Doing all the things, posting on all the social media, claiming all the domain names? Everything's a mess, but the fomo is real
Help me now!The Problem
You’re the type of person who signs up to a brand new social media platform the moment it’s announced, or who reads a book until they get the joke and then move on. You’re allergic to a plan, because UGH, it’s stifling.
You do business your way, and even though your website is probably littered with typos, or half-finished pages that lie dormant and unpublished, and you have seven different logos across seven different platforms, there’s one thing that can be said for you; you’re a doer.
You’re agile, fast-moving, and your mind buzzes quicker than most people you know, but you’ve been told you’re easily distracted, and you make mistakes.
You attract clients, but it’s a real feast or famine., and when you get clients, you sometimes get the sense that you could be doing more to improve the service, but you aren’t sure what.
Added to that, you seem to spend all your time hustling on social media, posting your latest ideas, but without any strategy.
You long for something that makes your brand – both message-wise and visually – cohesive, so you could get on with the fun parts of business: IDEAS.
You love the rush of the shiny new thing, the buzz of a new idea, but you get easily distracted from building the core part of your brand because it loses its shine pretty quickly. And everyone seemingly forgot to mention that building a brand takes time and dedication.
Become a pro-brander
Figure out where you show up best
It’s incredibly important as a Scrappy Brander to know where you can display yourself – and your message – best. Right now, you’re spreading yourself waaaay to thinly across the fragile cracker of business (weird analogy, but stick with me…) and one day that cracker will fall apart and crumble.
Yeah, it was a shit analogy, but when you, your business – and quite possibly your mental health ARE the damn cracker, this starts to become more important.
You need to be sharing your message in the places where you that the people you want to be attracting to work with you actually are. By this time, I imagine you know where these places are, but if you spend too long in one place, you get itchy feet and want to move on to the next shiny thing, or see someone else having major success in one area and want to jump on their bandwagon.
Fact is, the majority of people who “make it” for one thing or another are people who have doubled down on that area. No, it’s not sexy, but you can always use the innovation you like to chase to come up with new ways to share your content within the platform or media you show up best.,
ONE ACTION YOU CAN TAKE IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS?
You need to build up your ability to ignore what the rest of the world and their dog is up to in order to focus on yourself.
So, your task is to write down ways that you like showing up and the ways that your ideal audience like to see you. How do you do this?
Look, are you a video person? Do you get into the zone making short films or Instagram stories?
Perhaps you’re a writer – a Facebook caption, blog post or email?
You could even be a people-person, so perhaps speaking events, meeting at networking events, or even *gasp* cold calling (don’t judge. It’s messy, but that shit can work #misspentyouthincallcentrejobs)
Come on, you’ve tried them all – now’s the time to pick a few that have worked for you.
Onto your ideal audience:
Where do you get the most feedback and engagement – and crucially, where do you find the most leads (they aren’t always in the same places!)
Tally these up, and there should be some crossovers. That’s the sweet spot to focus on for more than a hot minute.
have a clear marketing plan
This is tough for a Scrappy Brander, but you need to hear this:
You need to FOCUS. Ideally on one or two areas only.
Not forever, but for NOW.
Know why? Plans actually work.
Does it need to be wildly in depth? No.
Do you want to ONLY be hunting for clients when you don;t have clients? Also no.
Part of the nature of being a scrappy brander means that you hunt for clients, find one, call off the search for clients because you’re so agile that looking to the future can crush that sense of exciting-yet-fragile magic of the chase, then by the time you’ve finished the work with your last client, you realise that you need more. The scrappiness starts all over again.
Share your message. Share your message relentlessly. Share your message imperfectly. Otherwise? You will continue to sit in the murky puddle of scrappy branding overwhelm instead of riding the turbo-powered iceberg of Branding Awesome.
ONE ACTION YOU CAN TAKE IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS?
Write out a list of activities that you can do instead of reverting to the usual platter of DO ALL THE THINGS bullshit.
Make them things that can directly impact business growth. Some examples could be:
- Email 5 potential clients.
- Respond to all the comments on my latest business social media post, and post five meaningful comments on social media posts of people I would love to work with.
- Use your email list and send out an offer to work with you.
- Send out invoices.
- Write the sales page copy for the program you’ve been wanting to release.
Make sure you add at least 20. These are ALL THE THINGS YOU SHOULD BE DOING INSTEAD OF FUCKING AROUND MAKING WANKY-ARSE SHIT IN CANVA. So now you know, you can do them instead, ok?
WANT MORE?
YOU GOT IT!
Looking for even more to up your branding game? Here’s how I can help you show up even more:
Anorak Cat Web Design branding photoshoot at the Mercury Hub in Clevedon
Rich and Amy from Anorak Cat, a boutique website design and branding agency based in Clevedon near Bristol, signed up with me as part of my Uncorporate Annual subscription package, and after a Zoom call to finalise the details for the shoot, I knew they'd be a great...