Full Transcript 

Jen Liddy

Today we are talking about how to stand out in a very noisy market!

You look around at your competition, and you see lots of people doing the same thing, saying the same things as you. You are receiving lots and lots of incoming information, so you're experiencing the noise yourself. You want to block it out, but how can you stand out for your audience and help earn their trust so that they can eventually become your clients today?

That's what Claudia and I are talking about today. Claudia is a marketing expert, and I'm a content specialist, and we want to really talk about the simple ways to get the spotlight on you without creating more noise. What do you think about that?

Claudia Schalkx

I think it's a great idea and this is a lovely topic because it's simple but not easy. Sending out is simple - it's about being consistent. A few people are consistent nowadays, so the moment you are consistent, you're already ahead of 97% of the people—consistency and standing out stem out from solid marketing foundations.

Jen Liddy

Okay, so you can't be consistent if you don't have the foundations in place.

Claudia Schalkx

No. 

The foundation I am referring to is understanding who your ideal client is, and understanding means knowing their pains, dreams, fears, and also how they talk about their problem and what solution they think will work for them. 

When you listen to these things, you can create products that address these needs, and you can use language that's relatable to them, so they don't have to do the extra work of translating what you're trying to say to their problem.

You don't use the argument, but you talk in the way they would talk about their problem.

Jen Liddy

I just want to add one thing here about that because this is a problem that I used to experience as a high school English teacher because my students would write essays and they would hint at everything, or they would obscure everything deep inside of a very wordy paragraph. 

They think in their head, "Oh, she can make the leap because she's smart, or she can make the leap from my very obscure idea to the point I'm trying to make," and I would constantly say to them, "It's not my job to figure this out."

It's not my job to defuse the bomb. It's not my job to wade through everything, and it makes it harder for the reader, so whether we're talking about reading content or listening to content like this, which is a lot of what people are doing now, we have to make it easily consumable. 

Claudia Schalkx

The difference between your example and the real world, to put it, is that in our heads, I don't think we assume you will take the leap. It's that we are so deep in our stuff and our subject that we have already forgotten the simplicity, the layer that is more above. 

That's how people come to you, so we're too much into the yard, going too much into constancy, and we need to come and meet our clients where they are. That's the most important thing, and that's where language plays a role.

Language helps you to stand out, and it's not the complicated, elaborate flowery language, but it's more the language that makes it easy to understand. What are you about? What are you offering? How can you help them so that they don't have to do this complicated algebra in their head to understand how you can help them? It's, at the same time, more human, and we do business with people. Understanding your customer is key because when you understand your customer, you will avoid operating on the assumptions.

You will really know what's going on and create tailored products.

Jen Liddy

I used to make this mistake a lot because I would assume that my clients were using words like stressed out and burned out because that's where I was, and those are my words, but they were not using those words. They were using words like frazzled, scattered, disorganized, and overwhelmed. Until I started to do the conversations and interviews to do my target market research, I found that I just kept missing them because what I was saying wasn't landing.

This is a way we not only make it more complicated by using jargon or talking about things that are more like down the road that they're not ready to hear.

Claudia Schalkx

Our experience can be the base for our business and our solution, but we aren't our best clients. When you use yourself as your ideal client, which is something I see a lot, what happens is what you just described.

You're using your words, and you are missing them because you're talking about burnout. When they feel frustrated - it's just a different way of saying it. Content can be very frustrating for me, but I would never associate burnout or how I feel about content with burnout.

Jen Liddy

The first thing to stand out is just to simplify your language and just talk to your people and find out what words they're using and stop using yourself. I actually have said this before - stop using your current clients as the ideal client.

Claudia Schalkx

Really?

Jen Liddy

Your current clients have already come down the road a little bit with you.

Somebody just said the conversation that we're having in our head skip steps for our client. I love that - that's so well said.

Claudia Schalkx

That's a very wise comment. 

The other thing that is very important and it's part of your foundation is your message. Your marketing message is telling two people what you can do for them in terms of results. 

You and I discussed this when you were helping me with content. If you are in a meeting and you ask this person, "Hey, what do you do?" And this person says, "I'm an accountant."

End of conversation. First is a boring topic, but secondly, I am in my head racing to figure out how to have this conversation with this person out of the coma. If this person says I help entrepreneurs save money in taxes and other expenses to grow their business, my next reaction would be to tell me more - I need a person like you. In the first case, the difference is that this person is totally focused on the process of accountancy, which is boring.

Jen Liddy

Right.

Claudia Schalkx

In the second case, this person is focused on the results. It's a message that revolves around me and my needs. Who doesn't want to save on taxes, who doesn't want more money to grow your business without having to recur two loans for that kind of stuff. 

When your marketing message is not focused on your ideal client and does not address pain or a dream, if you don't want to steer the pain, but you want to focus on the hope, you cannot stand out.

The thing is, there are so many people doing similar things to you. So many more content creators, marketeers, dietitians, nutritionists, astrologists, coaches - you name it. That makes sure of what you do with how you do it, makes you different, and allows you to stand out. 

You really need to understand what it is that you bring to that mix. You need to know what you bring and put that into your message.

Jen Liddy

I don't think a lot of people spend enough time thinking about the results. 

Sometimes the results that we create for people are very feeling kind of results. I help create confidence and I think people struggle with those feeling results because they've been seeing other big marketers talk about, like I help people make six figures or I help make people make $10,000 or attract 30 new clients or whatever it is, those are quantifiable. And that is, I think, a place where a lot of service providers get tripped up.

But if you spend time thinking about the results that you help people create, it doesn't have to be that way. I can't say I help people attract 30 new clients a month, even though their content might do that because it's different for everybody, but I help you learn how to make content creation simple and easy so that you can do it in an hour a week. 

That's a result that people want - it's not a sexy result, it's not $100,000. When you and I did my signature system, I figured out the result that I get to help people become a content powerhouse, knowing that I can speak about this so much more easily in my marketing.

Claudia Schalkx

This is so nice because it circles back to understanding your customer. If your customer says I need self-confidence or I'm overwhelmed by marketing, then you use that in your message, and then it can be intangible as self-confidence, or it can be measured as 30 clients a day, but you need to know. This is so interesting because you also mentioned the competitors and the thing is, most of our clients, in the case of people like you, me who are entrepreneurs, and we work one on one, is that our potential clients are not comparing us to another coach or another course, who knows or somebody we consider our competitors.

They are comparing us to the solution they are using right now. If you want to stand out, you need to understand what solution they are using now?

Jen Liddy

Yeah, that's another great point, right.

Claudia Schalkx

In my case, I am a marketer who helps entrepreneurs to market their business easier and with less overwhelm. My competitors are not other coaches or courses or shiny objects. My competitors if they are trying to figure out marketing on their own.

Jen Liddy

Yes.

Claudia Schalkx

My message has to revolve around that because I work with entrepreneurs who have been in business for two or three years, doing everything the guru says and still not seeing the results. 

The important thing is that they're trying to figure it out independently, but they are missing something.My clients are tired of the general thing, and they want somebody who looks at their business with them and helps to solve the gaps. 

I need to use that in my message, and that all stems from understanding your customer. If you really want to stand out, understand your customer, put that in your message and, of course, in your content.

Jen Liddy

And then what's the third thing?

Claudia Schalkx

The third thing is I added a little bit in the messages; we focus too much on the process. You see descriptions like we have six modules and 3 hours of content. Yes, people do buy the process, but they decide based on the results and the transformation. 

A lot of entrepreneurs keep mentioning all the pieces in the puzzle because they are afraid other people will figure out their product or service and copy it. And the thing is, you are doing a disservice to your potential clients by hiding information.

So show all the pieces in the process but talk about the transformations, talk about the results. When you're not talking about the process, nobody can copy-paste.

Jen Liddy

Can you give me an example of how that looks?

Claudia Schalkx

Somebody that has a course or service or the program you and I are putting out in the market will say you will have six modules, and you will learn this, and you will learn that and all that stuff. We do it by creating a graphic representation of the process you will go through, which is kind of a roadmap, and you will see the transformations. 

You will also see the deliverables, which will allow you to make the decision you think is that having a roadmap, people will know how far they are from the result and can compare what they have done with what they are missing to get there.

Essentially what we are doing in the graphic roadmap is talking about the results and transformations. And I show you a proven process, so in my case, we first do a business review. I want to know everything you have done in your business with which results to start to clean and rescue the things that are giving you results that are not giving you results. We start to see what is what you add to the market and what makes you different.

Then we understand your client, and then we can start seeing how what you bring connects with your client and your message with those elements. We go to your message, and then we go to your signature system or your offer, which is pulling out of your head how you take your people from A to B with the respective, and then we go to the market strategy. How are we going to create content? How are we going to reach out to the market and finally do the discovery calls?

Then you see everything, and it allows you to see it in a way that allows you to fully understand and make sense of everything. There the trick, then again, is focusing on the results and asking what do I do? What do I give you here? In this stage, you will go from confusion to clarity. 

In this stage, you will go from everybody to the one. That allows you to really have a grasp and understand what you need. A lot of people are fearful of laying out their process or their offer as a full puzzle because they are afraid other people will pick up the idea and develop it from there.

But if you're clear who your client is, you know that is not going to happen.

Jen Liddy

I think the takeaway from that is, you can talk about your process, but you don't have to give away the how-tos. It's just the whys and the what you're going to go from speaking to everybody to speaking to the one so that you can stop splattering your message everywhere. 

Claudia Schalkx

Right. 

You can use your resources in a much wiser manner because it's one thing channeling your resources into the people that you spent more chances to bring in than splattering your stuff.

Jen Liddy

So stop focusing on the house was the third way to stand out. 

Is there a fourth way?

Claudia Schalkx

Well, the fourth thing you could say is that the part of the competitors is understanding who your competitor is, which is the solution they are using now and don't work on assumptions. I would keep it there.

Jen Liddy

These three things could really be much more simple, and it's really much more about using their language. 

Stop talking about the house and talk more about the results and get out of your own process to do that - I love it.

Claudia Schalkx

This will allow you to be consistent. And by being consistent, you become more reliable, and that is what will allow you to stand out.

Jen Liddy

Yes, I know it is all about consistency.

The other thing I just want to say one word about consistency before we go is that consistency looks different to everybody. Showing up on social media every day might not be achievable for you showing up weekly on email, but you do need to do something regularly. 

If you're trying to do everything, but you're only doing it in piecemeal if there's no return on investment of that, so save all of that bullshit that you're currently doing and just go in on the one platform in the one way that feels the best to you.

So that's how you create consistency.

Claudia Schalkx

Yeah - it's the rule of one. 

It's what you have in one platform, one format, and in marketing is one offer, one client, one message.

Jen Liddy

Yes.

Claudia Schalkx

And when you have that on the control, and you know how it works, then you can start expanding.

Jen Liddy

I hope this is helpful for people to simplify some of the stuff that you're probably doing, and we know because first of all, we've been there before, and we work with people every day who struggle with this stuff. 

Thank you for showing up; if you have any questions, put them in the comments. We've also shared our two websites so that you can learn more about each of us. I'm Jen Liddy, and this is Claudia Schalkx.

Thanks, everybody. Bye.