Ep #33: Turn Your Insecurities into Great Positioning

Episode Summary

Jenna shares why the very things you are trying to cover up or hold back on in your business could be exactly what your ideal client is looking for.

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Show Notes

As women, we are taught to be unidimensional and fit into boxes of how we should look, act, and think. We are taught to fit into what successful and professional looks like, and we tend to hide whatever parts of ourselves don’t fit into these boxes. But your clients are human, and they are looking for someone they can either relate to or aspire to, and you could be hiding the very thing that makes you their number one choice.

In order to buy from you, people need to believe that you or your service is the best fit for them. They need to know what makes you stand out. Sharing your true self is a gift you can give to the world, and when you understand this, you can stop overlooking things you should be highlighting, and start creating the aligned success you want in your business.

In this episode, discover why the very things you are trying to cover up could be the things that are most magnetic to your most aligned clients and how to best position yourself and your services moving forward. Learn how to show your right-fit clients that you are the only obvious choice for them, and how to expose the best parts of yourself to create the business of your dreams. If you’ve been holding back or hiding some aspect of yourself, you don’t want to miss this episode.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• What a USP is and why it will help people see how you are different.

• Some examples of where myself and others have tried to hide things about ourselves that could be attractive to aligned clients.

• What I mean by positioning and why it is so important.

• How to establish your unique differentiators.

• Why entrepreneurship is the greatest personal development journey around.

• How to establish the parts of your offer you don’t want to reveal.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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• Ep #31: Uncommon Sales Advice: How to Sell More by Trying Less

Full Episode Transcript:

In order to buy from you, people need to believe that you or your service is the best fit for them. So, they need to know what makes you stand out. And guess what? You might be completely overlooking something about you that you should be highlighting. Something that will have people knocking down your door to work with you, and only you. And the crazy thing, is it might actually be the very thing you've been trying to keep them from seeing.

You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach, and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.

Hey, welcome back to The Uncommon Way. I love this time of the week when we get to talk, it’s so fun. So, we are having some good vibes around here. We are finalizing another trip to Charleston. We are still on our adventure to find our next place to move. We've been to Raleigh-Durham.

So, it's an exciting, very fun time for us. Because, for those of you who are new here, Ben is in the military and this is the time where we are actually choosing where we're going to live. So fun.

So hey, I got some really good feedback on the sales podcast I did recently, and specifically the embodiment exercise at the end of it. Some people told me that they really felt a shift after doing that, which gives me shivers. If sales is a sticky point for you go back and listen to that episode; we'll link to it in the show notes.

Now, today's episode is inspired by a conversation I had with a client just this morning, on how to best position yourself and your service. As I mentioned in the intro, in order to buy from you people need to believe that your service is the best fit for them. And your USP, which is your unique service proposition, or your secret sauce, is what will help them see how you're actually different.

There's a part of you that welcomes this and wants to shine, right? That wants to be like, “Here's who I am. Here's what my offer is.” And then, this flood of clients is like, “That's exactly what I've been looking for!” And there's another part that feels a little less than, about certain parts of yourself or your offer. And it's trying to make sure that nobody knows about them.

Maybe it's telling you that in order to be perceived as trustworthy, or professional or cool or relatable, then you need to look or act a certain way. But what I've seen, over and over, with my clients is that the very things you're trying to cover up could be magnetic to your clients. And without a full and complete understanding of your secret sauce. Without you recognizing how valuable it truly is.

And owning it without shame, and actually making it part of your positioning, you are missing a huge opportunity not only to create more success in your business, like more revenue or more of that kismet type of feel with your clients, but to feel as free as you could when you get to show up as your true self.

Now, before we dive into it, let's just talk about what I mean by positioning. So, positioning is a strategic decision about how to frame the way in which you or your offer is understood. We've talked a lot about self-concept on this podcast, the way we think about ourselves. Well, positioning is the concept that you help your audience create about you or your offer.

We do this in order to differentiate our business and really stand apart from whatever else is out there. So that our right-fit clients can find us more easily and recognize that we are their obvious choice.

When you hear people talk about positioning, they often talk about pricing. Will you be perceived as a luxury brand or is something more accessible? And why? In a world where coffee was sold at a very cheap price, as a loss leader, Starbucks said, “You know what? Let's charge four or five times the going rate.” And from there, you make more decisions to create an aligned, unified brand.

So, for Starbucks, they needed to make decisions about how to offer a premium product in exchange for those premium prices. They were like, “I know. Let's start highlighting where the coffee comes from and our particular roasting method. And instead of coffee, let's create coffee beverages, different types of coffee beverages. Let's make our locations a destination and an experience in and of themselves. From that starting point, we want to create a new coffee experience as a luxury coffee brand.”

They were able to think in ways that they hadn't previously; really, that no one had previously. But positioning goes way beyond what you charge. Here, at The Uncommon Way we think more about what are the relatable and/or aspirational aspects of who we are or what our service is, that not only create a strong, almost insurmountable competitive advantage for you, but that are a true expression of who you are. So, that we're calling in the people that we're most aligned to work with. Because remember, it's not a coincidence that we're working with the people we're working with.

What we want to move away from is any masks in our branding and positioning. Trying to conform to what everyone else seems to be doing will block the connection you're wanting to create. Not only does it make you blend into the background, like into the social media scroll, but it creates an energetic cloaking because you are, in essence, hiding.

And even if you're standing out, but you're standing out via a product or a look, that isn't really you. Maybe it's what you think people would most want from your type of business or what you wish you could be. It's not the true aligned expression of what's moving through you.

So, you're doing the opposite of creating resonance. Being something we're not blocks the resonance that our true people would feel. It's quite literally, discordance. I knew someone once who was a mild mannered, new coach from the Midwest, who had a branding issue; where she was rocking a leather biker jacket and an outfit to match, and she just looked uncomfortable, like it didn't really fit.

Now, I love reinvention. And I love us all moving fearlessly toward the expression that's moving us in whatever direction it's moving us. But the external should be a reflection of the internal. Meaning you need to have done the internal work of becoming that person and shedding the old identity and stepping into the new, before we try to project a completely new vibration through our clothing.

You can't just put on the clothing and be the biker chick because your audience is picking up on everything, conscious and subconscious. And coherence creates a sense of safety for them that allows them to move forward.

Now normally, this is all much more subtle than a biker jacket, right? It's in the subtle ways we talk and act, and the things that we say and the things that we don't say. And what I want to offer to you today, is that the very things that we might want to hide might be the things that would create the strongest, most aligned positioning and branding for us.

That's not to say that we should air all our dirty laundry and make everything about us. All it means is have a frank conversation with yourself about the parts of you or your offer that you don't want to reveal or the way you think you should be showing up, and question all of it.

I have a client who's in a space that's occupied by “professional” consulting firms. And her tendency, when she's interacting with clients, is to recreate that professionalism, or rather, it had been in the past. That can show up as wanting to have all the answers. But you know what? Her clients resonate with her when she's being funny and quirky and completely straight-up about moments when she's unsure, or moments when she has been unsure in the past.

And then, there's this very strong bond that's formed and a deep trust that allows people to perhaps share more than they normally would, right? Ultimately creating a phenomenal product going deeper and further than they might have. And that in turn, turns them into raving fans and creates great word of mouth for her.

Again, the things that we feel most vulnerable or insecure about can actually be catnip for our audience and our clients. Now, it might be something as simple as you worry that your program isn't complete and thorough enough. But actually, your people are really busy, and they're thankful that you've curated only exactly what they need.

But for a lot of us, it's not just our offer; it's us. We are the face of our brand and offer. Our clients will either be working with us directly or they're looking to us as the creator of the product they're consuming, and their purchasing decision is driven in part by how they resonate with our message and ourselves. And, that can feel terrifying.

Our brains perceive exposure as very dangerous. But what are you willing to do? Not just what are you willing to do, but what are you willing to expose, to create the business of your dreams?

I once had a client who was a business coach, and I gave her an assignment of going and looking at some of the websites of other business coaches and really thinking about in what way she was different. But when we spoke the next time, it turns out that this had triggered a lot for her.

She realized that what she was seeing on all of their sites was reflecting her insecurities. She was seeing that these people all had some sort of background, maybe as an executive in a PR company or something; they all had something that felt very credentialed to her, very legit.

Meanwhile, she was a massage therapist and didn't feel that she had anything like that to offer. But guess what? Her clients also were feeling like they didn't have the kind of credentials that they wish they had for whatever they were doing. They also were coming from a slightly different background than most of the people in their sphere.

And when she started highlighting that, when she started talking about doing it anyway, and how your own perspective is actually what shines. Your own perspective is actually what brings the most value to your clients. She created such relatability, that when they were looking at business coaches, they didn't want someone that had never experienced what they were experiencing.

It's sort of like, do you want to learn weight loss from someone that has never struggled with their weight? No, they wanted to learn how to do it from her. That became such a strong differentiator for her, that for her people there was no other choice but her.

I'll give you some personal examples. I had some stories from childhood that I would get rejected whenever certain things would come up. Such as, if I was getting higher grades. If my family was making more money. Which was kind of comical because we were in the military. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, but my dad was older, and so, he was making more money than many of the parents of kids my age.

And there was also, for instance, if I had a different background, if I'd traveled more, which I had a lot as a child because of the military background. When we moved to a small community, when I was 15, I remember once there was a girl who was kind of making fun of me. Well, she was actually making fun of me, there was no kind of about it. And she was sort of saying, “Oh, well, when I was in Greece, blah, blah, blah,” and she literally did the hair toss thing.

I remember feeling deep shame about this and just keeping my mouth shut from then on about anything that I thought seemed different. And then, going off to a college far, far, far away, so that I could hopefully be with people where I didn't have to hide everything. Because the truth is, that memory I was sharing did occur in Greece, or wherever I happened to be talking about if that moment.

So, those thoughts lingered when I was first getting into business. But I've worked through them, right? And my people now think that it's kind of okay that I use big words or that I have released a lot of shame around money or that I do talk about travel, and how it's such an important value to me and something that I want to let my son experience too.

Those are the kinds of things I was talking about this morning with my client. We were turning everything on its head that she thought would be impediments to people buying from her or taking her seriously. And we just wanted to flip that all around and see how actually it could be all of them. Each and every one of them, could actually be really strong differentiators for her.

I knew I just had to hop on here and share that same message with you because I want you to own and love all of you. As pollyanna as that might sound, I feel that it is a radical act. As women we are taught to be so unidimensional and to fit in these boxes of how we should look, how we should act, and how we should think.

And as a society, we're taught to fit into what successful and professional looks like. But the truth, is that your clients are human, and they're looking for somebody that they can either relate to or aspire to. Entrepreneurship is the greatest personal development journey around. I've said that a million times and I know so many of you agree with me on that.

And this, right here, this is part of your personal development. Really owning who you are, and seeing these parts of you as things to be celebrated and yes, even capitalized upon. This is part of the work of recognizing that we are worthy of receiving, not just despite what we are, but precisely because of the unique being that we are.

When we start understanding that sharing our true self is actually a gift we give the world, we are able to receive more and more back from that world. So, if you're realizing that you've been holding back or hiding some aspect of yourself, here is something I challenge you to do.

List your brain's objections to why someone would want to work with you, or work with you in a group format, or pay higher prices, or whatever current belief you're working on. And then, counter each of those with why the opposite might be true. That your people would best be served working with someone like that because X. Or, that they'd be attracted to someone with those characteristics, because why?

I want to know what comes up for you. Seriously, hit me up in the DMs on Instagram or wherever you want to, I'm kind of everywhere. And let me know what this revealed for you. I would love to know. And if you hit any blocks, or stuck points where you're just like, “I don't know how this will sell,” hit me up about that, too.

Okay, my friends, I hope that that served whomever among you that needed to serve today.

And remember, deep down, you know who you are. And, each day, you're stepping further into what you are here to create. I’ll talk to you next week.

Hey, if you're a coach who wants true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this. Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.

Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First Strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.

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