Tag Archives for " business "

The #1 one thing that is holding you back from becoming well known, well paid and wanted is….You!

If you question whether you are really that good or simply delusional, or consider at times that you are tricking people out of their money because they don’t really need you or that you’re not that good and not worth that much, you are holding yourself back.

And if you believe that there are way better experts out there and that you can’t really charge $$$ for what you do because you don’t have any expertise, you’re nothing special and everyone already knows how to do what you do, then you are only swindling yourself.

Fear is a funny thing. It’s possibly one of the most powerful influencers inside the entrepreneurs brain.

The fear centre of the brain, or Amygdala, works on memory and emotion, it generates that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, the fluttering butterflies and sweaty palms.It’s not all bad though, the Amygdala is there to keep you alive, so that’s pretty useful.

It stops you from making bad decisions and reminding you of pain or suffering to avoid repeating mistakes.

Fear also stands for False Expectations Appearing Real though, and that can have serious consequences for your personal brand.

One of the things we really love about Thailand is the amazing food. Eating is a way of life here and there are so many fresh dishes to try, of course you wish you could replicate them at home.

There are lots of Thai cooking classes you can attend. We found one nearby called Aroy-Aroy which means “delicious” - literally it translates as “I like-I like” (you can say this to the chef after a meal and it means “It was delicious, I liked it a lot”). I highly recommend this class if you are in Chiang Mai, it’s so much more than a cooking school.

While in Thailand, we spent two fantastic days at the Elephant Nature Park, a rescue and rehabilitation centre for pachyderms, in the Chiang Mai provence, and yes, they taught us some valuable lessons in Personal Branding.

Initially all the elephants look the same and although the guides share each animal's story (many of which told of torture from the now illegal logging industry, landmine injury and ongoing abuse from tourist trekking where they carry almost half a ton of chair and human weight for days on end) it was at first, hard to remember each elephant individually.

We started to identify them by their physical appearance, like Lucky who endured forced breeding programs and cannot control her bladder, or Kabu who manages to get about quite swiftly with her disabled leg which was crushed by a log when she was a baby. 

Very quickly however, we discovered that each elephant has unique characteristics and personality. The guides even recognise the noise each one makes, one elephant being called a “drama queen” because of the ruckus she starts with her trumpeting.

The lesson of course is that we are all unique, we all have our differences, our quirks and idiosyncrasies which make us instantly recognisable to others, but there's much more to learn from elephants about personal branding than that...

Winning in business is a lot like winning a gold medal at the olympics.
There’s sweat, tears and so much hard work behind the scenes that no one sees. You have your fans, your competitors and your detractors and in the end, it’s all up to your performance on the day.
Interestingly, the difference between coming in first place; getting the gold medal, standing on the top of the podium, winning respect and having sponsors fall over themselves to help you; and coming second, third or even out of the medals, can be as little as just a miniscule hundredths of a second, or a tiny quarter of a millimetre...

You hear from the champions in their field how they managed to win. They just did that 1% extra; they were prepared to train just a fraction more, push the envelope further or work harder on their technique. They go where their competitors are not prepared to go. It's that extra time spent working on themselves that made all the difference.

• Would your performance in business win you a gold medal right now?
• Where on the podium would you stand apart from your competitors?
• Are you a business champion, confident in your abilities, secure in your training and ready to play int he major leagues?

Perhaps you feel like you are running against the clock, exchanging all the time you have for just enough money to cover your costs and yet all you see on the horizon are competitors clambering for the finish line?

Maybe it’s time to go that little bit extra that will make you stand out from the crowd and propel your business forwards. Maybe it’s time to train yourself like a champion would, so that prospects seek out your advice and assistance, because you have that No1, gold medal quality they are looking for.

What would it be like if you were the respected champion in your field, sought after by the media to provide content for their publications, asked to speak and share your winning ways with audiences full of your ideal prospects, and being paid extraordinarily well, because you are the gold medal winner everyone wants to hear from.

Within months of defining my expertise and becoming a best selling author I began getting requests to speak at exactly the right events. I now have people refer others to me consistently and get requests to contribute articles to leading publications. I’m now charging 500% more than I ever did for my services in the past.

Would you like to know the secret to that 1% that will give you the ability to stand out as a gold medalist?

It’s called tenacity.

Tenacity means the ability to grip to something firmly. To have the determination and persistence to stick to what you are doing until you have reached your goal.

Tenacity means an almost pig-headed attitude to let nothing stop you, to push just that little bit harder and to let go of activities that distract you from your goal.

Having tenacity in order to win in business, means finding that core thing that is exclusively yours to own and stick with that makes you stand out from the crowd.

In order to achieve what everyone in business really wants….winning the race and gaining a reputation as the ‘go-to’ service provider so that people come to them for advice and help instead of you having to chase them…you need to ‘stick to your guns’ and be totally determined and have persistence to become the No1.

To take a firm grip, you can’t keep reaching for all the opportunities that come your way, changing your mind every few days about what it is you do, how you provide your service and who you help.

If you are not 100% sure about who you are, what you do, why you do it and who you help, you will loose your grip and come unstuck fast.

So what is it that you can hold fast to and grip onto in order to stay the distance in business and become a respected gold medal winning expert at?

It’s your personal brand. The uniqueness that is embodied in your DNA. Your personality, natural talent and key skills. Your gold medal is my definition of expertise - the ability to do with ease, something that others find extraordinarily difficult to even imagine doing.

Now is the time for you to pick the pursuit you want to compete in, get set and go for it.

Find out more about how you can refine your expertise and become a gold medal winner for your business - click here.

In the 1970's consumers brains were hit by about 500 advertising or brand messages a day....today it's more like 5000 a day, that's over 5 a minute!

That’s crazy! How on earth do we absorb that amount of information?

We can, because we have a massive microprocessor called a brain that subliminally manages all of these messages, filing them away, filtering them out or, if deemed important, stopping us in our tracks and making us aware of them.

What you are going to have to do is find some way to stand out from the crowd and capture a prospects attention and you are going to have to do it quickly.