5 Simple Strategies to Choose Brand Building Associations-Darnyelle A. Jervey

When you first enter the marketplace as an entrepreneur or you seek to reinvent your business, it can be overwhelming to realize everything that goes into effective brand development and management. When you consider the fact that everything you do consciously or unconsciously affects your brand, it becomes increasingly important to make sure that each experience is one that will enhance your brand and bring you closer to achieving brand equity.

Brand equity is the power a brand earns over time based on the experience, reputation and name recognition it gains, which translates into more clients, more income and more freedom. You earn brand equity by building your brand consciously and actively. By delivering what you said you would plus more to create an emotional response with your clients or customers. You increase your brand positioning when your clients refer their friends and family to you because they know you, like you and more than anything, they trust you.

Beware; however, one false association can stop your brand building in its tracks. With social media bringing the world closer than ever before, it is so easy to get caught up with people who appear to be exactly what your brand needs to bloom. I caution you, however, to not get sidetracked; but to instead validate the association before you find yourself tangled in a web that is not going to add any equity to your brand.

Entrepreneurs attract entrepreneurs and something that appears too good to be true might just be. So to mitigate the risk to your brand, do your due diligence and research anyone who is asking to partner with you because they believe that together you can change the world. Don’t get me wrong, you might actually be able to change the world together, but you just want to be sure that the change is going to be positive, brand affirming and a win-win for all parties involved, especially your clients.

To help you create relationships that will build your brand, consider these simple strategies:

1. If you’re considering joining forces with someone, try them out first. Make sure that their message completely resonates with your message. Join their mailing list. Follow them on Twitter to see what they are tweeting about. Attend one of their events; get on one of their tele-seminars, etc. Validate that if you hang out with them, you will feel natural, like you are hanging out with yourself.

2. Be sure that you can answer why your brand and theirs is a good fit.

3. Research them. Check Google to see what the world has to say about them. Do you like what you read? While some argue if one bad apple really spoils the whole bunch, others argue that one bad apple makes you think the rest of the apples are bad too.

4. Make sure that they are already gathering your ideal clients together but their product or service doesn’t compete with yours. You want to ensure that any strategic partnerships or relationships enhance and complement one another.

5. Interview them. Ask them hypothetical scenarios to get a firm understanding of where they are on the topics that matter most to you and your clients.

When you choose to utilize these simple strategies to create effective, brand building relationships, your brand will become an Incredible One.

©2011 by Darnyelle A. Jervey. All Rights Reserved. Darnyelle A. Jervey, The Incredible Factor Business Mentor and Coach, is the founder of IncredibleOneEnterprises.com and the Leverage Your Incredible Factor System® a proven step by step program for turning your passion into profit. For more information and a FREE audio CD "How to Use Your Incredible Factor to Attract MORE Ideal Clients" visit http://www.incredibleoneenterprises.com.

Does Your Incredible Factor have STYLE?-Darnyelle A. Jervey

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the way you dress or your hair style. I’m not talking about how you enter a networking event or the way you shake a hand. I’m not even talking about your business card or company brochure.

Although each of these are important to the image you portray when you are out and about sharing your Incredible Factor with others, today we are talking about creating a STYLE that offers Solutions That have ideal clients Yearning to Learn how they can Experience working with you.

That’s right, your goal as a service-based entrepreneur (coach, author, speaker, event planner, hair stylist, attorney, trainer, consultant, etc) is to present yourself in such a compelling way that your ideal clients rise up and say, “He/she is talking to me, they can solve my problem. I can’t afford not to get their solutions.”

You MUST become a problem solver.

If your Incredible Factor is not solving a problem in the marketplace, you have no STYLE and if you have no STYLE you have no clients, no income, no business.

When you lack STYLE, people look at you funny and your phone doesn’t ring. No one wants to spend time with you because they are afraid others will see them in your presence. They see spending time with you as a waste because all you do is talk a good game without any evidence to support it.

If you truly want your passion to produce a profit, then you need to create compelling marketing materials that create an eruption in the lives of your prospects. They will be ready to do anything and pay anything to finally solve their problem because you are showing them the solution.

Successful entrepreneurs have figured this out and they have taken their STYLE to the next level. They are using their Incredible Factor to serve the world in a big way because they realize that people need their Incredible Factor, just like people need yours.

Your job is to first get STYLE and then to share it so it begins to attract your ideal clients and grow your business. Remember the universal law of business “find people who are currently experiencing the problem that you solve who are ready RIGHT NOW to pay for a solution”? This is the key to closing another client, getting booked for one more speaking engagement, being referred to plan another event, etc.

Want STYLE:

1. Develop a mindset that allows you to get out of your own way and focus on sharing your STYLE with those who need you. 95% of everything is attitude [mindset] only 5%, which is fully teachable and transferable, is skill.

You should get excited; yet, FEAR shuts many people down (perhaps even you) because they have a self-sabotaging mindset and they can’t see beyond their own mess. As a good friend of mine says, “get out of your head and into your heart.” That’s where your Incredible Factor does its best work. That is where you realize the intrinsic value you offer to the lives of others.

Your EGO keeps you afraid of what having STYLE will mean and therefore your business suffers, which means your family suffers as well. I know that you didn’t go into business to suffer; you went into business to make a profound difference and share your STYLE with others.

Your Incredible Factor has absolutely nothing to do with you; it is about and for others to be served in a big way. When you lack confidence and believe that no one wants to work with you or you buy into the lies you’ve been told for a very long time, (no one wants your product or service, you are not qualified for the business you have, people will know you’re a fraud, etc.) your STYLE quotient goes way down. It’s true; people want to work with experts who know they have STYLE and gladly share their STYLE so they can be enriched, empowered and informed and most importantly so their problems can be solved.

2. Get clear on the problems of your ideal client. Get clear on how you solve those problems. Get testimonials to support the results you say you offer.

If you are not sure what you do for your clients, ask them. I’m sure they’d be happy to tell you.

Consider sending a survey to determine what they need to go to their next level as it pertains to the services you provide. Go back through your client folders and look at the notes you’ve made after their initial consultation and as you worked directly with them. What did you uncover?

Also, look at your top 5 clients; you know the ones that if you could get 100 more of them, you’d be set. What do they all have in common? What was their problem? What brought them to work with you? What did you do for all of them? Did they consistently share how your ideas and advice with others that made a difference in their lives? Did they refer others to work with you because you solved their problem?

Sidebar, if you cannot answer these questions or you don’t like the responses, I recommend investing in a business coach or mentor to help you identify the answers to these questions.

If you want STYLE, you’ve got to be willing to say, “I need help,” and invest in your business to get it. Remember, if you don’t invest in yourself to solve your problems, clients will not invest in you.

3. Determine what questions you can ask to engage your ideal prospects. In my world, we call these “pull marketing questions,” because they “pull” them in to your solution to their problem.

If they come on their own, you don’t have to beg and plead or lower your prices to get them to join your program, become your client, etc.

What can you put on your website, business card, include in your 30-second commercial that will let ideal prospects that are listening, reading, following you, know that YOU have the solution they’ve been searching for?

4. Once you get clear on their problems and your solutions, to enhance your STYLE, offer a high-value, high content irresistible free offer for them to get tuned into your STYLE.

People love to buy but they will only buy when they know you, like you and trust you. Perhaps a free tele-class (be sure your title and content is results oriented NOT processes focused.)

People don’t care how you do what you do, they care about results. If you can show them consistently that you are the ONLY solution to their growing problems, they will begin to say “I like your STYLE.”

5. Share your free offer everywhere so that they can self-select to learn more and once you’ve been given an audience with them, use your STYLE to solve their problem!

©2011 by Darnyelle A. Jervey. All Rights Reserved. Darnyelle A. Jervey, The Incredible Factor Business Mentor and Coach, is the founder of IncredibleOneEnterprises.com and the Leverage Your Incredible Factor System® a proven step by step program for turning your passion into profit. For more information and a FREE audio CD "How to Use Your Incredible Factor to Attract MORE Ideal Clients" visit http://www.incredibleoneenterprises.com.

Describing Your Incredible Factor for Results-Darnyelle A. Jervey

Many of you have heard it said on numerous occasions that "life & death lie in the power of the tongue." I certainly subscribe to this statement. And what's more, how you describe your gifts and talents to others is a direct correlation to giving your Incredible Factor life or eulogizing it.

Think about it. When you get the chance to introduce yourself to someone, what do you say and more than that, how do you say it? Do you take the opportunity to celebrate your success, or do you downplay your accomplishments because you don't want to appear "self-centered"? Invest in a coach or mentor to show you how to describe who you are so that it produces profit. I'm available to help you turn your passion into a profit when you are ready to play BIG.

Are you using the power of your tongue to describe your Incredible Factor so others see you as the ONLY solution to their growing problem?

I work with many clients and when they come to me, they are so unsure of how to describe their Incredible Factor in a way that creates clients, income and freedom. I'm going to share with you exactly what I share with them. Many of them are "gun shy" when it comes to highlighting their success for others.

Let me put it this way, if your Incredible Factor's purpose is to create income on a full or part time basis, then you've got to get clear on exactly how to describe what you do so others see you as the only solution and prepare to take action to get you to solve their problem. Here are my tips:

1. Focus on the benefits you offer and the solutions you provide and NOT the actual process you take clients through. If you focus on anything other than the results you provide, you are being self-centered and even though you are talking about your Incredible Factor, it's about them, not you. You already know you're the bomb but because they do not, you may self-destruct. We want others to feel the impact of your explosion. Trust me, it works.

2. Determine exactly who benefits from your product or service, that's right, I'm talking about identifying your ideal client. Not knowing this is a serious mistake. If you are naive enough to believe that you help everyone, that may be why your Incredible Factor is not paying off in the form of clients or income. You must identify the one exact person who has the problem that you solve and who is ready to spend money RIGHT NOW to solve it. Period. Anyone else who hears you describe your Incredible Factor and takes action is butter.

3. Create a power statement that includes: your company name, the problem you've identified, your gift, those who benefit from your gift and the problem you solve. Use the following formula to ensure it is widely effective: I help X do Y so that they can Z. x=ideal client, y=problem you solve, z=the result they achieve.

4. Have a client success story that illustrates results ready should time permit. I recommend making it one with quantitative results. Remember the 5 motivators and ensure that the problem you solve and the success story you choose touches on at least one.

5. Be passionate and enthusiastic. If you can't get excited about Your Incredible Factor don't expect anyone else to.

Once you are done describing your Incredible Factor, ask them what they do and ask them what challenges they are currently facing. Listen to determine if you can solve their problem. If you can, speak up!

©2011 by Darnyelle A. Jervey. All Rights Reserved. Darnyelle A. Jervey, The Incredible Factor Business Mentor and Coach, is the founder of IncredibleOneEnterprises.com and the Leverage Your Incredible Factor System® a proven step by step program for turning your passion into profit. For more information and a FREE audio CD "How to Use Your Incredible Factor to Attract MORE Ideal Clients" visit http://www.incredibleoneenterprises.com.