Steps For Success – Be Authentic
As the internet grows so do the number of new online businesses. It is estimated that every day 252,000 new websites are created. All expecting to be the next biggest hit online.
The truth is many websites will never attract visitors, never make the sales they desire.
So, how do you overcome the problem and make you and your business stand out from the crowd?
Be authentic.
How to Standout
Every day, I receive emails trying to sell me something which will guarantee my success online if I use the product or service on offer.
When I first started as an online entrepreneur, way back in 2003, I gullibly bought this and that and wondered why it didn’t work. I soon discovered, that I didn’t need all the products. What I needed was to take the time to learn and practice the skills. Create a system that was unique to me delivering the results I desired.
The system was how to build a website and get my products onto it. Place an advert in the newspaper and hey presto, I generated sales. The system was easy what was lacking was the relationship with prospective clients who saw my products as solving their problems.
That meant ensuring I was seen as authentic.
Today the system is create a website. Get it indexed by Google, Yahoo. Learn the skills that will allow you to build a list of prospective clients. It’s the skills developed that determine your success.
Learning how to build empathy with prospective clients. Learning how to create a need in the client for the product you are trying to sell.
It doesn’t matter if the product is unique to you or an affiliate product. It’s how much the prospective client connects with you as the person they trust who can deliver the results they want.
Once the relationship is established, repeat sales can be made time after time. The client trusts your judgement and that you will point them in the right direction to solve the problem.
Authenticity is one of the traits of successful online marketers.
What is Authentic?
Bob Proctor is a renowned personal development coach. What he sells is what thousands of other people sell. A way to become a better you and change your life.
Since he started his business, way back in 1973, his message hasn’t changed and isn’t unique to him. It’s about changing your mindset and creating the lifestyle you want.
When you watch many of his videos and training sessions he will constantly bring out a well worn copy of the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill stating this is all he practices every day. He’ll go through a chapter to illustrate his point. What he teaches is not unique.
But Bob Proctor is authentic.
The definition of authentic is to be original and not a copy.
This is what Bob Proctor is good at. He makes his courses authentic to him by repackaging the information into his own format. Creating his own way of presenting the information from the book. He acknowledges the book saying this is where he gets his information.
Yet, most people would rather take his course than read the book because he is authentic. His way of communicating with his prospective buyers resonates with them. It creates demand to work directly with him and his team.
When I started my coaching business, it was because someone had read one of my books. Saw, my unique interpretation of how I invest. They saw me as authentic and someone who could help solve a problem of how to make money. They asked me to coach them.
What I teach is the system I developed after years of studying what other people were doing. I found a way to customise it into my own niche.
How Can You Be Authentic?
There are systems everyone needs to follow before they can move on to the next step of building brand and becoming authentic.
When learning to drive a car, a learner driving license is needed; lessons are required and a test has to be passed before being allowed to drive on the road on your own.
Over the next year or so, the learning doesn’t stop. Once let loose on the road, new drivers start developing their own way of driving. Creating some good and some bad habits. They develop a driving style which suits them.
It would be interesting to see how many would be able to pass another driving test. I know I wouldn’t but it doesn’t stop me driving a car.
Authenticity is learning the system and developing your own way of doing things.
Take Ownership
As a wealth coach, I love it when a client comes to me and says, I followed your system but changed this slightly and got this result.
The client has now become an authentic investor.
They learnt the system for investing and customised it to suit their own needs but what works for one person will not always work for another.
Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world always credits Benjamin Graham as his teacher. However, when you read Graham’s book and look at what Buffett does, many of the tools used for investing are different today and were not even available in Graham’s era.
Buffett is authentic. He took a proven system and customised it to suit his needs. He took ownership of his investment strategy.
Jeff Bezos started Amazon by selling books. That was nothing new. Selling books had been around for centuries. What Bezos did was take an online sales system use it for selling books and customise it to his unique way. He took ownership of creating an online place to sell books. In doing so both he and Amazon are authentic.
Change Your Thinking
From the crowded world of online marketing to making sales there is a system which works to bring in the best results.
Create a website, ensure the SEO is right, generate blogs are all systems that will drive traffic to the product or service you are trying to sell.
What will make the different in getting or not getting the sale is you. If you are perceived as the expert then you become the person everyone wants to buy from. You become successful.
When you change your thinking you change the outcome. When you think about what you are currently doing are you trying to copy everyone else or are you being authentic?
