Transcription
How do you continue to grow a brand in this space confidently, effectively without slipping into anything showy, shouty, or overly self-promotional? I have an advisory business and I love helping people quietly, but I also want to grow. That's from Andrew.
That's a really good question.
It is a good question, isn't it? It's also the right question because I suppose in luxury or advisory work even, you know, once you start bellowing about how marvelous you are, you've actually lost the room, haven't you? Because the kind of people you're trying to target, they don't particularly trust noise and that's what you become.
Yeah. I mean, they notice it, don't they? Like if if you start waffling on about I don't know how brilliant you are and trying to be like a you know teenager who's got this side hustle of like eBay or or YouTube or something. You can see like you can smell it from a dis like their BO right you know like you could be you can smell it from a distance that they're trying really really hard to sell to you. Um, I see it on YouTube all the time. Or like those gurus, and I say gurus like this, who say that you can make like a gazillion pounds in 30 days. You just sign up to their course. Right.
Exactly. Do you remember those ab machines from the '9s?
No.
That they would say, "Yes, you can have perfect abs in 30 days." And um Yeah. Yeah. They were infomercials. They were fabulous. They had very good-looking models on them.
Oh, abs. Not ads.
Yes. Abs.
So, but you're right. In this in this particular space, the signal has to be well, it has to be quiet enough that the right people feel clever for picking it up.
And the way you do that is is by showing the thinking, not the actual outcome. So, you talk about patterns that you've noticed, shifts in clients behavior, little insights.
Yeah. that sort of thing that only someone from your vantage point is going to see.
Yeah. Because it's um much better, isn't it, to like make the expertise visible without pointing to yourself with that like neon sign. You know that thing when people go, I'm an expert. I'm an expert. And they've got this big flashy sign and it's just so tacky and cringe, right?
Yeah. It's so tacky. But you also don't forget you're building a library. And the thing is, you're not just posting for today's engagement. You're also creating this whole body of work so that when somebody's deciding whether you're the real thing or not, then they've got months or years of your brain to browse through. Right.
Yeah. Which is why I think that um LinkedIn works really well if you use it properly. And we already know that the people you're actually after rarely comment, but they'll be watching. And then you become the kind of person they've seen or think that you're saying sort of sensible things and interesting things for a like year and then one day they need you. That kind of Yeah. One day, not tomorrow. And YouTube also works really well in the same way. And YouTube cuz YouTube gives you depth, doesn't it? So you can't really show nuance
in a really snappy LinkedIn post.
Now, you can get attention with a LinkedIn post, but a 10-minute YouTube video that where you break things down, say for example, you know, why certain pricing structures repel the wealthy or whatever example it is. That's you demonstrating value without once asking for work. and looking desperate and needy, right?
Yeah. And actually, I think that's a much better demonstration than here's a client I help triple their revenue with, which just sounds again, you just sound like a car salesman, you know, like you're just selling magic beans.
It's right.
It's so true because the wrong kind of self-promotion
is transactional and it's you saying, "I did this for them. I can do this for you. I can, I will, me.
So many people fall into the trap of making it all about them when
Yeah.
The truth is the client actually doesn't care about you.
I say this all the time. It's almost my mantra.
All the time.
The client, they care about what you can do for them. Nothing more than that. They don't care that you have, you know, 25,000 awards or that you have 19 million certificates. They care what you can do for them.
So, it's much better than letting them see how you think so that they can decide for themselves that you're you're actually the one, right?
Yeah. I mean, it's like quiet selling in a way, right? M and it works precisely because it doesn't feel like selling which is also why you have to keep doing it even when it feels like no one's paying attention.
So because it's true because you know the clients yes they're watching silently but and it is a pain in the tits that they don't comment because
they don't want their name under your post so they're totally ignoring you.
Yeah.
But they're not. They're watching. Well, I suppose the good thing with that is you can't really kind of fake that kind of credibility. You either have it or don't. And you can either talk about it intelligently week after week after week, you know, building up into that year, or you just run out of material after three posts and resort to kind of like, I don't know, inspirational quotes from that.
Those posts get a lot of engagement.
Hey, look, there is a place for them, but yeah. No, they're hideous. But it and and it's when you start to do this that people smell desperation, don't they?
You know, if you're growing quietly, you need discipline.
So, one or two good intelligent pieces a week every week is a good start.
Yeah.
And over time, you know, it stops being promotion and becomes presence.
And it also becomes habit, which is great.
Yeah. And that's the bit I think that people underestimate, isn't it? because it's the overtime bit. And I think you and I have both seen this cuz people expect one post to bring in business next week and they're selling 500 units of whatever it is that they've got and then when it doesn't be guilty of they they just give up. And I mean I Yeah, I have. I've definitely fallen into that trap myself.
It's Have you
Don't tell anyone. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't let you fall into that trap for long enough for you to be trapped. But it does tell you one thing though, doesn't it? That they were never serious about brand building in the first place,
you know, because you have to remember, you're not creating a campaign. You're building a reputation. And that's a much much slower burn because it lasts longer and costs less than constantly hustling.
Yeah. And then you're avoiding um the other trap, which is looking like you've got too much time on your hands. So you see people in advisory work who are posting like influences three videos a day, constant selfies, tagging like half the city and it just screams I have no clients. Right.
Yeah. I have no clients whatsoever. And I'm not sure whether I want to be an advisor or an influencer. So I'm just going to do everything. And I mean that's why I always say the louder someone shouts the less expensive they usually are because you know
so true it
right because high net worth clients they don't want the loudest voice they want the voice that they've been quietly aware of for years.
Yeah absolutely and it means you can still have that kind of understated discreet feel. You're not announcing your every move, you know, like an influencer. You're not telling them every time you go to the L, but you're not invisible either by doing it that way.
Precisely. And it's the art of the ability to be seen enough to be remembered, but never so much that people think you're chasing attention. You know, you're not. What's her name? Katie, whatever her name is with the big
big bosoms.
Katie Price.
Yes. with the Yeah, I thought you were going to say Taylor Swift to be honest. And I was thinking about a conversation I overheard her have with um Kanye West, like it was a recording of her talking about being oversaturated and overexposed. And it's, you know, that if you come away and stay in where you're talking about, it's actually quite freeing and it means that you can grow without doing anything that makes you kind of cringe and like uncomfortable. Right. Right. It's just I suppose about it's about keeping the work visible and consistent
and then let them come to you like a honey trap almost.
Yeah. Yeah.