MicroFamous

In a world of no competitors, we could offer something that’s easy for us to deliver, and because it’s rare and valuable, it’s easy to market and sell.

Sadly, we don’t live in that world.

In a world of competitors, something must be hard in order for us to have a profitable business. Let’s look at 3 companies, Starbucks, GoDaddy and Apple.

Starbucks did no TV advertising, and very little advertising in general, until it was already the Starbucks we know today. It grew almost entirely by word of mouth because they did the hard work of creating a service experience that was totally unique and compelling. Then they did more hard work, the really really hard work, of delivering that experience consistently, day after day, all around the world. They didn’t need a big breakthrough in their sales or marketing strategy, people did the talking for them.

They’re an example of doing the hard work on the service, the thing they’re selling.

GoDaddy is an example of the exact opposite.

They sell domains, something that a bunch of other companies do or could have done.

The service is relatively easy to deliver, and they have a truckload of competition.

What stands out about GoDaddy is their marketing. They’ve built this fun, outrageous brand on the back of outlandish, loud, colorful ads chock full of beautiful celebrities like Danica Patrick.

They had a service that was easy for them to deliver, but hard to market and sell.

So they did a very hard thing - they took a commodity business and gave it a personality. That’s a marketing breakthrough. They did the hard work in their marketing.

If you want to be really, really successful, do both. That’s why Apple is so successful.

Apple did the hard work of creating a handful of amazing, world-changing products that people absolutely go nuts for. Then they followed that up with a marketing strategy that gave their brand a fun, memorable, hip, young, rebellious personality. They created a brand that people wanted to identify with.

They did two hard things - they created something almost impossible for other companies to replicate, then followed it up with brilliant marketing that created one of the most powerful and influential brands of all time.

Here’s the lesson for experts. If we want to be profitable for any length of time, we need to do something hard.

Either create something - a product or service - that’s nearly impossible for others to copy. OR create a breakthrough in sales and marketing that’s nearly impossible for others to copy.

They can both be done, but what we CAN’T do is offer something that was easy for us to create, and then expect it to also market and sell easily.

IF we have something that was easy for us to create, then we probably have competition and it won’t be easy to market and sell.

That’s great news because most of our competitors aren’t willing to do that. It leaves a great opportunity for those of us willing to do something hard.

If you have an idea for a show and you're not sure if it works best as a podcast or a YouTube channel, grab a brainstorm call with us. In 15 minutes we can brainstorm your idea, your potential topics and help determine which platform is best for you.

The online space will continue to get more crowded, not less. You’ll never have fewer competitors, people’s attention spans will keep shrinking, and everything is going to keep getting more cluttered, fractured, and fragmented. 

As an introverted expert, how do you cut through all this noise without being bombastic, personality-driven or showing up louder and more frequently than your competitors?  

The answer is showing up with an idea that’s so Clear and Compelling that when the right person hears it, they can’t unhear it. We have to continue to refine our idea until the only response we get is “Wow! How can I learn more?” 

In this episode, I talk about the 3 questions we need to ask if we want to sharpen our message. 

1) “WHO are your right people?”

Make the critical decision before you do anything else. If you don’t know who you're speaking too, or you’re speaking to too many different types of people, you’ll never be able to uncover a Clear & Compelling Idea that speaks deeply to them.

2) “What’s the core idea of my business - in 1-2 sentences of plain English?”

Cut out any puffery, ego or hard-hitting, fancy words. Go for clarity first, then see if what you have is compelling. If you find yourself adding in emotionally compelling, interesting, cool-sounding words, cut them out.

3) “What happens when people hear my idea in its plainest form?

If the idea itself, expressed in plain English, doesn’t grab the attention of your right person, then go back to the drawing board. The reaction we’re going for is, “WOW, I didn’t know that was even an option, tell me more!”

If you have an idea for a show and you're not sure if it works best as a podcast or a YouTube channel, grab a brainstorm call with us. In 15 minutes we can brainstorm your idea, your potential topics and help determine which platform is best for you.

Can both podcasting and YouTube work for introverts?This question has come up several times in the last few days, with both clients and new prospects.

My answer is absolutely! Both platforms work well for introverts.

However, the one you choose to focus on depends on your goals, and there are big pitfalls to getting it wrong (listen to the full episode for more on that). 

Let's start with 3 things podcasting and YouTube have in common.

1. Time-shifted - Content can be recorded, edited and published weeks or even months apart
2. Optimizable - The final product can be broken down into small pieces and optimized one piece at a time - every part doesn’t have to be perfect in real time
3. Long shelf life - Both podcasts and YouTube videos get found months and years later.

In the episode we also share 4 reasons for video podcasting even if you don't intend to grow a YouTube channel, and we finish by answering the question, "Can a podcast and YouTube channel co-exist?"

If you have an idea for a show and you're not sure if it works best as a podcast or a YouTube channel, grab a brainstorm call with us. In 15 minutes we can brainstorm your idea, your potential topics and help determine which platform is best for you.

The reason introverts struggle with networking has nothing to do with not being extroverted enough. 

The key to success in networking is having a system for dominating a room and fostering relationships by leaning into who we are. 

Sharpening our messaging, our storytelling and our ability to connect with people allows us to dominate both in networking situations and in online marketing. 

What mistakes do experts make when we explain what we do in networking situations? 

How do we perfect our storytelling so we can draw people in? How do we leverage podcasts to get our ideal clients to chase us online? 

In this episode, internationally-recognized consultant, speaker, coach, author of The Introvert’s Edge and The Introvert’s Edge to Networking, Matthew Pollard returns. He talks about his new book, and how introverts can win the networking game. 

I am the least likely entrepreneur ever. 

Mindset issues.

Didn't go to college.

No intention to start a business before my mid-20's

So how did I end up as an entrepreneur in the marketing world? How did I succeed in spite of limiting beliefs and mindset issues from my past? How did I build a life and business I love, that gives me all the freedom I want?

The answer is podcasting.

Podcasting changed my life, and it can do the same for you.

We always hear: "You'll never succeed until you can visualize it and you're 100% convinced it's going to come true."

Compare that to Bill Walsh, who won a Super Bowl in his 3rd year. He flat out said he had no ambitions or expectations to get to the Super Bowl that year, he believed they were at least a year, maybe 2 away from being ready.

One of the most critical decisions of my life was to set all my mindset issues aside and just take methodical action. Do what successful people do, and see what happens.

I focused on leveraging podcasting to build my business, and along the way, I built great systems and hired great people to run them. If you think you need to fix all your mindset issues in order to succeed, I'm living proof that you don't.

In this episode I dive into my story, the mindset issues, the critical decisions, and then the "how did I get here" moments that started to happen as I became MicroFamous.

Being an introvert comes with a ton of labels and misconceptions that can be harmful to us in business. We can break away from those labels by the way we present ourselves, interact with people, build relationships, and operate within our marketing system. 

The MicroFamous system takes care of the biggest myths around being an introvert. It protects us from the harmful labels that can be used to define us in a negative way.

In this episode, I share 3 myths that are particularly harmful to selling our expertise, along with practical things we can do to bust those myths.

As we come into a new year and we’re thinking of what to do to grow our businesses, there’s one urge we need to resist at all costs, Monkey See, Monkey Do Marketing.  

A lot of people base their marketing on what they see other people doing, without questioning if those tactics actually work for them, and if they fit seamlessly with the rest of their marketing.  

What they end up with is a marketing strategy made up of bolted on pieces that don’t fit or work well together. This is evident in many marketing strategies we see, and even in sport. 

When we jump onto every marketing bandwagon, we end up with a playbook of stuff that doesn’t fit together, a grab bag of tactics. We end up on the hamster wheel of constantly trying new things, failing and moving onto something else. 

Monkey see, Monkey Do Marketing tactics don’t last, and they take us away from what matters, staying focused on our Clear and Compelling Idea.  

The goal in marketing should be having a cohesive, integrated system where everything has a purpose and fits into a whole. The best marketing systems and offensive systems in football and basketball have this in common.

In this episode, I share examples of Monkey See, Monkey Do Marketing, and why we it’s a trap we have to resist. 

There's a lot of talk about pivoting, and as I've started talking more to introverts, people can come away with the impression that I'm pivoting.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead of pivoting, I’m speaking to a smaller group of people with stronger elements in common. Rather than competing with every other marketing guru and agency out there for the same broad range of people, I kept drilling down and looking for ways to speak more deeply to a smaller group of people.

In the MicroFamous book, I call this Shrinking the Battlefield.

By Shrinking the Battlefield and tailoring my message for introverts, it frees me up to speak to their needs, challenges, fears and problems on a much deeper level.

So if you've been paying attention to the MicroFamous podcast or my emails and you're wondering if me speaking to introverts is a pivot, it's actually Shrinking the Battlefield.

I'm sacrificing speaking to everyone, so I can deliver a message to half the audience that's even more razor-sharp, Clear & Compelling.

For many people, marketing and social media are now the same thing, and their entire marketing plan is based around creating content and engaging in real time. It’s like they live every day hoping a big social media company will put them in front of more people for free.

I recommend a very different approach, especially if you’re on the introvert side.

Starting in 2015, I put podcasting front and center of my marketing, and social media was last on my priority list.

With the growth of my first podcast came attention on social media in the most authentic way possible - word-of-mouth.

What makes podcasting a better marketing channel than any social media platform? 

You’re not subject to an algorithm just to get seen. Many people have seen their effectiveness on social media platforms get wiped out virtually overnight by algorithm changes. 

Podcasts are available on multiple platforms, so your risk of getting de-platformed, shadow-banned or squashed in the algorithm is low. Podcasting has a very long shelf life. Episodes are searchable, discoverable and shareable long after they are created. 

Social media posts, on the other hand, have a much shorter shelf life, yet we’re expected to put time and energy into them as if they had a long shelf life.

Ultimately, social media companies want us on our devices, creating new content and engaging in real-time, for hours and hours a day. Extroverts might be able to do it over the long run, but it burns introverts out.

I don’t want to base the success of my business on real-time content and engagement, and always chasing that slight edge to get some temporary attention for free.

Podcasting helps build the ultimate asset of any expert business, the audience. It allows you to reach new people online, develop a deeper long-term relationship with them, and convert them into ideal clients over time.

This is why you have to put podcasting first in your marketing, especially if you want to enjoy life as an introvert and still grow your business!

When growth in your businesses feels sluggish, and your message is spreading slowly and not bringing in new clients, most people think their niche is too small. They are tempted to expand, and talk to more people, but in the process, they dilute the very thing that could make them very compelling to the right people.

When you aren’t growing the way you want, resist the temptation to expand. 

Shrink the Battlefield. 

The problem is not the size of the niche, it’s the strength of the marketing. Instead of expanding, talk to fewer people, get more specific, and exclude the people you aren't the MOST passionate about serving.

It’s really hard to get into a niche so small that you can’t reach your goals. If you truly have a Clear & Compelling Idea that speaks deeply to an audience of 5-10k people who can afford a high-ticket offer, you can run a mid-6 to 7-figure business.

Is it ever possible to niche down too far? What does a lack of growth actually point to? 

In this episode, I talk about the importance of Shrinking the Battlefield, and getting on to the path that will lead you to your Clear & Compelling Idea, and the audience of people who will take action on your marketing.