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Make Your Business Fascinating

Well, come. All right. Welcome back. So our goal for today? Are you ready for a big goal? Okay, awesome. So our goal for today is to learn howto hook our prospects, our customers, our colleagues are influencers by making a fascinating first impression. Does that sound good? Could you guys use some more of that? Okay, awesome. So in the last lesson, we talked about how you know, it's really difficult to stand out to get noticed with your business, it can feel like your business is essentially invisible, whether online in your local community and we're here to start fixing that. Right? So when that first lesson, we looked at the seven key components of any standout business and we used seven really fast activities to start standing out with your business today, so hopefully you guys have done some of those things already. Today we're going to do another little something. All right? So this is our lesson to make your business fascinating. All right? So again, in last lesson, I talked abou...

t how the market is full of noise. There's so much noise out there, this information age that we live in that is fascinating and fantastic and wonderful, and I'm so glad that I am living in the computer age, but this world is also full of information overload, right there's noise bombarding you from every side, whether it's people telling you how to run your business, you know, like me, uh, you know, whether it's other people in the market saying kind of the same thing, you are using the same language, the same words, even the same fonts there is just so much noise. How do you get heard? And how do you figure out what to dio when you're being bombarded with all that noise every day? Well, the good news is this you have a special language, you have access to a unique way of communicating that makes your business stand out naturally. Now, the thing is, most people don't know how they're naturally fascinated. They're not really in touch with what that special language is that they possess, but today I'm going to show you how you can get in touch with what that languages and how you can use it to your advantage. Tow hook those prospects, customers, colleagues, influencers to not only make a great first impression, but to make everything in your business line up to b'more and mohr. Fascinating. Instead of just kind of being you, you're being you and your business with a purpose that's how you can really stand out naturally. So by the end of this lesson, you'll have identified which language is most effective for you so you could market your business with more ease would you guys all like marketing to be easier? Yeah, okay, all right, so the first thing we're going to start off with today is thinking about how you've been most persuasive in the past. How have you been most persuasive in the past? Damn pink wrote a really great book last year that was all about selling and sales and it's centered on this idea that whether we actually have sales in our job titles were all in sales, every single one of us needs to persuade people to our our side of things, our perspective, what we want them to dio every single day. So whether it's your kids or your partner or your colleague or your boss, you are selling things every single day, but most of us think we're not that persuasive because we're not really in touch with the natural way that we get people on our side, so I'd love to hear from one of you guys are a couple of you guys tell me about a time when you've been really persuasive in the past and what do you think made you really effective in that scenario, megan? Um I think when I'm teaching classes live is when I'm persuasive kind of get people say yes and agreeing with me I think a lot of it is because they talk about gardening in a simple way um so there's something about both probably your presence and then the simplicity of your message in that presence that makes you more persuasive. Yeah, I think a lot of times people's reactions are oh, that makes so much sense or oh that's so easy what you say are that it's just, you know, a lot about, like, common sense and simplicity catch and you get people taking action then right away when you when you can kind of make that connection with them. Yeah, awesome, awesome! And I think that action taking us almost part of the persuasiveness a swell is if you can get people to take an action and get a result and feel really capable. Not only are they persuaded to your side in that moment, but they're much more likely to be persuaded by you in the future. How about one more? When have you been persuasive in the past? Melissa, I'm just thinking about when I get really passionate about something that's when I'm most persuasive. Yeah, I mean, I just like I kind of like, you know, I light up and people get really engaged in compelled by what I'm saying yeah, when is there a time when you're having a conversation kind of what conditions make it easiest for you to get really passionate about something? Is that happen? You're writing doesn't happen on the phone, does it happen on stage definitely happens on stage? Absolutely and it happens like when I'm teaching whether it's online or in person and somebody asked me a question and I'm just riffing on it that's generally, yeah, that would be that would be the condition. Okay, perfect. Thank you guys that was very helpful will come back to those in just a moment. I think so. First, before we dive into this, I want to introduce you to someone. This is sally hogshead. Sally hogshead is author of the new york times bestselling book how the world sees you and creator of the fascination advantage system and the fascination advantage system is basically a scientific look, a research based approach toe understanding what makes an individual or a brand naturally fascinating and we're going I'm gonna break this down for you in just a couple of minutes, but the idea is there are there are certain things about the way we communicate certain ways that we communicate that make us as an individual or as a brand more fascinating, much more likely to hook someone's attention, sally says there's about nine seconds that we have to get someone's attention and so even today, starting off today's lesson I tried toe hook your attention by starting with a goal starting with an really action oriented ambitious goal because that's how I naturally fascinate so I know if I walk up on this stage and give you an ambitious goal that I'm going to lead you towards, you were going to be naturally more fascinated with me because it just makes sense it's how I approach things it's my natural style it's one of the reasons you're here all right, so sally says better isn't better different is better, better isn't better different is better now I'm all for better I'm all for striving for excellence I'm all about being ambitious and and really honing my craft and learning how to be the very best that I can be, but when it comes to market, a better doesn't cut it it's not nearly as believable it's not nearly as interesting it's, not nearly as fascinating, better or different different is better than better different is better than better. And so the whole fascination advantage system is geared. Teo understanding how you can present your message differently to be naturally more fascinating because the truth of the matter is a lot of a lot of us are saying many of the same things and maybe you're saying it in a different market or maybe you're saying it to a different group of people but our messages air largely really similar we want people to be empowered we want people to feel beautiful we want people to feel like themselves how many of how many of you are staying messages that kind of sound like that yeah many of you exactly exactly right so we can present that message differently by understanding the language in which you naturally fascinate and by leaning into that language you can hone your message to really stand out so that you don't have to rely on being better you can rely on or engineer being different so in addition to all of that noise that we talked about earlier every business faces three major threats today every business faces three major threats today the first is distraction that's really I mean that's that's the noise everyone's multitasking everyone hears from one hundred different experts on a regular basis their news feeds on facebook are just full of you know jeffs and auto loading videos and all sorts of things that that pull them away from your message and pull you away from your own message and your own unique way of being that's a diss track ction we also face of course competition the market has never been more crowded now I don't think that's a problem but it iss if you're boring right? And so if there's anything that you pull out of the next twenty five lessons of build a standout business it's don't be boring right because boring is really but that just sets you up for being at the whim of the competition who wants to be at the whim of the competition you want to be in control on the next one is commoditization commoditization is is about understanding that race to the bottom essentially because there's there's lots of different industries today that are in a race to the bottom in fact all industries today are in a race to the bottom everything it can be done faster everything can be done often with more precision by a computer I mean just even think I got to the studio today in an uber car which means I didn't have to hail a cab you know that's that's commoditization their their comm modifying um you know private driver services making it cheaper making it easier but that said there's also room on the upper end of the market right there's room for those services that pick you up with a sign at the airport or create a special experience for you in the car and so that's the opposite end of commoditization that's what people are willing to pay maur money for even though the function of the service is the same and with very few exceptions you all are running businesses that are geared teo a much higher end of the market than what commoditization allows unfortunately if you are not building a standout business if you're not marketing your dick prince you get pulled down with the rest of the commodities and that's why it can feel very difficult to charge the price that you want to charge. So learning your fascination language can also let you charge mohr money. Does that sound good? All right, so by learning how you are naturally fascinating, you can combat each of these three threats naturally. Now, in the previous lesson, I told you that every business has a distinct and unique stand out style and we're working on building those slide dex those style guides for our businesses. Well, the way you fascinate is part of your standout style. In fact, I would say it's it's the lens is that you convey you most of the rest of your standout style through whether it's your guiding principles that we'll talk about in the next lesson, whether it's your conditions for connection, whether it's your key performance indicators you can think about all those different aspects of your standout style through your unique fascination language would you like me to tell you about what thes fascination languages are by now? Yeah, ok, cool so there are seven language is seven advantages of fascination and again the system was developed by sally hogg said, you can find out how to fascinate dot com the seven languages and advantages of fascination the first one is innovation this is the language of creativity people who use innovation come up with unconventional solutions to conventional problems. They present ideas or concepts and really remarkable, unexpected ways they they they work with barriers in their path like they weren't even there. They just find some, you know, crazy route around them. They are creative, innovative people. So be thinking about as I go through these which one of these languages feels most comfortable to you feels like the way people naturally perceive you as being persuasive and compelling and fascinating. The second language is passion. Passion is the language of emotion, of connection, of relationship. People who used the language of passion build relationships really quickly. They create points of emotional connection that get people on their side really fast. They tell stories they use personal experiences exactly what melissa was saying when she was talking about how she can get so excited about something that gets other people excited. Teo, that kind of contagious a feeling that comes along without about one on one or one too many relation alot experience that's the language of passion. The next language is the latin language of power and that is the the language of strength really strong opinions, leadership, ambition, strength, power is my language I like to stand on stage and tell you like it isthe right that's power the prestige is the language of excellence people who use prestige as a language, a really results oriented, they might tell you stories, but those stories are going to be about big trans big transformation or they're going to be about space pacific results that they've gotten their on ly striving for the next thing, they're also really ambitious people, they have a high sense of of noticing details, they're not necessarily people who would you really identify as detail oriented? In other words, they don't know cece, I really want to be working in the details, but they notice all of the details and they want those details to be impeccable. The next language is trust, which is the language of consistency, the language of consistency, trust is all about building loyalty, buy, you know, having predictable patterns by doing things the same way every time um, they're approachable, there are steadfast you, you can trust them. I mean that's, that's, it's pretty that one's pretty straightforward. Now, just because you don't use the trust language just because consistency isn't your style doesn't mean you're not trustworthy, but these people trust people, you you just trust him. All right? Mystique. A lot of my clients used the mystique language mystique is the language of substance, it's, the language of listening of depth, people who use the language of mystique might not put their opinion out there right away they're definitely not going to stand up here and tell you how it iss what they're going to do instead is call you up on stage, ask you a few questions, then ask you a few questions mohr and dive deeper and deeper and deeper until they have that insight that pinpoints exactly what's going on for you mystique is the language of listening and those people persuade as much through listening as they do through talking it's a really unique interesting language I love mystique people and I love figuring out marketing for mystique people because mystique people cannot use the normal marketing thanks, but they cannot it would be weird it doesn't make sense, it doesn't feel natural for them and it doesn't feel natural for their audience, so instead we need to be creative and find new ways for them to market themselves and then the last one is alert this is the language details these are the people who identify is detail oriented. These are the people who want to spot a problem and then just really get in there they're goingto pick apart every little piece of that problem, examine every small detail and repackage it up with a brilliant solution so alert people are going to be really data driven really research driven scientific in the way they approach problems they're fascinating people to watch everyone's fascinating to watch but alert but that alert languages is really, really interesting again it's the language of details so innovation, passion, power, prestige, trust mystique and alert now amy, I asked you to keep it special mind for what which one of those languages feels not only natural to you but the way that other people see how the world sees you, how people perceive you both as an individual and likely as a brand as well which one of those languages really stands out to you? Definitely the passion when yes yeah I definitely resonate with some of the components of prestige in trust but passion for sure excellent all right that's exactly what I had in mind for you as well tell me about the prestige piece is that are you super results oriented? Do you like to tell stories about results or are transformation that yes, but also there is a component to details that I get really, really lost in instead of calling it anal, I'd like to say that I have a value around accuracy and precision you're a coach would say right? Yes, absolutely so that sounds very prestige so that a part that I but but I also feel very connected to the passion piece to nice nice and tell me about the trust piece or do you have a high value for consistency and building loyalty through consistency? Absolutely I'm it freaks me out if there's a different message in my facebook branding versus my website like everything needs to be really, really, really good assistant yeah, you have a lot of systems built into your business a cz well so that your assure that the customer experience is kind of the same every single time I do I don't know if they're done well wait we could talk about that another time but if that's something that you value if that's something that's really important to you it very likely that that's what other people are perceiving of us? Well that you know amy is someone I want to work with because she really values, you know, my experience being impeccable and consistent every single time and I really like how she communicates with me in terms of stories are really makes me feel hurt or I get just as excited as she gets because of the way that she connects with me yeah, beautiful so well I want each of you to kind of pick what that top language is we actually have facility in a few different languages some people have facility across the board where they might be able to choose one or two that they really identify with and that other people really identify with them as well um but they they can use anything to talk to people really others of us uh lean really heavily into one, two or three and then have some that barely measure it all like for me trust and alert barely measures at all but power, prestige, mystique and passion measure really highly so I don't worry too much about the fact that trust and alert don't work for me because I've got my own tool kit right and knowing that I can lean into those things an engineer my marketing an engineer, my messaging engineer the way I stand on stage to take advantage of those languages now to give you a little bit further insight into this system this is the forty nine personality art types chart that sally has devised as part of this system so you can see the way the system works you have a primary fascination advantage or language and a secondary fascination language and when you combine those two things you get your fascination archetype and how many of you know your archetypes perfect let's go down the line really fast michelle provocateur provocateur ashley from markets are corner patrice trendsetter nice royal guard connoisseur royal guard were going to call you the talent how talent is expressive, stylish and emotionally intelligent I'll take that sound good tio take okay sweet shelly nice the catalyst nice avant garde nice rock stone of course you are frigid catalyst connoisseur the change agent nice beautiful I should have done a heat map on you guys, but we'll do that another time all right? So again, if you want to take the fascination advantage assessment and find out what your unique archetype is because there's so much more that we could dive into here, you could goto how to fascinate dot com but whether you choose to take the test or not, you can still really use this system to shape your marketing and make it naturally more fascinating for you so to demonstrate that I've got a little activity that I'm going to ask to audience members to improvise so let's say this camera is a product that you see sell, we'll start with shelley because she's a photographer and so maybe she'd like to actually solve this camera so um different languages would sell this camera in different ways, right? So let's pick uh let's pick innovation I would like you to come up here and sell this camera using innovation, which is the language of creativity um creative problem solving unexpected ideas so this camera's great, I've used it for years and it allows you to capture lots of light it's fully manual so you get to be the one that decides not the computer you get to really enhance your creativity and try all kinds of wonderful things with it and it comes with this fantastic lens that I totally love it's top of the line awesome. So what? Okay, so that was interesting. So what you did was you spoke to the photographer's sense of innovation yes, another way you could do it to say this is the brand new camera on the market there has never been a camera like this before and let me tell you about this lens because it's got a state of the art feature that is brand new it's going to create really unexpected results which you're gonna love and learn how to be able to use uh, yeah etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So I really liked what you did and there's you know, you can go both ways. There's a lot of there's a lot of variety allowed here too, so that was perfect. Thank you, melissa you're my second victim. I mean, volunteer I would like you to use up trust to sell. I know. See, I wanted to give you a challenge. I'd like it's, not one of my languages. Okay, so remind me the language of trust the language of trust is about consistency, loyalty, steadfastness uh, doing things kind of the same way every time this camera is going to be your new best friend it's going toe uh you're going to carry it with you everywhere it's always going to be there for you, it will never let you down um it will give you consistent results you take your pictures you're going to know exactly what you're going to get you're gonna be ableto move this settings I don't speak camera speak flip the switches and get exactly the result you want perfect way so just call out a couple of things that you did there you started off by saying this camera's gonna be your new best friend and best friend I mean you could use a best friend with passion but I think best friend also really applies well with trust because your best friend is someone who is always there for you right? So you kind of personified this idea of consistency and loyalty right off the bat brilliant brilliant copyrighting but then the other thing you did was really lean hard into how this camera is always going to be there for you can pull it out take a picture and you know what kind of result you're going to get which is exactly the language of trust absolutely perfect cool let's give him a head you want michelle I think you need one more example let's do power do you need to power pose ago unknown okay, well you have to have this camera I mean it is the best one on the market so if you are serious about photography it's the only choice perfect just stopped there that's perfect if you're serious about photography this is the only choice so that is a strong opinion and it's a strong opinion that's going tio really appeal to someone who's ambitious who has you know, big goals this is the camera that's going to get them those goals right really thank you thank you rochelle wait you can see here is you know, imagining this was even just the same exact camera you can sell the same exact camera three different ways you can sell that same exact camera seven different ways and then all of the beauty and nuance that can happen inside of each of those languages as well. So no matter what you sell, whether you're a life coach a photographer, a jeweler you can take your product and put your unique fascinating spin on it, right? I'm a business coach in a business strategist who is goal oriented, intense ah leader who not on ly I and I'm not only those things but I want to bring those things out in my clients as well I want you to be goal oriented I want you to improve your business with intensity. I want you to see yourself as a leader in your business now not every business coach or strategist is goingto have that message some of them are going to say I'm going to push you to the best results you've ever gotten to the height of excellence others are going to say you know, using your google analytics will get you to the next level in your business. Other people are going to say, I am going to be your businesses new best friend, and we're going to talk about the stories and the emotion and the mindset behind your business. Each of those different ways of positioning and messaging and communicating are part of our associated with a different language you're selling the same product, but with a different language. And do you see to how you would pay more for those services depending on what was important to you? So in other words, people who are really ambitious goal oriented who want to see themselves as leaders are going to pay me more to work with me, then you know, just kind of you're joe schmo, james schmo, business coach or strategist, right? But someone who has that really hybrid relational component, someone who really wants a business best friend or I've got friends who think of themselves as business therapists s o they might be mystique people, but, you know, there the people who are going to work with them will be willing to pay more to get that kind of support, we have that kind of relationship with them, all right? So not only can this help you stand out, but it can help you charge mohr and get better results with your clients because they're going to be less distracted you are giving them exactly what they expect from you you are filling their need exactly they way they want that need filled and so they're much less likely to be distracted by other influences make sense you have any questions about us and yes, cathy um I'm a prestige yes, so alert is definitely not in my wheelhouse I don't care to get into the details, but I'd notice every detail so how would you sell something? I think that I'm really struggling with that how would you sell it from a prestige? How would I sell the camera from his head or coaching or whatever you want? So, um so one thing prestige personalities do really well if you're not a detail oriented person to hire a detail oriented person. So this can also really help with team building, which I mean that's a whole nother workshop in and of itself, right? But so like I have my main person, my project manager assistant person is a mediator so she's trust plus alert, which means she covers the two bases that I absolutely cannot cover because I also have that really high value for prestige and I want the details to be impeccable I just don't want to have anything to do with them, so from a sales perspective, though it's not so much about on the prestige side it's not so much about noticing the details as it is created in creating an experience about the details so you might talk about the precision settings on this camera or you might talk about how the images are crystal clear crisp the colors are perfect okay and not that impeccable nests is what you're really wanting to lean into and the experience of using something that is truly excellent that truly embodies excellence and so for you in your business it's going to be much more about the results then it is necessarily about the details the details would be more aboutthe how like when I come into your business to do a workshop or teo deliver a talk I'm going to create an experience that is impeccable I use that word a lot because I really like that word on and I think that it I think that it encapsulates a lot of what we're looking for us prestige personalities to s o I'm going to create an experience that's impeccable which means you know the workbook is going to be beautiful everyone is going to have a pen that works really well the brown bag lunch is going to be designed to keep people at a high energy level I mean those are the kinds of things do you think about details like that I do when I'm laughing because I'm thinking holy crap! I gotta hire somebody right away because I am not going to do all that. Absolutely that's what ideo I want all of those things to be right too, but I don't want to touch them at all, so I have someone else do them. You know, even though our businesses you know are largely micro businesses, you might be both the face and the person behind the scenes of your business, but it doesn't mean that you have to be in business alone. And just because your business is based on orleans into certain languages doesn't mean that you don't want to also have the bases covered on the other side, right? You don't want gaping holes in your business. There might be some things that you value more than others and that's totally fine, but for what's important to you, you want to be able to build out a team, whether that's, a really flexible, fluid team or a team that's in house that allows you to take care of those things. Other questions about this patrice struggle for me, so my primary language is innovation. How do I balance that in an industry that's, very conservative and rooted in tradition, like the legal industry, yes, so lawyers are we want our lawyers to have trust as a language right we want them to talk to us about consistency and loyalty and we just want to know what to expect from them so one thing here is that this is an opportunity for you to really find your niche okay you you want people who are interested in a different kind of legal solution and that is not going to be everybody but what you have there is a riel opportunity to stand out in that market and buy really leaning into innovation and saying you know my pricing structure is different the way you work with me it's different I'm going to get you the same solutions if not better but working with me isn't going to feel like your average lawyer working with me is going to feel like a fun creative reverent experience it's okay and you may not use exactly those words but that's I think that's the energy that you want to put out and that's gonna help you stand out in that market right because every other lawyer is either concentrating on percy sti jj I've won this many awards I've gotten the east kind of results for my clients were there focused on trust I'm consistent I'm loyal you can always depend on me and if you come out and say I'm creative I'm fun I'm a reverent and I am going to find solutions that changed the game for you that that's a standout message okay okay how about one more plus that similar question ah as a the creativity coach side of my hand my business I am the kind of source of my top languages prestige and my second language is passion which I totally understand but the prestige part first well that word is hard for me to wrap my head around cause I'm not like the person who needs a mercedes you know yeah I understand that word is just a placeholder for that language but how would somebody who's in a you know a service oriented business you know I'm on a mission to empower people to feed their creative hunger so how would I use that language so I think the empowerment piece there is it is a big like that should that's your word right and I think that that empowering piece speaks to the way people see you as heir perceive us striving for excellence because in your case maybe it's not about concrete results it's about that transformation of mindset from someone who's feeling disempowered to feeling completely empower on dh that transformation telling a story about that transformation is going to be out really effective for you so prestige might actually be the what of what you d'oh which I realize is going probably seems weird but remember it's not how you see yourself it's how others see you others see us creating big transformation that's the prestige piece and the how is the passion piece? So the how is I do it through stories? I do it by creating relationships I do it through emotional connections and these are the pieces these are the tools in my toolbox to help you get that big transformation super helpful thank you good you're welcome all right, so let's look at today's homework today's homework is to identify your top two fascination languages the fascination languages that resonate the most with you. So whether you've taken the test or not just want you to think about what which two languages make you naturally more compelling naturally more fascinating and just like what we were talking about with melissa there remember that this is as much if not more about how people perceive you about how the world sees you than it is about how you see yourself two I'd love you to analyze a recent piece of marketing to maybe pull up a tweet, pull up a block post, pull up a facebook page or a fake facebook post and look to see if you used one of those languages to earn attention. Maybe you look at the facebook post that just really blew up and try and figure out why it blew up didn't use one of your fascination languages didn't use both of them or maybe put something out there that totally fell flat they're like this is brilliant or, man, I really nailed that one, and then no one responded. I hate it when that happens, well, without fail. When that happens, to me, it is because I have ignored my fascination languages and tried to do something different. Different is better. And unless you're doing something that's different from what you should be doing, right, okay, so analyze a recent piece of marketing, and then I want you to tweet me. So I'm at terra gentilly, and you can use the hashtag standout biz because the lovely folks that creative live, our tracking that hashtag very closely. So tweet me with the fascination and languages that you've identified.