Hi, this is Heather Prestanski, and I am the business coach with Emerge Sales Training. We know you are going to want to have access to our amazing coaching team, so we have free training available for you to make closing sales an enjoyable process for you and your customers, or to make recruiting an enjoyable process for you and your potential business builder. Sign up at emergesalestraining.com/freetraining.
When you’re doing network marketing, one of the toughest things is just the facts that there’s so many other people selling the same products that you’re selling. How do you stand apart? How do you stand out in a marketplace where, in any given neighborhood, there might be a handful of people who are selling the same thing that you are? Or maybe even just a similar thing, a competing brand?
This is where branding comes in, and a lot of times people think of branding as the logo, or the fonts, or the colors that you use or your website. But branding is so much more than that. Branding really is about the feeling that your customers get when they’re dealing with you as a salesperson and as a human being. It’s about them being able to connect you to the product, or about them wanting to be able to connect with you when they don’t need what it is that you’re selling. It gives them a reason to stick around, and it gives them a reason to connect with you and to follow what you’re doing.
I want to really talk to you about why branding, and also how to brand yourself and your business so that you can stand out in the marketplace, and so that people when they think of what it is that you’re selling, they automatically think of you.
Here’s the thing. We often assume that when we know people and when we’re friends with people who know what we do, that they’re automatically going to think of us when they need what we’re selling. And then we get really bummed out when they don’t. It’s kind of egotistical for us to think that people are just going to automatically be thinking of us, when in fact, their world doesn’t center around us. Their world centers around them. And so sometimes they might say oh, I need shakes, or I need vitamins, or I need essential oils, or I need whatever it is that you sell, and they may not think of you and that might really hurt. But the fact is that it means that they didn’t fully connect in with your brand. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love you as a human being. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love you as a friend. It just means that there wasn’t something in your brand that really stuck out to them as the “When I think of this, I think of this person.”
And so they probably picked the choice that was right in front of them, the person that was right in front of them. And they went, “Oh, yeah. I do need some of that. Maybe you can help me with that,” instead of picking up the phone and calling you, or opening up the phone and texting you. And that’s what branding is all about. Branding is all about forming connections with people. It’s all about them understanding that you’re not just your product. Because if you talk about your product all the time and you talk about the different ways that you can use the product and that’s all you ever talk about, then people have no reason to follow you and people have no reason to connect with you. And people won’t want to come to your parties anymore or people won’t want to go to your networking events anymore, because all you do is talk about product that they don’t feel they need right now.
And I get it. I get that you feel that you feel that your product is for everyone and that everyone needs it, but if they don’t agree with you and they just don’t see themselves using it right now, you want to give them a reason to follow, so that something you say might change their mind. Or one day when they feel that they are ready, then they will pull the trigger, and you will be the first person that they think of.
One of the first steps in building a personal brand that allows you to really explore and share your passions and share the product that you are so excited about and stand out in the marketplace, one of the first steps in that is that people need to connect with you as a human. They don’t need to connect with your product.
One thing that I want you to remember is that the goal of connecting with people is not to sell them something. The goal of connecting with people is to invite them into a conversation, or to invite them into an appointment where there you can see if your product is a good fit for them and can actually help them.
And that’s really, really important. Because so often we approach networking, or we approach making new friends, or new connections on the internet as business opportunities. And we’re almost looking at people as numbers, and then it starts feeling really gross. So people need to connect with you as a human. They don’t need to connect with your product.
We want to lead with your own voice. How do you sound in real life? Do you talk a lot about puppies? Do you talk really fast? Do you use lots of exclamation points? We don’t need to worry about looking or sounding a certain way. We need to worry about looking and sounding like you. And the scary part about this is that it’s going to both attract and it’s going to repel people. You may be attracting in exactly the people who are loving you and resonating with you.
And then you’re going to have other people who absolutely hate it. You’re going to have people who criticize you. You’re going to have people who say, “Uh, I can’t believe that this person used three exclamation points all over the place in her paragraph.” Or, “I can’t believe that this person used curse words. How unprofessional!”
Then you’re going to have other people who say, “Oh, my gosh. I love this person’s energy. It just radiates through everything that she does. It radiates through everything that she writes!” And then you’re going to have people who say, “Oh, my gosh. She’s so real. I can’t believe that she’s dropping bombs over there, and I can really relate to that. And it feels really good for me that she is so real, because I feel like she’s going to be honest with me.”
When you find your voice, just know you’re going to attract people and you’re going to repel people, and that is totally okay. If you’re sarcastic, be sarcastic. If you are over the top fun, be fun. If you’re super dry, and you maybe have a dry sense of humor, then be that. That’s okay. But that way people will connect with you as a human and they’re not going to connect just with a product.
If you leave with the product itself, and you say,”Oh, my gosh. I sell this thing. It’s so great. Here’s the products that I’m using today. Here’s why I use it,” the people who want to do that right away, they’re going to connect with you. The people who don’t want your product right away, you’re going to lose them, and they’re going to be like, “Ooh, yeah. That’s just the girl that’s always talking about their essential oils.” Or, “This is just the girl who’s always talking about their workout tapes.” And if they don’t resonate with that, they’re never going to come back to it.
Step Two is that you don’t need to share everything, but you do need to share some things. I want you to think about if you were sitting on an airplane with a stranger beside you … imagine you’re sitting in first class, so there’s only one seat beside you … and you’re sitting next to a total stranger, what would you feel comfortable telling that stranger about your life? And I want you to share between three and six parts of your life that you can connect to and that people can connect to so that they have something to follow when they don’t quite need your product.
You might talk about your relationship. I talk about my relationship with my husband all the time. It’s one of my brand pillars, but I don’t necessarily talk about, let’s say, our sex life. I’m not super comfortable in sharing the details of that with a perfect stranger, but I am super comfortable telling the story about how we fell in love, and how great our relationship is, and even the struggles that we go through as a married couple. I’m okay with sharing that.
It might be things like dogs or yoga pants. I always say to people that I don’t go anywhere where I can’t wear leggings. If I have to put on real pants, it’s a no bueno for me. I just don’t want to go. But that is relatable. There are a lot of people who can raise their hand and be like, “Same!” or people who are like, “Oh, my gosh! I wish I had the guts to do that!”
And so what I want you to think about are what are those things that you can talk about all the time? And they don’t have to relate to your product. In fact, they shouldn’t relate to your product. One of your pillars is going to be the product itself. The benefits of the product. You’re definitely going to still talk about that, but it’s not going to be the only thing that you talk about. You want to really have some stories around other things in your life.
Mine, in particular, are relationships, travel, our dogs, confidence, and my journey with confidence. And also beautiful spaces. I used to be an interior designer, and I just love designing and talking about beautiful spaces and sharing beautiful spaces. So all of that, on top of talking about coaching and business, right? So I’m not just always talking about business and coaching really helps people to connect with me and get to know who I am.
Step Three is that your visuals should be an extension of who you are as a brand. Take a look at who you are as a brand and really pull that together. For me, it’s a clean, tidy and modern look that lends itself to the simplicity of what I teach and to my love for beautiful spaces. It’s not just about fonts and colors and cohesion, although that’s important that people are able to recognize what you do, so they perk up and go, “Oh, that’s a post by this person that I love.” That’s important, but recognition isn’t everything. It’s all about a feeling that you’re conveying. It’s all about a certain swag that you’re putting out there into the world.
And it just doesn’t go for your posts and your website and those sorts of things. This goes to how you show up at a live event. How do you show up at your connections? How do you show up when you’re making connections with people? How do you show up when you’re going out to get some drinks with friends, and there might be potential clients there, as well? How do you show up to your soccer game? Really want to think about that.
And Step Four is to build one facet at a time. One facet of your business at a time, and as your brand grows, then you can start talking about additional pieces. For example, if you’re in network marketing, a lot of times you have multiple roles. You are a salesperson. You are a leader. And you’re also developing other leaders. And so we want you to think about how do we build up and how do we talk about just one of those things at a time so that we aren’t confusing people in the marketplace.
In order to recruit somebody to your product, they need to fall in love with the product first. If we always lead with the business first, which I know this is really big in a lot of network marketing industries, people are not falling in love with the product first. It’s also a really big reason why people are turned off by network marketing, is because people lead with the business first. I don’t want to sell something unless I love the product. And so if we lead with that first, if that is one of our pillars – this may be the product and the benefit itself – then the business is going to naturally flow from there, and that can be what we like to call an “under the iceberg” conversation that you’re having with somebody.
You attract them in with a product and then you can have a private conversation with them about joining the business, or growing the business, or whatever it is. But you really want to build on one facet at a time. If you sell multiple products, you want to really build out one product at a time. If, let’s say, you sell different network marketing products because they’re all complementary to each other, you might think, “Well, that allows me to sell different products to people. It allows me to sell more products to people, and make more money, and also to serve them at a higher level because I’m giving them more of what they need.”
However, it’s going to be really difficult for you to grow any one particular team when you’re focusing in on multiple things at a time. So I challenge you, and I implore you to choose just one at a time to build it up, get your team stable, get your team steady, and then add in a second one. It is totally okay to be multi-passionate. I am very multi-passionate. I always have multiple projects on the go. However, I spend 80-90% of my time on one project at once. One project at a time.
There you have it, the importance of personal branding. I’m so excited to hear from all of you inside of our Facebook page around what are your brand pillars. How are you going to stand out in the marketplace? How are you going to showcase how much you shine in the world and allow people to really connect in with you.
Thank you so much for reading our post today. To sign up for one of our free trainings on closing, or recruiting, go to emergesalestraining.com/freetraining.
Have a great day!