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Far too many experts gifted with true genius end up dimming their light to appease the mainstream. This mystifies me. Why make yourself smaller than you can be? If you know you are destined for greatness, why wouldn’t you step into your true potential? Why wouldn’t you want to achieve your ultimate success — wealth, happiness and fulfillment at every level?
If you are among those truly visionary people who have succumbed to playing small thus far, this is your turning point. You must diverge. You must trust your inner compass. You’re meant for so much more than playing small can get you.
You’re the best in the world at your craft. An absolute icon in the making. Inside of you are innovations we’ve never seen before, and the world needs you to honor your genius. The world needs you and others like you to change the way things are done.
To pave the way for your transformative work, you need to position yourself as the absolute best at what you do. And you need to ensure your marketing messages reflect that position. Doing this will act as a clarion call to your perfect clients. A-list celebrities, billionaires, elite entrepreneurs and mavericks of all stripes will be absolutely magnetized to you. And together, you’ll change the world.
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Ready to craft your own magnetic marketing? Here are three ways to get started.
Own your excellence to become iconic
To help you take your first step toward honoring your true vision, I’m going to tell you something now that may make you the tiniest bit uncomfortable. But, you must make peace with it before you continue this journey. Are you ready? Here we go:
Catering to the mainstream is a complete waste of your time. To make the most of your gifts, you must step into your iconic presence and embrace a luxury business model. Over the past several years, I have studied luxury business models and learned how to apply them to personal brands to create icons. In a nutshell, the strategy comes down to creating deep, long-term relationships with clients and brands. Leveraging a top-down business model; never looking sideways or backward, only forward and innovating (never imitating). These tactics allow the world’s most gifted people — like you — to truly live in their greatness.
Truly irresistible marketing messaging follows naturally in the wake of establishing yourself as an icon and embracing the luxury business model. From there, you can show the world your brilliance and begin magnetizing your perfect-fit clients right into your orbit.
Focus on the positive to cement loyalty
Let me be clear: I’m not saying become a platitude-belching Pollyanna who never frowns or complains. I’m saying expand your vision to find ways to frame your ideas that are positive. Talk about gains, new things, growth, wealth, positive change, improvement. Even if your work and personal brand revolve around dark or complex ideas, you can still do this.
Don’t believe this is important? There are many studies proving that positive framing appeals to people and negative ideas turn them off. Think about it: five percent mortality sounds much worse than 95 percent survival, though both mean the same thing. Wouldn’t you prefer to hear someone say, we will both benefit from this deal, rather than, you will lose out if you don’t take the deal?
If you are a consultant who helps high-end clients overcome roadblocks to success, there’s no need to talk about your work in terms of the roadblocks. Don’t say, you’ll never have to slog through useless meetings, watch others poach your ideas or accept a tiny pay raise again. Say, I’ll help you make every meeting powerful, teach you to champion your vision and embolden you to ask for what you’re worth. The mainstream sells pain (and painkillers). The luxury market sells experience, elevation and expansion of possibilities.
Talk big to change the world
As an innovator, you need to ensure that what you offer is completely original and not recycled. As an icon who focuses on leading instead of teaching, you need to paint a picture of your vision. Instead of being didactic or familiar with your followers.
Stand out by using elevated, powerfully potent language whenever you describe yourself, your work and your ideas.
This ties into the importance of creating deeply emotional messaging. When you flip through a magazine and see ads for luxury brands like Gucci, Jaguar or Patek Philippe, you’ll notice they always evoke a primal emotion. They tap a driver of desire or feeling. A deeply held desire that feeds into an expanded vision of who the consumer believes they can become. Learning to elevate your language and framing will help you do the same thing. Introduce listeners to an expanded vision of who they are or can become if they follow your lead. What will they feel like? How will their lives be better? What will your ideas transform for them, and how will those changes manifest? How will the world look different and better once you’ve led your revolution?
Paint bold pictures and draw upon deep emotions. Expand minds, and show people how joining your movement will make their deepest desires manifest. Connect, imagine, describe and make them feel euphoric in your presence.
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Reinforce magnetic tactics with intention
Once you’ve adjusted your marketing messages to be elevated, positive and inspirational, then set your intentions and live them out. Make a list of the people you want to sign as clients. Include the top-tier thinkers, influencers and entrepreneurs you know would align with your vision. Acknowledge that it’s absolutely inevitable that you will work with the people who are on that list. Set that intention every day, then find ways to begin cultivating relationships with your ideal clients. Put yourself in their path, ensure they see your work and impact. Draw them into the revolution you are leading. To be frank, there is no point being a visionary and not actually making anything happen. Simply do.
Not everyone will change the world the way Einstein did. You won’t necessarily be Richard Branson or Lady Gaga. Your impact may not be as widely known. But within your own area of expertise, within your own sphere, you were meant to change humanity in a big way. You’re meant to magnetize your partners, investors, clients and colleagues to you and work together to change society. You’re meant to have a deeply transformative impact.
And when you recognize that, it’s impossible to fail.