Yesterday, I shared about having a brand reputation: every business is a brand and every brand has a reputation. Every brand also has a story it’s telling.

Maybe you’re a speaker who wants to get audiences to move and interact more because your life was changed by a speaker through a highly interactive talk.

If you’re a coach, your brand story shows how your background and expertise as a coach is tied to your passion for helping coaching clients get the results they need.

Whatever your industry or background, your brand story is more than just what you’re telling your customers. It’s every interaction you make and receive in business that builds into a greater story.

If your five closest clients had to share about your business and what you do, what’s the brand story you want them to tell? That’s the story you want to ensure is clear, compelling, and packed with intrigue.

Reach out to a few of your closest clients today and ask them how they would tell their friends what you do. Take note of what they say, and if needed, humbly and graciously coach your clients on how you want to be seen in your industry. Educate your audience. Give them clarity. Your audience will love you more and see your unique value the more they can understand what makes you special and why it matters.

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?”

I’ve said before on our Keynote Clarity Flash Briefing that people don’t buy products, they buy promises.

Every product your sell promises positive change. Every service you provide makes a promise that your client or customer’s life will be better after your service work is complete. Every call you make, every meeting you take, everything you do with your brand, your business in every operation and action, communicates a promise.

If your coaching program doesn’t deliver great results, the promise you’re making to your clients is that you won’t exceed, let alone meet their expectations. If you deliver a fantastic keynote talk, your promise to your audience is that you valued their time and want to see them succeed because of your message.

It’s easier than ever to deliver on what I call micro brand promises to your audiences. Your micro brand promises are simple details like showing up on time for your meeting, hopping on your Zoom call prepared to talk through your topic, or sending that proposal when you said you would.

Each of these is a micro promise that builds on other micro promises that tell the world what type of business and more importantly, what type of person you are.

Today’s question I want to leave with you right now is: what type of brand promise is your business making to your audience, and are you satisfied with making that promise?

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?”

With each of your business interactions and pieces of content you publish comes an opportunity to change the status of your brand reputation.

If you’re not that well established or fairly new in your industry, you may be thinking, “What’s a brand reputation? I don’t have a brand reputation.”

Every business has a brand and every brand has a reputation. You already have a reputation in your industry because of how you’re showing up as a speaker, coach, or consultant. If you’re just getting started, your reputation may obscure and your targeted audience may be indifferent for now because they don’t know who you are.

How does your brand, your business, show up to your audience?

What are the areas where you would love to show up more or better for your target Market?

The good news is it’s easy to start pouring more meaning into your brand through great content, better response times to messages, and more effective products or services.

Today is about focusing on one action. What’s the one thing you can change today to have a better brand reputation in the next week?

Write down your action and block out time this week to start working on that one action. Once that’s done, then find the next action and keep following that process to see your brand reputation grow and improve.

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?”

When was the last time you visited your website and imagined you were a first-time viewer of your content? We can get so close to the forest of our business that we don’t see the parts that are out of place or even eyesores.

That’s where a brand audit comes into play. Whether you have a team of 100 or only one, you can take 15 to 30 minutes to try seeing your business with fresh eyes.

Imagine you’re coming to your website for the first time. What jumps out to you? What would you look for as a first-time visitor to a new website? Is it clear what you do and why it matters? Is your site hard to navigate?

Now, look at your logo - does it need a facelift? Does it add value and communicate what you do? Are the colors a good match?

If you’re a speaker, watch a few minutes from a recent talk and be brutally honest with yourself. Do you sound compelling? Is it easy for the audience to closely follow your train of thought? Are you engaging on stage with great poise and command of the room?

That’s just the start of a brand audit. Give yourself 15 to 30 minutes and take note of any inconsistencies. That will give you a great place to start making changes.

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?”

Branding is one of the top topics speakers, coaches, and consultants ask me about on a weekly, if not daily basis.

When we talk about branding, we need to see branding as more than just a logo. Your logo just happens to be the most visible representation of your brand. It’s why people associate great athletic wear with the Nike swoosh logo and consistent coffee experience with the green Starbucks logo.

Branding goes far beyond your logo - it’s the totality of how you show up to your audience. Everything from your on-stage content, like giving a keynote speech or breakout session, to your social media interaction, your website experience, the tone and style you use in your videos and blog articles, your brand color palette, and even your customer service experience, all of that is your branding.

This week we’re going to do a deep dive into ‘all things branding’ in a fun, question-driven way. Today, I want you to rethink how you think about branding. What’s one belief you’ve had about branding that may be changing based on what I shared with you today? Write it down and read it out loud a few times to see how you feel about your belief and start seeing if that belief about branding needs to change or stay the same.

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 it feel to receive an email from a friend? How does it feel to receive a hand-written card from a friend?

For a vast majority of people, we are inundated with emails on a daily basis. Guess what’s jam-packed? Our inboxes!

Guess what’s emptier than ever? Our mailboxes.

When was the last time you wrote a great thank-you card to one of your clients?

A handwritten card may sound a bit old-fashioned, but there’s a good chance some of your most treasured letters aren’t emails. They’re handwritten letters or thank-you cards.

Along those same lines, when was the last time you picked up the phone and actually called instead of emailed a client?

Today is about bringing back handwritten cards. It’s about making calls instead of just sending an email or a text. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with technology, but there’s a more meaningful connection when we go out of our way to show we value the person on the other end of our communication.

Send a letter or a thank-you card today. Make a call instead of sending an email. Ask for a face-to-face conversation to catch up instead of doing a video call.

It will change how you see the people you’re serving.

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?”

For a lot of speakers, coaches, and consultants, there’s a fear that they’re just one of many. They’re lost in the noise and can’t figure out a way to stand out.

There’s one principle that I guarantee will make any speaker, coach, or consultant absolutely jump out in their industry.

Caring for their crowd.

There are so many speakers who come to an event only when it’s their time to speak. They arrive 15 minutes before going on stage, shake a few hands, take a bow, and then *poof*, they’re gone.

There are coaches pitching a digital product that as soon as the 30-day Money-Back Guarantee is over, the customer will never hear from that coach ever again.

I’ve met more than a few consultants who are perfectly happy giving a two-hour presentation and not caring for a second if what they recommend is actually implemented by their client.

These are the ones who don’t care, but you can.

You can actually give an ‘ish’ about your crowd. You can arrive for the whole event, not just the time when you speak. You can have a better follow-up strategy than people expect.

You can answer your own calls, send more messages, and show that you care by connecting with the people you want to serve.

If you want to make a difference, if you want to stand out in your industry, prove to your audience that you actually care about 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?”

Clients ask me this question on a regular basis, “Is it okay to call myself a thought leader?”

I like to think that being labelled as thought leader is the same as being labelled a ‘hero’. Your answer to that question reveals a lot of how you perceive yourself and your intent for contributing to society.

Why do you want to be seen as a thought leader? What’s your purpose for reaching that level of influence?

For many, the desire to be seen as a thought leader comes down to clout. They want the fame. They want the fortune, the notoriety, the glamour that comes with having your name rise in your industry.

I’ll give the punch line here: those are the ones whose names may last, but their contributions won’t. Their desire to be famous for the sake of being famous will fade over time.

For many others, the idea of being a thought leader is an invitation to change the world with a better message, a better set of ideas to help others have a more meaningful future.

Take some time today, maybe even right now, and think about your motives. Are you wanting influence to simply hear your name more or are you wanting to make a difference with your ideas?

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 other day I received a false countdown email. You know the ones I’m talking about, the emails where it has a built-in time counting down, telling you that you have to buy before the timer runs out.

The problem is I can’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked on those videos to the now-expired landing page, refreshed my screen, and the same price is there that supposedly expired two days or even a week earlier.

It was all a lie. The price didn’t jump like they said it would. The bonuses didn’t expire. There wasn’t a ‘last chance to get this amazing price’ before it goes up.

It’s all false scarcity, and it’s killing the reputation of speakers, coaches, and consultants in every industry I’ve worked with so far.

Let’s trade false scarcity with doing what we say we’re going to do. If a price expires at midnight, then guess what, the price actually jumps up at midnight.

If bonuses are only for the first 25 people, then honor the 25 people who took the initiative to sign up first by not handing out more bonuses to people who weren’t part of the first 25.

I get it - not everyone is ready to buy right now, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is giving out false scarcity in exchange for a faster sale. Let your integrity drive your sales - you’ll be just fine when it comes to sales.

In fact, you’ll have a healthier, more profitable business if your crowd knows they can take you at your word when you do what you say you’re going to do.

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?”

Can you show a sales prospect your entire step-by-step process by writing it on the back of a napkin?

My entire proprietary process, what I call the M3 Clarity framework, fits on a napkin with a ton of room left. It’s three boxes, three icons, and ten words. That’s it.

I can write out my process, essentially the entire framework for my business in 15 seconds anywhere. It’s that simple.

Why does this matter? Once you dial in your process, you can take any situation and write out your plan for the right person in less than 20 seconds.

That shows confidence, intentionality, and expertise. It also gives you a great opportunity to expand your conversation into whatever area of interest your prospect mentions based on your drawing.

If you’re worried about your drawing ability, use simple shapes, like squares and circles, and write short words to label each section.

It’s not rocket science, and it’s not supposed to be. The easier it is to show your audience what you do, the faster they can start solving the problem they’re facing right now.

Take some time today to map out your business on a napkin. Not a regular sheet of paper, just a napkin. Try a few different drawings and see what works for you.

Once you’re done, post a picture to social media and tag me at @keynotecontent so I can check out your napkin. Have fun!

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?”