So, we’ve covered the first two parts of our four-part Make-It-Matter Statement. I call part three the “Share Your Superpower” part. What do you uniquely do that seems heroic or magical or extraordinary or just amazes other people in your life, more specifically your target Market? 

We have your first part, the “I”-focused positioning element, such as “I help...” or “I guide…” or “I am a champion of…” Then, we add your second part, mentioning your specific target Market by name, such as female executives or parents with kids under the age of five or mid-level sales reps selling products at least $1,000 in value.

Now, we add the third part, Share Your Superpower of how you serve your audience. As an example, if you create great curriculum for elementary schools, your Make-It-Matter Statement could read, “I serve first- through fourth-grade educators by crafting data-driven, fun, and effective curriculum that students rave about when they get home!”

Whatever your superpower is, be unapologetic in sharing what it is and why it matters. This will start to connect with your audience more because it shows you know why you were given your superpower in the first place.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

Now that we have the first part of your Make-It-Matter Statement, your “I am…” positioning term, then we focus on the second part, your target Market.

It’s not helpful at all to say your target market is just entrepreneurs because it communicates laziness and lack of focus. Instead, your statement will ‘pop’ quite a bit more if you were to say your target market is “entrepreneurs with teams of 2 to 10 who’ve been in business at least five years and are trying to safely get off the entrepreneur treadmill they built in their business…”

That specificity alone tells me you’ve done your homework. It shows intentionality, research, expertise, and it also implies you have just as specific of a plan to help that target Market get great results.

Start with your “I am…” positioning term, like “I guide…” or “I am a champion for…” or “I help…” and then, mention your specific target Market, like female executives or tech startups or parents with kids under the age of five. Be specific and your message will automatically start attracting a more specific audience for you to serve.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

Yesterday I mentioned the Make-It-Matter Statement has four parts. This is your money statement, what you respond with when someone asks, “So, what do you do?”

The first of the four parts of your Make-It-Matter Statement starts with “I” and then, you add a positioning element, such as “I am a champion for...” or “I guide…” or “I am the Online Course Whisperer…”

Don’t focus on your role; focus on your positioning: how are you best aligned for your target Market to see your genius? That’s why I love the term “I am a champion for…” It automatically puts a word picture in your audience’s minds that you have the strength, positioning, and skill to fight on behalf of someone else in a specific area of life or business.

Whatever positioning term you use, be sure it’s clear, not just clever. If you do come up with a great, sexy term that shows your alignment with your audience, then use that term as long as it's clear what you do.

We’ll jump into part two tomorrow, but for now, focus on what’s the positioning term you want to say to show you’re best aligned with your audience. 

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

We’ve all heard of the elevator pitch. Someone asks you what you do right as you hop on an elevator. Now, you have the 10-second elevator ride up four floors to tell them what you do in such a powerful, compelling way that they basically leave their wallet in their elevator with you because they’re so convinced of buying what you’re selling.

Okay, so that’s an exaggerated explanation of the process, but the reality is, there is some value in boiling down what you do into a powerful answer.

Whether you’re at a cocktail party, sitting in the aisle seat, or standing in line at the coffee shop, you need to craft your answer that ‘pops’ with power.

I call this your Make-It-Matter Statement. What do you do and why does it matter?

If you’re looking for a new way to articulate what you do and why it matters, I recommend following a four-part flow to create your Make-It-Matter Statement.

We’ll tackle the first of the four parts tomorrow, but for now, write out your answer to that question: “What do you do?”

Read it out loud five times and ask yourself, “Is this statement true? Does this statement excite me? What do you like and what do you think could be better?

Keep that in mind as we start creating your Make-It-Matter Statement over the next few days.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

There’s a saying that you can either compete on your sameness or your uniqueness. The middle ground between being different and being the same is a no-win situation.

By choosing to be unique, you can focus on what makes you special. Seth Godin has the yellow glasses and bald head. Marie Forleo has MarieTV and her dancing and just a fun, carefree style that’s so infectious. Gary Vee cusses and leans into his New York roots with moxie and unapologetic approach to sharing his opinion.

Each of these incredible people major on what makes them unique, but it’s not as hard it may seem to be unique.

It’s about finding your niche, that smaller target Market where you can connect with a super-specific group of people around a topic that ignites you and that crowd.

Once you find your target Market, focus on how to stand out from other voices in that space, because no matter how small or super-specific your niche may be, there’s a good chance there’s another speaker, coach, or consultant already in that space.

That’s okay - now you know whose voices you need to contrast or complement with your Message.

Whatever you do, however you decide to be unique, make sure it’s true to who you are and what ignites you.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

How does a prospective client know you can get them results? There are two types of proof:

First, you have a written plan. It’s not enough to say, “Well, I have a process but it’s basically all in my mind.” Nobody will follow a map that’s stored in someone’s mind that they’re not willing to share with you.

Creating a written plan, a process, a framework, whatever you want to call it, will give your audience a chance to see where they’re at and where you want to take them. They’ll know what to expect next.

It’s not enough just to have a written plan though. You need to prove your plan actually works. That comes down to cold, hard facts: what have you done for someone else’s business like my business that shows me you got the results I would love to get in my business?

It may sound silly, but there are countless experts in your industry and in mine that claim they have a great process but they lack the results. Or, they can show you they got great results, but they can’t explain or show how they got the results you want to replicate.

A plan without results is nothing more than a futures bet. Results without a plan means you could have just gotten lucky.

But, a plan with proven results is the fast track to showing your audience you’re the expert they’ve been looking for.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

The business world is getting disrupted right now in tremendous ways. Automations, messenger bots, subscription flows, all of these assets designed to make our lives as marketers more convenient are starting to remind us about the value of relationships.

It comes back to the fact that people don’t buy products; they buy promises, feelings, and experiences. As rising thought leaders, we thrive on the ability to exchange our message for the emotions our audience is experiencing or wants to experience right now.

Focus on cultivating long-term relationships with your crowd. One example we’re doing that is actually adding more fields back into our lead generation forms.

I don’t want to just get someone’s email address and think that means they’re a great fit for our message. I’d rather ask for their company name, website address, the size of their team, and what their goals are for 2019 and beyond.

This means the people who will be filling out our forms are better qualified and significantly more interested in what we have to offer than a passing interest.

High-quality relationships developed over a longer period of time are the values we’re seeing moving forward. It’s no longer speed dating your audience; it’s the long game where you get to truly connect with extraordinary people in your crowd who want to know you’re the right fit for them and that they’re the right fit for you.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

We all tell stories in our business. Whether we cognitively realize it or subconsciously play a specific narrative in our minds, the reality is we want to experience a story that leaves us feeling better about ourselves in each area of life.

Your audience is experiencing an unfinished story. There are people who are in pain, they’re lost, they’re confused, frustrated, even mad about where they’re at in a specific area of life, the area where you have the answers or solutions to fix their problem.

It’s like they’re experiencing a half-finished story and don’t know how to reconcile what they want with what they’re experiencing right now.

How do they want you to show up in that story? What are the best ways you can write the rest of their story that helps them overcome whatever they’re facing right now?

Your audience already has an idea of how they think someone like you can fix their problem. The key is knowing how to best show up to finish the story they’re wanting you to complete for them.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

Let’s be honest: being a salesperson can be so intimidating. While sales come more naturally for some of us, they’re not that easy for others of us.

Here’s one tip I’ve found to help improve in sales: record yourself giving a sales pitch. It doesn’t have to be live; it can be staged and even giving your sales pitch to an empty room.

Write out some of the best objections and scenarios you can think of to your message, and then read those objections out loud and answer them in the first take on your recording. No second chances, not do-overs. Just a one-shot chance to answer those objections.

Here’s the part that can be difficult: when you’re done, listen back to your recording and be honest with your perspective about how you sound on the recording.

Now, before you get into any type of destructive self-talk because you don’t like the way you sound on the recording or you start to think you’re not good at sales and never will be, focus on writing out the best answer you can give for those objections based on what you learned from yourself, what you wished you shared during your recording.

Those are your study notes, your cheat sheet for being better at sales. The next time you’re in a sales conversation, remember you’ve already been through the most likely objections and you can focus on serving your prospective client because you’re not worried about how your answers sound.

The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to The Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”

A few years ago, a rising basketball prospect was told people were saying he was the next Michael Jordan.

I love the young superstar’s response, “I don't want to be the next Michael Jordan, I only want to be me.”

His name? Kobe Bryant, who eventually became one of the most prolific scorers in the history of the NBA.

Each of us sees others who inspire us, even those whose message we would love to embody.

If you’re a speaker, you may dream of being the next Tony Robbins. If you’re an author, you may love the idea of being the next Brené Brown. If you’re a marketing specialist, maybe you so badly want to be seen as the next Gary Vee.

The world doesn’t need the next Tony Robbins or Brené Brown or Gary Vee. What it needs is the first you.

This isn’t a woo-woo message; this is an encouragement for you to simply be yourself. You have so much greatness and potential built into you that’s just waiting to come out and rock someone’s world.

Trying to be someone else will only rob the world of the extraordinary message you were born to embody.

Don’t try to be the next so-and-so. Be the first you, and rock who you are for the world to see.

Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders is presented by Jon Cook, founder of Keynote Content. Jon and his team help thought leaders, namely speakers, coaches, and consultants, craft and share their messages to better serve their audiences. Connect with Jon and his team at Keynote Content by visiting keynotecontent.com. You can subscribe to the Keynote Clarity for Thought Leaders Flash Briefing by visiting bit.ly/KeynoteClarity and enabling it there. Then, all you have to say is, “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing?”