The Importance of Being Yourself in Your Marketing (Even When it Scares You!)

I was crapping it, if I’m honest.

It’s always like this when I’m booked for events or by clients that really don’t fit our ‘style’.

The doubt creeps in. You know, all the dumb shit you tell yourself?

“What if the person who booked me made a mistake?”

“Surely I can’t wear jeans and cowboy boots to this one?”

“I’ll have to remove our branding from the PowerPoint template, for sure”

“Hopefully they’ll cancel it!”

I’ve been told that I look like I’m totally at home on stage, on video, at networking, and when I’m running events.

It’s certainly something I enjoy – most of the time. But there have been plenty of occasions when I really wished the ground would do that swallowing up thing you hear about.

For some reason, even though I swear on Facebook Live, wear a cowboy hat to networking meetings and expos, and shoot from the hip on social media at anyone who dares get in the way – corporate clients book me, and serious councils hire me.

It really puts me in a funny place.

I second guess myself and start to turn down the volume on the social media cowboy.

But today I wanted to tell your inner cowboy (insert your own version – fairy, chimp, or unicorn), that it’s the opposite that you need to do…

Start doing the opposite.

The Importance of Being Yourself in Your Marketing (Even When it Scares You!)

I received a complaint after speaking at the Chester Grosvenor…

“Wow, that’s a cool address”, I thought, “I wonder where it is?”

After being emailed the location for my back-to-back workshops for a hotel marketing group, I headed to Google Maps and then Street View to see where it was.

All that doubt got switched on in a second.

“Holy crap! There’s a doorman in a long coat and tall hat on the door.”

Why have they booked me? This is a serious business. Why would they choose an agency with a quirky Wild West brand?

I toned it down, I avoided the usual cowboy hat, and I tip-toed into the venue and tried not to cause a stir…

They complained!

About…?

… the lack of hat!

Yup. Guess what? They booked me for me.

They booked us because we’re us; not in spite of it!

The complaint was a little joke from the organiser, but that sent an important message to me.

Spaghetti Agency (and your business) needs to be what it is. BE THAT!

If someone books you then you have to carry on being who you are, not some pretend sensible version that you tell yourself is what they really want.

Work out who you are and what you stand for. Be that… all the darn time!

This wasn’t the only time this has happened, either.

Outside the comfort of small networking meetings and our own events, we get sent to speak at national expos, council Christmas lunches, annual sales meetings for global companies, and even to finish a two-day event for a nationwide group of very important government peeps in a football stadium.

I don’t tell you this to show off (although that was pretty crazy for an ex-van driver to type), I tell you this because they booked me BECAUSE I’m a fucking cowboy on social media.

Blend in, lose out

I received a LinkedIn testimonial the other day that taught me a valid lesson and is one of the reasons for me blogging about this topic. A one-liner from this ‘hat tip’ to our training says everything you need to know about why you never need to blend in, and why you should find what you’re good at, and do it the way you’re not only comfortable with, but unapologetically in love with.

This. This says everything:

“There is no other company that is on my radar that offers this stuff. And it’s your stuff that I come across when I am scrolling around in the evenings. 

Because we go networking in cowboy boots, rant on video, share our story, shout from the rooftops about what we do, and embrace our brand and what we stand for – we attract the right people.

Attraction is an exact science

I got booked again today for a serious council training event down in the South East. Once again, I questioned it to myself, even though this will be the fifth time we’ve worked for the organisation.

Silly really, isn’t it? You’d think they’d know by now if we weren’t for them, right?

The thing is, by being us as much of the time as possible, we’ve attracted the very people who want us to work for them. We’ve attracted the companies and organisations who want what we’ve got, and you can do that too!

I’m a big believer (more so recently) in that what you put out in the world you attract back. That’s never been truer than our email list, our Facebook group, and our clients. They ‘get us’ and that’s not because we’re the best, or because we’re right, or even that we’re some superhuman marketers – it’s because they’re aligned with us.

They were attracted to us.

Pretend to be something else and you’ll attract the wrong thing…

You can hide from who you are if you want. It’s easier. It’s less offensive I guess when you get pushed back on social media or by people don’t buy into your marketing when it’s not actually you.

But know this: you’ll attract all the wrong people to your business.

Think you’ll only get crazy clients, people with no cash, or be scratching around for leads? We find it’s quite the opposite. We align with SMEs and have an infatuation with the underdogs, the start-ups, and the ones who seem to have nothing in place.

We help them. We run workshops. We met them at networking events. Many just use our free advice. We give it willingly! We love helping small businesses.

… and then something weird happens.

Those ‘small businesses’ start telling larger businesses about us. They read our blogs. They follow our tweets. They open our emails and come to our events.

… and the big boys notice.

Despite never aiming to attract large or event HUGE companies we have many £multi-million companies who use us for training, consultancy, content, and more. We even have some with more letters after their name than Jo, and clients with blue ticks on social media. Ooh!

Turning up your volume doesn’t turn down your potential – it raises it

You gotta believe me when I tell you that the day I decided to stop pretending to be ‘professional’ and just get on with doing what I love and being who I am, the emails started coming in, and phone started to ring.

This internet thing gives you some great options.

Two of them are really apparent to me right now, and they are:

“Fake it ‘til you make it”

“Be open, honest, and be yourself.” 

If you really want to be successful, I suggest you choose the latter option.

Let’s make a deal…

I’ll stop hiding my cowboy hat if you stop shying away from your true brilliance as well.

Deal?

Put your values, your beliefs, your opinions, put you – 100% you – into your marketing brand, website, talks, videos, and all that you do.

I promise you this: you’ll attract how you act.

No bull, just beef.

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