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Are you struggling with your digital marketing? Unable to stand out online? The problem may not be your tactics or the channels you choose, but instead, it’s because you haven’t spent the time upfront determining what makes you remarkable.
Over the past few months I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve been taking a public speaking course from Michael and Amy Port called Heroic Public Speaking. It’s more of a performance-forward approach to presenting, with a lot of work on the craft of presentations.
I’ve put a lot into it, and I believe I’ve gotten a lot out of it.
I discovered Heroic Public Speaking–or HPS as we call it–at an opportune time. I’ve been doing digital marketing–or at least websites–for nearly a quarter century! And almost since the beginning I’ve been talking to and working with people who were told they needed a website. Or told that blogging would blow up their business. Or that they needed to rank higher in Google, get engagement on Facebook, build their email list, and so on.
As just one example, I had a business come to me and ask for help in building up their FB presence. They sold highly-complex consultative services to municipalities considering building a sport arena or other public facility. Their customers weren’t on FB, and luckily they were willing to listen to me as I helped them develop a strategy that would actually work, and then the tactics that would help them get there.
As owners and marketers these days, we’re so busy that we’re just looking for the quick fix. The new tactic, the shiny object, the life hack that will bring us all the leads and business we can handle. While that sounds attractive, it rarely works. There’s a step that comes first.
It’s kind of like trying to decide what size camper you need for your trip before you know where you’re going, how long you’ll be gone, and how many people are coming with you!
I had been thinking about what is lacking from a lot of marketing campaigns these days, and there were a few things I thought about:
An understanding of who you serve and what they need from you
A way to create high barriers to competitors to keep them away if and when you are successful
Creativity. And by that I mean, running FB Ads is not my idea of a creative marketing campaign. It’s just the transportation.
I started to think about why so many people had been unsuccessful with SEO, social media, and digital ads (you know, until they started working with flyte.)
I realized that often it’s because they’ve put the proverbial cart before the horse. That they expected marketing to do all the heavy lifting to push their company forward. But that’s not marketing’s job.
Marketing isn’t the circus, it’s the barker. Its job is to present, in the most attractive yet honest way possible, the amazing, remarkable sites that you’ll see under the big top.
I started wondering why some businesses succeed in SEO or social media, or ran successful ads, and why so many did not. And by looking at the more successful companies (and many unsuccessful ones) I came to this idea of being remarkable. And that became the seed of my new presentation.
Now, I didn’t invent something the world had never seen before. What I call remarkability other people have called a Differentiator. Or a Unique Value Proposition. Or a Blue Ocean Strategy. Or a 100 other things.
But what I wanted to do is create a framework that any business could uncover or create something remarkable. That once you had done this work, that your marketing tactics would become both easier and more effective.
Whether that meant FB Ads, Local SEO, website copy, list building, and so on. These were just tactics, channels, that would present themselves as the best way to communicate your remarkability once you had identified it.
So, what is this framework? Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about today. I’m calling this The Remarkability Formula, (working title), and it’s how I talk to people about their businesses these days.
I had been having similar conversations for years with clients, but working with HPS caused me to create an easy-to-understand framework that would help companies uncover their remarkability faster through the four lenses I’m about to share.
The four lenses are: Find, Focus, Fashion, and Frame
Through Find, what sets you apart already exists, whether you know it or not. You just need to put a name to it.
Through Focus, you keep niching down until you are the best and only company offering your product or service to a specific audience.
Through Fashion, you create something extrinsic to your offering, but that’s still in alignment with your mission or values. That one can be a little challenging to wrap your head around, but I’ll give you some examples in a little bit.
And through Frame, you position your offering in a new, powerful manner that helps you stand out to your ideal customer.
Find, Focus, Fashion, and Frame.
As I’ve been chatting about this idea with friends and associates lately, I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback. People are intrigued and even inspired to discover and identify their own remarkability. Someone recently suggested that I offer this to people as well as businesses.
As I tried to get this keynote down to 45 minutes, I left a lot of stories, anecdotes, and details on the cutting room floor. It was an incredibly painful experience, like cutting off a limb! In fact, the original story that inspired me didn’t even make the early cuts of the presentation as the entire idea morphed to more of a business approach rather than just focusing on marketing.
However, I’ve decided that the elements that didn’t make it, such as how to implement this into a digital marketing strategy, while they might not be right for a keynote, would be great for a follow up breakout session or workshop.
And the stories that were great but just didn’t make the final cut would be great fodder for a book, which I hope to write in 2022.
As I mentioned, this is the type of work that I do with new clients all the time, but it’s only recently that I gave it this name and formalized it. Recently, I shared it with an event planner who asked if I would do this work with them to help them identify their own remarkability.
It was actually the first time I had gone through this, so I quickly worked up an intake sheet with questions around the four lenses and asked them to complete it.
We then met and discussed their answers and strategized around new opportunities within the four lenses. What I discovered is that there was additional work for them to do, and not all the answers come easily. Fashion and Frame especially take some time to wrap your head around and determine if those serve your own remarkability.
All that being said, the exercise was as much fun for me as it was for them. I learned more about the process and how I can use it to help our own clients grow their businesses and become more successful. I also discovered how much I liked this creative process, and how I wanted to do more of this work.
So, to that end, I have two asks for you right now.
The first is, if you have something remarkable about your business, especially if it ties into Find, Focus, Fashion, or Frame, I’d love to hear about it. I might even want to include it in the book or the presentation in some way that can further promote your company or brand.
If you’re interested in sharing your story, either in writing or over a call, head on over the contact form at theagentsofchange.com and let me know. You can also reach out to me on social media to get the ball rolling…remember I’m therichbrooks on every platform.
The second is that I’d like to work through The Remarkability Formula with a few of you listeners out there. While at some point this would be a paid consultative offering, for right now I’m offering it for free. This would include the intake sheet and one or two meetings with me to help uncover what makes your business remarkable.
If you’re interested in that, and who wouldn’t be, I’ve put together a very short application form at theagentsofchange.com/remarkability I’ll pick the first 3 – 5 companies or entrepreneurs that feel right for this work and we’ll get to work on uncovering what makes you and your company so. Damn. Remarkable.
That’s it for this week’s episode of AOC. For a full transcript please visit theagentsofchange.com/400 I’ll have links to the contact form and the application form on that page as well.