93 | How to Get Recognized in Your Industry When You Hate Self-Promotion

Episode 93. You are the best kept secret in your industry. And this bothers you because you know you have a very important message that could literally change lives, businesses, relationships. But for mission-driven people like you and me, it's just not natural to just go stand in the middle of a proverbial town square screaming, like, look at me, look at me.

So, how do we manage this paradox of knowing that we are ready to be seen and recognized and helping and reaching more people and working with more people? But at the same time, how do we do that without sounding like my four-year-old niece saying, like, look at me, mom? And that's the focus of today's episode. Quick reminder: this month, as a community, we are rallying around Venezuela.

At the end of June, two massive earthquakes hit the country, taking the lives of thousands and leaving tens of thousands without their home. I just saw a report from the United Nations that estimates that there are still 50,000 people missing. 50,000. That's equal to the size of the whole population of Palm Springs, California.

That's why I'm sharing about this organization today. JQ Foundation is a 501c3 organization, and I say this a lot. And if you're not in the nonprofit sector, probably you don't fully understand. It is important to partner with organizations that are operating formally with all the standards.

That's how you guarantee that your donations reach the destinations safely because they have the infrastructure. So that's such a level and a layer of safety. And I love that JQ Foundation has always operated with the utmost structure and seriousness. Anyway, JQ Foundation is a family organization.

It's run by my first real manager, who today I get to call a friend. And she and her family are buying their packing supplies, they are coordinating shipping, coordinating distribution with key people on the ground to attend to the most specific needs with very specific things that you wouldn't think of, like wheelchairs, specific items that are not normally what we think of. So the job they're doing is truly beyond impressive. So they're working with everything they have, and if you have the possibility, your donation would make such a huge difference.

So whether that's $10, $50, $500, everything counts. And if you cannot give right now, that's totally fine. You can also share this episode with a friend. Maybe they can help.

Everything counts. And trust me, I see it constantly on reports from Liliana, my friend who runs JQ Foundation. So go to JQFoundation.org.

The link is in the show notes. Venezuela needs us to keep praying, to keep paying attention. Your solidarity means the world. Hello, my love.

Welcome to Brand Confidence for Creatives. Are you feeling stuck in a cycle of overthinking, trying to build your brand? I'm Eugenia, but you can call me E. I'm a marketing and brand coach, and I spent years stuck in the cycle of researching, hesitating, and hiding until I got clear on my voice and my message.

In this podcast, I'll guide you through the strategies you need to get clear on what you want to say, build a personal brand, and create consistent magnetic marketing. If you ever thought I know I have something to say, I just don't know how to say it, you are in the right place. So grab your coffee and let's dive in. So years ago, I got a message that changed how I think about visibility and reputation forever.

A referral. And this was my first podcast management client. And the referral came from a woman who had never engaged with my content, who had never worked with me, not one like, not one comment. I didn't even know that she knew I existed.

But when someone she knew needed help, she said my name. And here's what got me was so crazy. I never created an act for that woman. I never did the whole look at me, look at me, dance for her.

Like she just watched me think, she just watched me show up, be consistent for months, and then decided on her own, even when she didn't have personal experience working with me. So for this specific case, I remember I was sitting on the couch, I was watching a show with my husband, and I randomly decided to look at the hidden request from Instagram. And I had this message from like a week ago, from this woman who ended up becoming my client, and I couldn't believe it. That day changed my perspective on content forever, on the role that your content plays on your business.

And the point is that I think that the reason that you really haven't launched the thing or gone further with the platform that you want to create and how that's gonna give you the visibilities and the platform that you want to create is that you are a little bit tired. You are tired of posting every day or feeling like you have to post every day. So when you are not posting, you have it in the back of your mind. Tired of coaches telling you to share your morning routine and then be everyone's BFF online.

I believe that you can be recognized in your industry without quote unquote, literally like promoting yourself daily. That doesn't mean that I don't believe in selling daily, which is a different conversation, but your ideas and your communication can do the promoting for you. But that only works on the right platform. And it only pays if you do one thing most experts skip.

So what's happening? Let me say what I know you know, you might never said out loud. You don't hate being visible, you hate what visibility seems to require, which is the whole posting daily, like a part-time job, putting on a show, like a fake show for your life, only for content. So you do things you wouldn't normally do just because you want to show up in a certain way on content.

Building a best friendship with strangers with the agenda from the start, then you one day will just slide a whole like, oh, by the way, I have a program. You look at that and everything in you is like, I'm a professional, I have values, I have standards, I'm not a mascot of the social media lords. So you've been doing it halfway, posting, but kind of resenting it, promoting, but with very open invitations all the time, getting followers instead of clients, and that makes the whole grind feel even more pointless.

And here's what nobody tells you that daily grind is a platform requirement, specifically on social media platforms like Instagram, even LinkedIn, you gotta be there having conversations daily. It is not a marketing requirement per se. It's not part of a marketing best practice book. Instagram, for example, is built for frequency and a lot of FaceTime, and it does reward that BFF act because the feet the BFF Act keeps people scrolling.

So you've been blaming yourself for hitting a game that was never designed for someone selling expertise. We've now been able to use the rules of the game to our favor, and I love that. But the game to begin with is mainly social. And think about how you personally decide someone is the real deal.

It's never the pose that says, oh, this is why I'm perfect, work with me. It is never the pose that is very official and says, I'm so honored to announce XYC. You decide that you want to work with someone after you've heard them think. They diagnose your problem with precision, maybe on their content, maybe on a newsletter, maybe on a podcast that you heard them.

They say the thing that nobody else, they are super brave and they say the thing that everyone else circles around. And then something in you goes, Okay, she gets it. She gets me, she's the one. Nobody experiences that as self-promotion.

When that person says, Okay, and I have this opportunity to work with me, you jump. And trust me, I did that a month ago. This coach, she's in marketing, she's in transformational coaching, and she sent an email after months or probably over a year of not sending an email saying, Hey, I have this opportunity for this particular coaching call that's gonna, we're going to uncover the things that you've been having and the conversations you've been wanting to lead, but haven't been able to put together and see the thorough line.

I was like, yes, please, because I already know her ideas and this offer was so specific. Okay, scratch the whole example. And that is the strongest promotion that exists. The one that people are pre-sold on you.

So by the time you tell them this is how we work together, it is an obvious yes to them. And that's why I love long form content so much. I think it is truly the escape hatch to this whole issue. Because 25 minutes of you thinking through a real problem does what 90 days of daily posting cannot do.

The listener is gonna reach her own conclusions about you, and that conclusion is gold because nobody can argue with a conclusion they already reached on their own. And that's why my referral did. Granted, that happened on Instagram. That's why my referral did.

That's what a podcast does months and years after an episode has been out. So now your time hustling also changes because you can do one episode a week instead of daily grinding. You don't, you can even batch the whole thing. And you can do multiple episodes in a week so that then you don't even think of recording every single week.

You don't have to milk your life for content, you don't have to create moments that are not real. Your expertise is the content. Your personality drives the content and drives the connection, but your real personality, not a fake personality that you feel that you have to put on so that people will connect with you on Instagram. Let me give you an example.

This happened with one of my podcast management clients a while ago. When we did his analytics at the end of the year of all of his channels and seeing how they were performing and kind of his old ecosystem, we realized that we went from 5,000 downloads when we started working together to 12,000 downloads a month by the end of eight, nine months. And the podcast was outperforming every other channel combined. Nothing was bringing more eyes to his business than his podcast.

If you were combining his website, his YouTube, his Instagram, his Facebook, nothing was bringing more eyes than his podcast. But here's the thing that most experts skip. And this is the part that's going to separate a podcast that's just building an audience from a podcast that builds a business. And that is that in every episode, you are going to invite people one step closer to you.

And that's like not to your high-ticket $3,000 program. That's a huge ask for a stranger. And when the ask is too big, people say, like, oh, I'll do it when I'm ready. And then they disappear, or they listen every once in a while.

You never even got their email so that you could nurture that relationship directly. You can also talk to them through that medium. You lost the chance to build a relationship to overcome objections. So the question I teach my clients is what is the lowest barrier of entry?

That's usually a lead magnet, something free, maybe a smaller paid offer, $27, sometimes even a coaching session or a working session. The point is get the email. That's the sale of the episode. The big yes come later through their relationship.

And yes, I have to say there are seasons where you pitch the big thing directly because you are launching, because it is strategic, because you're making a strategic push. So you are talking about the main high ticket thing. But if on every episode you are pitching the high-ticket thing, you are giving the opportunity on the table to get the person to the next easiest yes of giving you their information. And that's how you get the lead.

Remember, the default on the podcast is get them one step closer. Because here's my whole belief about this selling isn't the desperate part. Selling with no trust, though, is the desperate part. When your episode just demonstrated your thinking for 20 minutes, the invitation isn't begging, truly, it's hospitality.

It's saying, I know you like this, so here's how I can solve your problems in a more in a better capacity. So here's how I can solve your problems in a higher capacity. So imagine this recognize in your industry clients arriving convinced, and your week has one recording session in it instead of seven acts that you're putting on for Instagram. That's not a personality change.

That truly comes from a platform change. So now here's where I would normally give you the lowest barrier of entry to my world to prove my point. But you know that this month we are rattling around Venezuela. So I want to remind you of my earlier ask: any amount you can donate to help families impacted by the double earthquake in Venezuela makes a huge difference.

And the team at JQ Foundation is the best at doing this. You can go to jqfoundation.org and support with any amount you can. And if you want to connect with me, my information, my Instagram, my email, they're always in the show notes, and I'm so excited to hear from you.

Un beso. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you loved it, don't keep it to yourself. Send it to a friend who's also trying to grow their brand without losing themselves in the process.

And if you want to make my day, drop a quick review on Apple Podcasts. Seriously, it means the world to me. And I know that this show is helping you show up with confidence and clarity. See you back here soon for the next episode.

Un beso.