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Self-Marketing Power
By Robert Skrob | May 31, 2008
I just read th
e book, Self Marketing Power written by Jeff Beals. Jeff had some good observations I wanted to share with you. Jeff is the Vice President of Operations at Coldwell Banker Commercial World Group.
This book is a manual for small business owners or corporate executives to build a reputation for themselves within their community. Jeff compares this effort to a political campaign.
To win an election, a candidate focuses on ‘name recognition.’ To get this recognition they do a lot of advertising. However, they also show up at events, festivals and anywhere voters gather. By showing-up, these candidates meet people and get talked about. Next, Jeff talks about American’s fascination with celebrities. American’s stare, approach and lavish them with praise, even when they production is mediocre.
Thus, Jeff’s advice is for you to focus on building your name recognition and become a celebrity. If a potential customer looks in the phone book for some one to hire, they are likely to choose the name they recognize. If that’s your name, you get the customer.
The rest of the book features 16 chapters on how you can increase your name recognition and become a celebrity. There are eight rules including developing an expertise, embrace professionalism and communicate effectively.
There is good chapter with advice about speaking and writing. Sure, a lot of people are fearful of ever writing anything for publication. But that pales next to the number of people scared about speaking from the stage. However, Jeff is right. These strategies are extremely effective in building your name recognition and making you into a celebrity in your community. The magic is because so many fear doing it themselves. Since they’d never have the guts to do it, they give you a lot of credit when you give a presentation. If you can speak and write, you’ll never be hurting for clients.
Jeff does provide some warnings for you when you put yourself in the spotlight. From my experience his advice in this area is a little light. I’ve seen a lot of my friends unfairly criticized. Certainly I feel like I’m unfairly criticized. However, as a business owner it’s critical that you build name recognition and celebrity. The criticism is a sure sign that you are building a strong brand that creates criticism, yet attracts great customers who are motivated to do business with you.
Jeff Beals is scheduled to be my guest on Business Profits Radio on the June 16th show. Now that you have the basics of becoming a celebrity I plan on asking Jeff from some advanced strategies on the show. .
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