I was speaking to a group of sales executives and small business owners yesterday about personal branding. This lively group is pretty close. Many played when I challenged them to tell me/us what their unique differentiators are.
The first was a man who, half kidding, said he is short. "Okay", I said, "you are going after the physical image." "How does that make your customers feel?"
He thought and replied "they feel tall and perhaps confident."
Than I said "what else?"
He replied with the standard good answer that everyone says about his services bla bla bla. Not his fault. It is difficult on the spot to answer my "So What?" Then something cool happened for this guy. Of about 50 people in attendance, at lease 30 seamed to know him well and many of them helped him out by telling him publicly what makes him unique and why they refer business to him and book his recommendations without hesitation. There were specific examples and anecdotes I don't need to get into, but the point is that people trust him with examples you can feel.
He left that morning with a new understanding of how he impacts people - his brand. Now he has sound bites that matter; based on input from others! He is more conscious of his behavior and the real impact so he can improve on his already great features. His business is going to succeed! We went on and others wanted to play, some put thought to what they were going to say and it was obvious they changed on the fly based of deeper thinking through clients and other experiences. Not all, but most were still standard and I just know they could dig deeper, so we did!
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