  And I love doing it!  Is this really me?  I surprise myself sometimes.

My problem is I naturally present myself in grumpy mode and can in the twinkling of an eye transform myself into my other persona.  I couldn’t be energetic and engaging if it were not for my grumpy demeanour.

My problem is bringing the two together, so my brand has coherence.  And the truth is, this is something everyone in business struggles with.  Your natural and public dispositions need not be at odds and your brand is how you find a creative solution to presenting both.

McLay’s book describes the necessary practical approaches to working on your brand in both its outer and inner aspects.  If you work through her 7-step programme, you will build a personal brand and hopefully a successful business as a result.

Outward Branding

Here is something I don’t think McLay or other writers are aware of.  How does your brand reach outwards?  This is not about how you appear to the world but the impact your personal brand has on the world.

We are not isolated individuals.  We are all part of various communities and our brand is a measure of our influence in those communities.  To some degree, my brand represents all the communities to which I belong, not just my business.

I live in a part of Sheffield that has had a poor reputation in the city for many decades.  If people know I come from Pitsmoor, this could devalue my personal brand.  But I want to advocate Pitsmoor as a positive place.  I need to find creative ways to do that.  It is perhaps not an easy call but it is something all businesses should consider.

Roots and Branches

If you have a global market, the street in which you park your business may not seem that important.  You probably chose it for all sorts of reasons, not least costs.  If you’re selling to someone even a few streets away, your place may seem irrelevant.

But we devalue our neighbourhoods as we leave them for town or shopping centres.  Maybe businesses need to advocate their place, grow the roots that support their many branches?

When we do this, we support other businesses and grow the communities we need to support enterprise in general.

Again this type of personal branding requires time to develop ideas and grow solutions.  It’s not about ramming the delights of Pitsmoor down the throats of my customers; it is being rooted in a place and committed to it.  Open to ways to build sustainable community there.

Have you encountered examples of outer, inner and outward personal branding?