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August 18, 2009

7 Ways to Become More Yessable

Scott Ginsberg

NametagTV.com

Summary

You can’t make the world notice your company.  You can’t make the world love your brand.  You can’t make the world buy your stuff.


You can’t make the world notice your company. You can’t make the world love your brand. You can’t make the world buy your stuff.

All you can do is increase the probability that the world will attend to, approve of and offer applause for you … by making yourself more yessable.

Today we’re going to explore seven practices for transforming your marketing approachability into YES-ability:

1.     Become a fixture in your industry. The word “fixture” derives from the Latin fixus, which means, “Firmly established, unwavering or immovable.” What would happen if that was the way your industry described YOU? See, your mission is to make yourself more permanent. More long established. More consistent. More ubiquitous. To make sure that other people who do what you do … see you doing what you do. Regularly. As my mentor Jeffrey Gitomer says, “Everyone who does what I do knows who I am, and knows that I’m ahead of them, and knows that I’m going to stay ahead of them, because I’m willing to invest in myself.” Remember: When you’re in your element, they need to be in the audience. These are the things that make you more yessable.

2.     Become recognized as a person who knows how to solve problems. People go to Google to solve problems. Period. And they want a person who solves real, expensive, urgent and pervasive problems – quickly and creatively. What problem(s) do YOU solve? And have you made a list of those problems? I hope so. Because if you make this your mission, you will always be in demand. That’s the cool part: No recession, technological trend or cultural phenomenon will ever threaten the thrivability of the problem solving industry. These are the things that make you more yessable.

3.     Become so distinct that you’re perceived to be a monopoly. Pick a lane. Specialize or vaporize. Be courageously narrow, confidently picky and radically specific in both your unique value and the people you deliver it to. And remember what Seth Godin suggests: “Take your core business, build a wall around it and be the best.” These are the things that make you more yessable.

4.     Become the universally presumed perpetrator. Marketshare is overrated. Mindshare is your goal. That means being The First. The Obvious. The Only. The BEST. That means holding permanent shelf space in people’s minds. And that means not being “number one” on people’s lists; but being “the only one” on people’s lists. And the best part is, when you dedicate your efforts to this process for a long enough time, you don’t just make money – you make HISTORY. For example, during an interview two years before his death, George Carlin talked about “becoming the universally presumed perpetrator” after fifty years as an entertainer, writer and philosopher. He said, “I’ve made enough of a mark that, when they write the history books, people won’t leave me out.” These are the things that make you more yessable.

5.     Generate ongoing demand. First: Consistently keep your name – supported by sufficient value – in front of people who can say yes to you. Second: Democratize your expertise to make it more applicable, actionable and relatable cross industrial. And third: Just get better. Remember: Bigger isn’t better – BETTER is better. And if you want long-term yessability, you’ve got to create a game plan for continuous and never-ending improvement. These are the things that make you more yessable.

6.     Make yourself necessary to the world. Stay true to this formula and “mankind will give you bread,” as Emerson suggested. The challenge is positioning your expertise in such a way that your fans wouldn’t DARE go into the marketplace without your opinion. That they wouldn’t make a move without consulting you first. And this can happen if you aren’t selfish with your knowledge. Because if you share your expertise generously, people will recognize it, became addicted to it and eventually depend on you for it. That’s called mindshare, and it eclipses the value of marketshare. So, my suggestion is to courageously step forth and make your natural talents available. To put LOTS of samples out there. And regularly let people know the different ways they can use you. This will crate a need for what you have to uniquely offer. These are the things that make you more yessable.

7.     Secrets aren’t the secret. Two great pieces of advice that changed my heart forever. First: Stop being a secret. Invisibility is the enemy. When you fall into the anonymity trap, you also fall into the bankruptcy trap. Two: Stop keeping secrets. Don’t be selfish with your intellectual capital. Don’t let the misguided fear of people stealing your ideas stop you from taking them out into the marketplace. In fact, enter with the expectation that people WILL steal your ideas. Just remember that their dishonesty, unoriginality and lack of creativity will cause the execution of their stolen idea to fizzle anyway. On the hand, you could just create and position your material in a manner that is SO unique to you, your brand and your voice … that nobody COULD steal it. And if they did, people would know it. Either way, you can’t afford to do nothing any longer. Secrets, secrets, are no fun – secrets, secrets, hurt someone. Yeah, YOU. Stop being or using them. These are the things that make you more yessable.

REMEMBER: You can’t make the world say yes to you.

What you CAN do is increase the probability that the world will attend to, approve of and offer applause for you.

All you have to do is make yourself more yessable.

Scott Ginsberg, aka "The Nametag Guy," is the author of eight books, a professional speaker, an award-winning blogger and the creator of NametagTV.com. For more info or for his list of “26 Ways to Out BRAND Your Competitors”, e-mail scott@hellomynameisscott.com.