Use What Challenges You Have Faced To Make A Connection With Your Audience
Your adversities can be used within marketing your business, so you can leverage what challenges you have faced to connect with your audience.
Life is a rollercoaster and you will have come across many hurdles in your life up to now. This may sound strange, but you can use what challenges you have faced to benefit your business. The reason I say this is because there will be tiny snippets that will strike a chord with people. Therefore, it will help them relate to you more and more importantly create a connection.
So far, I have concentrated on extracting your story to build up your levels of authenticity. People need to understand who you are and what makes you tick. Also, we have looked at what your talents and gifts are which can then be packaged into products or services.
Today I want to focus on what challenges you have faced in your life and how you have overcome them. The reason is that this part of your story can be some of the most powerful segments to use in your message.
So What Challenges Have You Faced & How Did You Come Out The Other Side?
I want you to think about 5 adversities and challenges that you have faced in your life. Then I want you to write down in detail the back story behind them and the journey you undertook. What were your go to skill sets that you used and the action plan that you put into place?
Your adversities could cover many aspects of your life, for example emotionally, physically or practically. It is important that you delve deep into what exactly the problem was and how it was affecting your life. This may be an uncomfortable process to go through, but it will help create and craft your messages to your audience.
We are still at the stage of developing your story and this exercise will prove to be highly emotional for you. This emotion is what you need to transmit to your potential leads and customers because it will hit them where it counts. In their heart!
The way you dealt with your adversities may have included going into a survival mode. Prioritising what need to be done at all costs. This is the type of emotion you must deliver because it will show your true authenticity. Also, it will illustrate your authority because you have come out of the other side, which is your social proof.
You maybe thinking what this has to do with your business so let me clarify that. On one of our Build Your AU masterminds a gentleman shared his adversities. They included how his business was in trouble and the catastrophic events that unfolded which forced him to close the business.
It was a highly emotional and powerful story which struck a chord with one of the other attendees. She had experienced that situation within her family and the memories came flooding back.
Emotion Creates That Connection
What happened in this moment was two things. It proved the point of stories create connections because neither had known of each other’s situation. That single snippet brought them together which is what you need when trying to attract people to your business.
The other thing is that out of his story the gentleman then created a product idea. He has already got a business model that he is developing but the adversity he experienced could then be monetized. If you have followed me for a while, then you will know that I am economically focused. Problems require solutions which can generate revenue, it is as simple as that.
Anyway, in this scenario I threw into the conversation that maybe a 6-week course could be created. The course could detail the journey he had been on and provide the resources for other people in that situation. He has the authority because he created the solution which has led him to close that chapter and move on.
So, the exercise I am asking you to go through could provide you with ideas for products and services you may not have thought of. Then you can start to create your message and deliver to your potential audience. On that note here are some ideas on how to create and deliver that message.
How To Find People Looking For A Solution
Delivering your message can be achieved through many ways but I think video is the most powerful medium. That’s not to say the written word is not powerful because it is and if you do it right you can combine the two.
Out of the data you have created around your adversities you will able to pull small nuggets out of it. These are small snippets that you can create a message around and then look for what people are searching for online.
Google is a fabulous resource because people are on it every second of the day searching for solutions. What they are typing into Google are referred to as keywords such as “How to lose 12lbs in 4 weeks”. That is a very specific search term which clearly defines what that person wants.
If part of your story and adversities involves you being overweight, and you achieved this then you are a perfect match. When I say perfect match, I mean you will make a connection with the person on the other side of the screen. The way to do it is to focus on why you wanted or needed to lose the weight. Not to just say “I was fat and lost this weight so buy my product” because it won’t resonate.
What you must do is tell people your “Why”. It would have been the excess weight was causing other health problems, or it was affecting relationships, or maybe it caused depression. These are very specific reasons which other people will relate to and resonate with. That is when you will make the connection.
How To Deliver Your Message On What Challenges You Have Faced
As I said video is very powerful because you can show the emotion behind the story. This will show your authenticity in it’s finest because you will be vulnerable and open. People wick pick up on your body language and tone and it will create emotion within side them. They will see you as raw and real and want to know more about you.
When I said you can combine video and text, I mean you can then embed that video within a blog on your website. Or you could just write a blog on the very same subject because people have preferences on how they consume their content. By doing this you are covering all bases to maximise the impact you want to make.
The important thing is that you must start a conversation and the subject of what challenges you have faced is powerful. People want to be told that there is a solution for them, but they don’t want the message to be sugar coated. Leveraging adversity, emotion and social proof is the most powerful marketing message you can deliver.
Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.
Trish Davies
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