I’m a bit of a rebel and I think I always have been.
I’d rather paint outside the lines than try and fit in.
I like expressing myself. I like exploring and experimenting.
Even when I’m the only one doing it.
Even if it means going against the norm.
Even if it means bending or even breaking the rules sometimes.
I remember back in high school when my geometry teacher gave us equations to solve on the chalkboard.
When I got to the front of the class, I quickly wrote my answer and something compelled me to sketch a giant picture of an elephant on roller skates around it…
My classmates loved it and soon they started drawing pictures around their answers.
It became a thing… and drawing problem sets on the board became a lot more fun and interesting — at least for us.
My teacher didn’t quite see it that way…
While I got an A in the class, I got a C for behavior!
Letting my “inner rebel” run free has gotten me into a bit of trouble sometimes but it’s also helped me stand by my values and stand up for what I believe in, even in the face of resistance, pushback and even criticism.
And here’s the best part…
Accepting myself — inner rebel and all — and being who I truly am is the the secret behind my success as an entrepreneur…
I get to do what I love and I get paid well for it — Live Your Message is now a multi-million dollar business.
The moral of this story? When you show up as who you are, you’re going to find success because you’ll be following the #1 Rule in Marketing…
Don’t be boring. Ever!
The Cloak of Invisibility
Sharing a boring marketing message is like wrapping yourself in Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility…
No one’s going to see you, hear you or pay any attention to you…
And if they don’t know you exist, guess what? They’re not going to buy from you.
In marketing, boring is just another word for indistinguishable and indistinguishable is sales suicide.
People will get bored — they’ll “switch off” — when they hear the same thing over and over again. They’ll switch off when they can’t tell the difference between what you’re doing, saying and selling with what everyone else in your industry is doing, saying and selling.
In the marketing world, this “switch off” is called “mental opt out.” And the worst thing? When someone opts out, you’ve lost them…
And they’re never coming back.
Turn Up the Volume
There’s only ONE antidote for the switch off and mental opt out:
Turn up the volume on your unique expression.
Dig deep and infuse your marketing messages and content with your personal style, your beliefs, your values and what you stand for.
Do that and you’ll never bore people into a mental opt.
Here’s the thing…
There’s no one else in the whole world quite like you.
When you adopt a fearless, “this is who I am” approach, you’ll easily stand out from the crowd.
You’ll consistently create marketing and content that grabs attention because everything you put out there integrates your unique perspective.
So, here’s what I want you to do…
Go over your key marketing messages and campaigns and while you’re at it, take a look at your sales and value content — your emails, blog posts, sales pages, opt in pages and your website.
As you’re working through all of that material, I want you to ask these questions:
- Is this who you really are? Does your content look, sound and feel like you?
- Does your marketing reflect your values, what you believe in and what you stand for?
Play the Reframe Game
Not being boring isn’t about reinventing the wheel.
There’s no need to come up with 100% original, unique or incredibly innovative messages to get people to sit up and take notice.
You just need to find a way to say it YOUR way and reframe a message in a way that both aligns with who you are and cuts through the noise.
We do this all the time at Live Your Message.
There are countless marketing and branding experts out there, but LYM stands out because we have a unique way of crafting and sharing our ideas, insights and expertise that’s congruent with who we are.
We don’t say, “Become the #1 Authority in Your Field.”
We say, “Be the Superhero to Your Tribe.”
We don’t ask you to “find your passion and your gifts.”
We ask, “What’s your secret entrepreneurial superpower?”
These are fun, fresh yet down-to-earth messages that reflect my personality and my unique perspective…
And guess what?
These messages stand out and they resonate with thousands and thousands of students, clients and customers…
And we’re attracting more and more people to our tribe every day.
NOT breaking the #1 Rule in marketing — NOT being boring — and staying true to our value of authentic self-expression is at the heart of our success at Live Your Message.
So, how about you?
How can you not break the #1 Rule? How can you stop being a snooze fest? What’s one thing you can do to spice up your messaging and how can you add more YOU in your business?
Share your thoughts in the comments below!
