How to Get Your Small Business to Compete With Bigger Companies Today
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It's David V. Goliath, Let's Get You a Slingshot
When people ask me what I do for a living there's many ways I can quickly answer that question.
In fact, I've actually tried many of them on for size, just the gauge the response.
Often times, when I get to the part about my personal brand and podcast, it's met with an "oh, cool."
When I mention the people I've collaborated with and have been on my show as well as the fact we were, at one point, top 5 in the world on iTunes under Business, Health and Education, the jaws usually hit the floor.
Try three of the Sharks from Shark Tank, over 30+ New York Times Best Selling Authors and literally the household names in business and entrepreneurship...All propped right up against my own branding.
Think that serves me well?
You have no idea...
Now, I don't say that in a braggadocios manner.
At least that's not my intent.
You see, three years ago I was just a guy with a growing startup business in a small, college town.
I was having these amazing conversations with my inner circle of entrepreneurial friends and thought to myself, what if we were recording these moments?
Surely there has to be someone out in the world that could value from the content of these discussions.
Our business building journeys, although long and arduous, had been worthwhile as we found our venture growing from launch to 7 figures, completely bootstrapped, within a mere 36 months.
To say we learned a little bit along the way is the understatement of the century.
I view that as getting my Masters in Entrepreneurship.
It was fun, exciting, terrifying, painful...all wrapped up in one hellacious ride.
But what if some person was out there just trying to make ends meet?
Maybe something in my brain could benefit them and unlock something that had the power to transform their business.
Who would I be to not share the knowledge I acquired but to just keep it all to myself?
So, I borrowed my wife's microphone, accidentally forgot to change my microphone settings on my computer, started to record with my Apple Headphones instead, and began conducting my first podcast interview with one of my longest tenured mentors and life coaches.
A few days went by and we corralled all of our local entrepreneur buddies to take part in the show.
No big deal, right?
Two weeks later we achieved top-rated status on iTunes in their New and Noteworthy Section, effectively going from 20 or so downloads/day to tens of thousands!
Influencers and their teams scour the web looking for opportunities to leverage someone else's audience to convey their own message and talk about what they're up to.
All of a sudden all of my digital mentors, of whom I thought I would NEVER cross paths with, were reaching out to me and inquiring about coming on my show!
By a snowballs chance in hell (literally), I remembered I had previously connected on LinkedIn with Daymond John's right hand man over at Shark Branding.
I decided to share with them my New and Noteworthy status for the podcast and see if Daymond, yes THE Daymond, would be interested in joining me on my brand spanking new show.
I'm talking so new I still didn't have a clue what I was doing, new.
Like, plug the microphone in and hope you get it right, new.
Much to my wildest surprise, Daymond's team said "YES!"
They passed me over to his PR team and we began the process of getting him booked.
Are you *BleepBleepBleepBleeping kidding me!?
Now, the process of actually getting him ON the show is literally a story worth telling all on it's own so I'll save that one for another time but here's why I tell that story and why it should matter to you...
When You Enter Yourself Into Conversations, You Level Yourself Up
That's it, right there...
I know people don't view me in the same light as Daymond, nor should they, but I had Daymond on MY FREAKING PODCAST!
My brand, as new as it was, was juxtaposed right next to a global icon in entrepreneurship.
Do you know what sort of street cred that gives your brand?
The kind that leaves me with no hesitation to reach out to literally any other entrepreneur on the planet to come on my show.
The kind that puts me in right in play to be on stage doing a TED Talk on my new, inspiring and novel idea.
And the kind that makes my customers take me bloody seriously in a world full of people trying to grab everyone's attention.
Ask yourself this...Who would you trust to buy something from?
The random guy on Instagram with 12 followers or the guy that's having discussions with the biggest names in entrepreneurship?
Now, that dude with 12 followers might REALLY know his stuff.
In fact, you may be that dude, yourself.
And that's hopefully why you're hear today...
To figure out how you could possibly be so good at what you do or offer and yet nobody seems to want to buy from you.
Now, I'm not telling you this is a success by association type scenario.
As in, you just start putting random logos and pictures of famous people on your website and start generating sales.
In fact, if you do that, I'm quite sure you're literally going to accomplish the opposite.
It's unbelievable how many people I see try to cram in all these credentials in their profiles, profile pictures or main pages of their websites.
In most cases, you truthfully can't tell which brand you should be focused on.
Like some NASCAR driver blazing around the track with 300 logos slapped on their vehicle.
Don't be a graffiti marketer but also make sure to take advantage of the amazing assets you probably already have at your disposal!
What have YOU done that's really amazing or who have you done it with?
Maybe it's small at first, that's okay!
Sign up for an Influencive account and do a few submissions.
Guess what!?
You can put a "Featured On" Influencive logo on your website and add contributor to your bio.
Have a local college near your home?
Ask them if you can come give a speech or conduct a lecture for the students.
Have someone take some really high quality photos with you speaking to a group of people.
Now, it's not going to look as amazing as a nice TEDx logo over your shoulder but it's a start!
And that's all it takes...a start.
Eventually, when you've built up your credibility enough and established yourself as an authority, in whatever capacity you can, you begin to level up to the next big opportunity.
But you don't go from nothing to Forbes...At least, not often.
And sometimes for the wrong reasons.
And more often times it's a flash in the pan kind of scenario.
But if you're waiting to grow your business to Unicorn status before you start trying to establish yourself as an authority, you're really making life harder than it has to be.
Is it fair? No...
Is it reality? In this day and age where people have social media accounts for even their pets...YES!
What's Your BIG and Unique Opportunity?
Here's my challenge to you.
What is sitting right under your nose?
What LinkedIn connection do you have that will collab with you and help you level up your brand image?
What event can you be involved with to position yourself and/or your company in a more positive and visible light?
Maybe you write an ebook and now you can slap on places that you're an author.
Or maybe you just focus hyper-locally and dominate your geographic region to enhance your brick and mortar's chances of success against the big chain stores in your area.
The beautiful thing about deploying this strategy is it has literally never been easier to transform the perception of your entire business overnight.
Like, one main page on your website revision away kind of easy.
Truth be told, in speaking with Rusty Shelton, the guest on today's podcast, I myself thought about HUGE things we were missing out on.
For example...those amazing guests, including Daymond, I told you about.
Yea, none of those are even remotely visible on any of our core pages throughout this website.
Now, by the time you are reading this or very soon thereafter I guarantee you that has or will change.
But my point is that unless you're just a really egotistical person, this may or may not come naturally for you.
Like most things in business, brand positioning is probably a learned skill and not something you were innately born with.
Although, I will say, there may have been a point in our lives when we associated with a certain group of friends just because of what we thought it said about us...
Different topic...avoiding that tangent so you can go get to work.
Don't forget to also listen to the podcast on this subject!
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Rusty Shelton, Founder of Zilker Media and Strategist at AMG/ForbesBooks, joins Entrepreneur Hour to shed light on the secret behind how to get your small business to compete with bigger companies today using authority marketing.
Today’s Sponsor: Belay
Resources:
Authority Marketing: By Rusty Shelton and Adam Witty
Can You Really Make Your Competition Irrelevant?
Rusty Shelton first spoke at Harvard on the changing world of PR and marketing at the age of 23.
He is CEO of Zilker Media, co-author of Authority Marketing: Leveraging the 7 Pillars of Thought Leadership to Make Competition Irrelevant (ForbesBooks, 2018) and co-author of Mastering the New Media Landscape: Embrace the Micromedia Mindset (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), which was endorsed by David Meerman Scott, Tom Rath, Sally Hogshead and many others, and has been featured in Forbes, Inc. and many other top media outlets.
In addition to his role at Zilker Media, he is also Senior Marketing Strategist at Advantage Media Group. Following a successful growth period for Shelton Interactive, the agency he founded in 2010, his company was acquired by Advantage Media Group in early 2016.
He founded Shelton Interactive in 2010 with a forward-thinking model - creating a full-service digital marketing and public relations agency that integrated design, social media, website development and PR—services that are normally handled by multiple agencies—under one roof.
The company handled the launch of more than 30 New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestsellers and represented some of the world's most recognized authorities, including Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger, Tom Rath & many others.
An NSA speaker, Rusty speaks regularly around the country on the changing world of public relations, including speaking at SXSW Interactive in 2012 on the topic of “Discoverability and the Future of PR.”
An avid Texas Longhorns fan, he sits on the University of Texas Texas Exes PR Committee and is a proud member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) in Austin.
To learn more about Rusty, visit RustyShelton.com