Category: Viral Marketing, Social Media
Summary & Overview
Online Identity Management:
Online identity management (OIM) also known as online image management or online personal branding or personal reputation management (PRM) is a set of methods for generating a distinguished Web presence of a person on the Internet. That presence could be reflected in any kind of content that refers to the person, including news, participation in blogs and forums, personal web sites (Marcus, Machilek & Schütz 2006), social media presence, pictures, video, etc. Online identity management also refers to identity exposure and identity disclosure, and has particularly developed in the management on online identity in social network services (Tufekci 2008) or online dating services (Siibak 2007).
One aspect of the online identity management process has to do with improving the quantity and quality of traffic to sites that have content related to a person. In that aspect, OIM is a part of another discipline called search engine optimization with the difference that the only keyword is the person's name, and the optimization object is not necessary a single web site; it can consider a set of completely different sites that contain positive online references. The objective in this case is to get high rankings for as many sites as possible when someone searches for a person's name. If the search engine used is Google, this action is called “to google someone”. Another aspect has to do with impression management, i.e. “the process through which people try to control the impressions other people form of them”. One of the objectives is in particular to increase the online reputation of the person. Online identity management often involves participation in social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Twitxr, Last.fm, Myspace, Orkut and other online communities and community websites, and is related to blogging, blog social networks like MyBlogLog and blog search engines like Technorati. But it can also consist in more questionable practices. Hence in the case of social network services users have the possibility to buy 'friends' so to increase their visibility.
Personal Branding
Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney 2005). It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney 2005). Further defined as the creation of an asset that pertains to a particular person or individual; this includes but is not limited to the body, clothing, appearance and knowledge contained within, leading to an indelible impression that is uniquely distinguishable. The term is thought to have been first used and discussed in an 1997 article by Tom Peters.
Personal branding often involves the application of one's name to various products. For example, celebrity real-estate mogul Donald Trump uses his last name extensively on his buildings and on the products he endorses (e.g., Trump Steaks). Personal branding, self-branding, self-positioning and all individual branding by whatever name, was first introduced in the 1980 book: “Positioning: The Battle for your Mind”, by Al Ries and Jack Trout (Ries & Trout 1981). More specifically in “Chapter 23. Positioning Yourself and Your Career - You can benefit by using positioning strategy to advance your own career. Key principle: Don’t try to do everything yourself. Find a horse to ride”.
Setup Time: Less than 5 Hours.
Ongoing Maintenance: Ongoing.
Cost: Free.
Speed of Results: Quick.
Basic Use
“A Personal Branding Revelation” by Jimmy Davis
“If you had a son and you could only tell him ONE thing that he should focus on to be sure of blazing success in this industry … what would you tell him?” I was asked that very question as a guest speaker a recent marketing event and it totally blew me away. Normally, people ask, “What is the best traffic source right now?” or “How do I learn to close sales on the phone like you?” or my own personal favorite: “What is the REAL secret of how you gurus manage to make so much money?” But this man’s blindingly personal question silenced me. Now, I love the sound of my own voice and for anyone to stump and silence me is rare. But I didn’t have an answer right away. I mean, this was my future son we were talking about so I felt a lot of pressure to give the man the right answer. I told him to come back to me at the end of the day and I would have an answer for him. And for the rest of the rest of the day I couldn’t get that question out of my head. I kept thinking about my own personal story and what really was the turning point for me. I thought about my journey and what it took for me to get where I’m at today, and then I saw it. The turning point. And suddenly I knew the answer to this gentleman's question was staring me right in my face. But first, a little background on me, Jimmy Davis. Internet Marketer. Millionaire. Guru. Regular Guy. And how my story can save you enormous amounts of time … and money … and heartache.
The following is a true story. My story. And it starts early, real early. I got hooked young. I remember being about 11 or 12 or so when I first saw Don Lapre’s “Making Money Secrets” on TV. For me, that kicked everything off. That was the day I got hooked on the idea of being rich. I knew that there was no other option for me. So I bought Don Lapre’s program. I used my mom’s credit card without her knowing and I ordered it. It was my first “hit” of a drug to which I would be addicted for the next 15 years. I became addicted to get rich quick schemes. Needless to say that Don Lapre’s stuff did not work for me. But I’m glad I tried it because I wouldn’t be where I am today without Don Lapre starting the fire that still burns inside of me. Thanks Don. From there, I got all the other infomercial get rich programs. I ordered John Beck, Carlton Sheets, Brad Richdale and many others. And I went online and continued my search. I did some of the craziest stuff ever tried online. If it was get rich quick (GRQ) I tried it.
It was great experience because I quickly became an expert in what didn’t work. You know, a lot of people dismiss their failures all too easily. But there’s a lot of value to be had from looking at your mistakes and working out why they didn’t work, before you move on to the next “big thing” and repeat the continual cycle of failure. Then I found MLM. A friend of mine introduced me to a prepaid telephone company opportunity. I brought my mom along to one of the meetings and she got hooked. She could see the sense in what I was trying to do. We didn’t make any money even though I was the one who managed to get the most people to come along to the hotel sign up meetings. And after that, at just 14 years old, I joined Herbalife. Next, I joined Amway and those didn’t work for me either. Like most struggling network marketers, I was told I didn’t have the right mindset. So when my 16th birthday came round, I told my parents that I didn’t want a car … I wanted Tony Robbins. That was another big turning point in my life because from there I decided I wanted to create a life worth living. And I do love Tony Robbins’ stuff, don't you? From there, I tried every business opportunity I could get my hands on. On and on it went and harder and harder I tried. So, let’s fast forward to 2005: I'm 22 and living in my parents’ basement. Awesome. I was probably in my 50th MLM effort at the time. It was a direct sales company and, once again, I wasn’t making any money. This particular program I joined was about $3,900. Every time you brought somebody in you kept about $3,000 and gave the rest to the company. I saved up a whole summer to join that program and then my upline left me. It seems I couldn’t find anybody to help me. To say that I was depressed would be a vast understatement. I had always believed that I was going to make it. I was so sure of it and now and I was starting to really question whether I had simply been lying to myself for all those years. By now all my friends were out of college and moving on with their lives. Most of my friends didn’t even understand what I was trying to do and they started to distance themselves from me. Even my dad thought I was crazy! “When are you going to give up this dream and get real?” he would say. Those were some of my darkest times because I really cared what my dad thought of me. Matter of fact, I still do. And that’s probably why the seminar guest’s question floored me “ … what would you tell your son?”
It’s hard to keep on telling your friends and family that what you are doing is worthwhile when you’ve spent most of your life chasing a dream and still you have nothing to show for it. One of my all-time favorite quotes is: “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” And that is exactly what happened to me. I don’t remember the defining moment, but I remember becoming a whole new person. Inside all that welter of depression and anxiety I decided to make my dream a “must.” I changed my mind about my dream. I didn’t hope for it anymore … I made it a must. For the most part, it’s the people who are lowest down that rise up the fastest. Think of it like a bow and arrow. If you don’t pull the bow’s string back, the arrow won’t budge. But if you pull it back all the way, the arrow shoots forward. That’s what it’s like for a lot of people. First, they have to get to a dark place to find the fuel that finally thrusts them forward. From then on … I started hustling. I couldn’t take it anymore. Icouldn’t keep living the way I was. I had to figure it out. So I decided to find out why all of these people were making so much money and I couldn’t. I got tired of my friends telling me “Grow up Jimmy, it’s time to get your life together.” Or my Dad would say “Go finish college and get into a job with benefits.” As they were telling me what THEY thought I should do I asked myself “Do I want to end up like them?” My answer was an emphatic “NO!” I started to realize I was letting people who were where I didn’t want to be in life tell me how to live my life. It’s insanity. Look in your life to see where you are letting people who you don’t want to be like tell you what you should be doing…crazy right?!? I mean, I loved my friends but I didn’t want to make 30 grand a year at a desk job. I like to play too much. I love my Dad and he has done so much for me but I wanted more out of life than he thought was possible for me. I made up my mind right then and there to listen to people who were where I wanted to be instead of letting everybody else tell me what to do. Simply put, I wanted to make a lot of money in Network Marketing. So I started calling everybody I saw making a lot of money in Network Marketing and pretended to be a prospect. I just called and called and called. I wanted to talk to everybodywho was making it. I wanted to just be in their presence. It reminded me of Tony Robbins advice: “Who you surround yourself with is who you become.” I called all the success stories I could find to get their marketing secrets. I wanted to find out everybody’s secret. Now, I only had a couple of hundred dollars in the bank at that time. I needed to find out where these experts were getting traffic so I could put those $200 dollars to good use and get into a profitable position with my current program ASAP.
I would call them up and say I was interested in joining their program. If their opportunity was $2,000 to join I would call them and say that I had $2,200 to spend on the opportunity and traffic. I would ask them if $200 was enough to turn a profit and they all said yes. I would then ask them what they would have me do so I would “feel better” about joining their opportunity. That was my only way of learning their secrets because I knew they wouldn’t tell me their traffic source if I wasn’t a prospect. “I’m so brilliant” … or so I thought. I called everybody with pen in hand ready to write down their powerful business secrets. And I did learn their “secrets,” but not in a way I expected. I called all of these top earners to find their secret traffic source. I wanted their secret voice broadcasting software. I wanted their secret postcards they were mailing out. I wanted their secret lead source. Surely they had secret traffic sources that no one else knew about! How else could they be one of just a handful of people who were really successful? I got a lot of different answers from these top earners. And I was shocked to learn that they all made a lot of money … BUT they didn’t have any secret traffic sources! So now I’m totally hacked off and more confused than ever. I kept asking myself “How can these top earners use the same traffic sources as unsuccessful people and still make truck loads of money from them?” Tony Robbins always says, “Successful people ask better questions and, as a result, they get better answers.” That question shifted my whole focus. It’s exactly like when the light bulb goes off over the cartoon character’s head. Finally … I got it! Do you want to know what it is, that one true secret? The secret that these top earners had to make a lot of money wasn’t the traffic source … the secret was how they handled the traffic. Now, stop for a minute. Just pause for a breath and let that sink in. The secret that these top earners had to make a lot of money wasn’t the traffic source … it was how they handled the traffic.
I learned that the biggest thing that separates people in Direct Sales, Network Marketing and MLMs that are making little or no money from people who are making massive amounts of money is POSITIONING. Personal Branding.That’s it! The real secret. Now stay with me here. This is a radical shift for most people to get. Once you really get it, your business and how you approach this industry will never be the same. The reason that everybody wanted to work with these top earners was because they were top earners … or at least they “positioned” themselves as top earners. To me, it seemed so obvious. It’s a product of human nature. From the earliest age, as babies, we are told where to sit, where to stand, where to go, what to do, what not to do, and so on. We are all conditioned to follow. It’s almost as if life is meant to be one big game of follow the leader. Dan Kennedy puts it this way: “Everybody is searching for their wizard, that’s going to help them in some magical way…”
Eban Pagen says, “Most people silently want to be led…” “Life is one big game of follow the leader.” – Jimmy Davis. People don’t want to join a business; they want to follow a leader. Think about when you launched your current business. It’s a safe bet that you didn’t join with the first company you saw. What did you do? You went into Google and did some research on it. Why did you do that? It’s the same reason more than 90% of people don’t join with the first business they see. They don’t trust it, plain and simple. The Internet these days is like Times Square. There are ads everywhere you look. Nobody knows who or what to trust anymore. People have both been in the industry a while and been burned, or they are new and they see too many options. Add to that the fact that whenever somebody doesn’t succeed with a company they blame the company on every scam forum and newsgroup they can find. Everybody looking to join a business sees that also. I’ll give you a little lesson. It doesn’t matter which company you join with. If you can be successful in one you can be successful in any of them. So how do you rise above that and build your business the way you always wanted to? It's easy. You give people what they want.
Right now they want 2 things:
- Somebody they know, like and trust.
- Somebody they view as a leader/authority/ top earner
Right now, more and more people are going online to find out how to make money. The numbers are staggering. There are more people than ever looking to start a home-based business. They so desperately want to make sure they work with the very best people. That’s why you have to give them the best and not just close to it - the very, very best. You have to show them that you are the answer. You have to show them that they have been waiting for you their entire lives. And trust me my friends … it’s a lot easier than you think…and I’ll get into that in a minute. Let me tell you what else I learned: I learned that these top earners weren’t buying leads and calling them. They were the ones being called. They were being chased. They were being harried. People were beating a path right to their door. And they still are. At the time my brain couldn’t grasp the madness of that. But it was true. While everybody else was buying leads and using a pre-prepared script to close people, successful people spent their time talking to people who actually called them!
What struck me when I was calling the “big dogs” was that they really didn’t have a pre-prepared script when they were talking with me. It seemed like they just winged it and really didn’t care. That’s when it hit me. I remember having a really big shift in my mindset and thinking to myself, “I can do this. I’m smarter (and hey, I’m way better looking!) than most of these other people. Surely I can pull this off.” So I went for it and I started playing around with how I was positioning myself online. I dumped the tired, old replicated website that I was using. The one that made me look like everyone else and positioned me as just another guy “trying” network marketing. Instead, put up a simple little page with one goal in mind: To make me look like a top earner in the industry. I would later call this process “MyStory Marketing”. The definition of “MyStory Marketing” is marketing yourself in such way that people get to know you, like you and trust you while, at the same time, you position yourself as a leader. After all, you’re an authority, a shrewd and successful person with whom it would be a pleasure for anyone to do business with … and in turn they would become successful too. My first webpage was simple: I told my story. I made myself look like a top earner, without lying. I didn’t say I was making $50,000 a month. I just projected myself as if I were making that much. I talked the talk as they say … but I never lied. Let me give you an example: You can say things like, “Now that I run my own business, I work from wherever I want. That’s anywhere I want. I don’t have to answer to a boss, and, yes, I’m living the life of my dreams.” Read that statement again. I have just described a homeless person to you! They don’t answer to a boss and that could very well be the life of their dreams. I simply modeled my new website on a lot of top earners’ websites. It really was that simple. I gave the prospect what they wanted. They wanted a real person who they could trust so I gave them that. They also wanted a person who was successful so they could learn what I knew. So I portrayed my life as one I was in love with. It implied that I was successful. I then started sending a little bit of traffic to it and what happened next was AWESOME! It worked! Leads started coming in. People started calling ME! I remember the first person I ever talked to on the phone after starting this process. He told me he was nervous talking to me, because I was a well-known top earner! The crazy thing to me was … I was broke at the time! He was my very first sale. That’s how a lot of my sales calls went and talking to people was easy with this new method. Before, I used to buy leads and call them up. But I always had to have a little wine before calling people because I was so nervous I knew I wouldn’t be able to read the script. And I know that’s how a lot of people are in this business. They hate talking to people because they think they are selling them. Imagine people calling you … who already know, like and trust you and want to just ask you a couple questions before they join your program. When people called me after I positioned and branded myself I didn’t have to have a script, I simply talked to them like we were old friends. With this new method in the very first month I made $12,000. To me, that was like winning the lottery! I instantly went from zero earnings to 5 figures in a month! My Dad thought I’d totally lost it and was dealing drugs out of the basement. But, I can tell you, it was such a buzz to finally break through and really prove to myself and everyone else that I could do it. Inspired, I just kept plugging away and focused all of my attention on positioning myself more and more as figure of authority. My goal was to become a celebrity figure online, with a kind of rock star glamour status and get people to chase after me. And it really paid off.
Basic Action Steps
“How to Make Money with Personal Branding” by Jimmy Davis
Once I’d established myself as an online authority I continued to test and refine my process with the intention of raising my conversions over the phone. I measured myself by how many people I was bringing into my business. For example:A few years ago I was in a direct sales program that cost me $1,000 to join. After using this personal branding technique to get people to chase me I was selling to 1 out of every 5 people I spoke to, a 20% closing rate. That meant if I was talking to 10 people a day I knew I was banking $2,000 day. Or, to look at it another way, I was averaging about $200 per person. Remember, these were people who had seen my page, read my story and wanted to work with me.
Keep in mind as you’re positioning yourself online your goal is to:
- To present yourself as a leader, an authority figure.
- To get your readers to trust you.
With a $200 per person average I began working to increase that number and began adding more elements to my website to “position” me higher and higher, to establish myself as an authority and to increase their level of trust in me. Here’s what I did:
Step One: Added Video -
I added a short video of me buying my brand new Range Rover to my website. What did this do? It made people believe that I knew what I was talking about because obviously I can afford a spanking new Range Rover. It got them to TRUST me.
Result? I went from $200 per person to $300 per person. That one small change took me from $2,000 to $3,000 for every 10 people I spoke with.
Step Two: Added an Application Process -
I added an application process to my website. At the bottom of my page I put: “My time is limited and I only work with a select group of people. To make sure I only work with people who are serious about their financial future, please fill out this application to work with me.”
What did this do?
- It made me look like a leader. If people have to apply for my time that means I must be doing really well and that’s exactly what is going on in the heads of your prospect when they see that application form.
- It created a perception of scarcity. People think that since there’s an application you don’t work with just everybody. They now feel pressured to get the “right” answers so you pick them after the application review process.
- It gave me a blueprint as to what they wanted. I now know how to handle the phone conversation.
Result? I moved up to $400/person. Now it’s gotten to the point where we have to have an application process. At first it was a method to position us higher up the ladder. Now we have too many people coming to us and we just can’t handle them all. And yes, some do get turned away.
Step Three: Added Homework -
Next, I added a homework page to my website. I created a page that popped up after their application was submitted.
On this page I had a video where I explained in fine detail what I am looking for when I “choose” to work with somebody. I go through the qualities of the person I want and the qualities of the person I don’t want. I also make sure that they know the cost involved. I tell them that if they lack any of the qualities I’m looking for, or they don’t have the money, then they should cancel the appointment with me.
- It positioned me even more as an authority figure who picks and chooses who he wants to work with.
- Second, they were money-qualified applicants. It saved me from getting on the phone with people only to find out 20 minutes later that they couldn’t afford me.
- Third, it prepared them for the call with me so I really didn’t have to pitch anything at them. It got them to a place of having to prove themselves to me. At that point, they were almost nervous about talking to me.
Result? $650 per person that I talked to. Just adding those 3 things (video, application, homework) raised me from $200 per person to $650 per person.
Step Four: Hired an Assistant -
This was, by far, the most important change I made to my business model. I hired an assistant to call my leads and set up appointments for me. This is one of my favorite techniques and it fell into my lap. My girlfriend at the time needed some extra money so I hired her to call all the applications that came in and set up an appointment schedule for me. All she did was call the applicant, tell them she was my assistant and that she wanted to set up an appointment for us to talk. Then she then gave them the homework page for them to look at and complete. What did this do? It made me look like a ROCKSTAR! A lot of things can be faked online but when an applicant gets a call from my assistant they know that I know what I’m doing. In their mind only people who really make a lot of money can afford an assistant. It was instant credibility. This little trick made a HUGE leap in conversions for me. Finally, I had broken through the $1,000 per person barrier. Result? $1,200 from every person that I talked to. Hold on. I know what you’re thinking. If I’m only selling packages for $1,000 how can I average more? It’s a very good question and we’ll address that later on in the Advanced Marketer section, but for now let’s recap:
I only added 4 elements to my website and from there I constantly tested and added more things every week to increase the perception of my status as an authority. Believe me, testing is the most important task in this industry.
There are just 2 things you need to focus on in this business to build yourself a highly profitable business:
- Getting high quality traffic.
- What to do with that traffic.
Getting traffic is easy but it's what you do with that traffic that really matters. If you will diligently work on #2 you can literally turn the internet in to your own personal ATM machine. And that’s how I became one of the best closers in the industry. A lot of my peers and colleagues suddenly started to take notice. They wanted to know my secrets … how is it that I can close better than anybody else? The secret was that my prospects were pretty much closed by the time they got to talk to me. I had invested my time in helping them close themselves so that by the time they got to me it was easy.And that's how I went from $200 per person all the way to $1,200 per person. I just kept adding and testing things to do just ONE simple thing - POSITION me as an expert. Truth is, I was averaging about $1,300 to $1,600 per person I talked to, whether they bought anything from me or not. Again this is because they came to me pretty much closed. I never talked to anyone unless they knew who I was and had seen the homework video. It has now gotten to the point where I cannot even remember the last time somebody didn’t buy from me. So just to recap the funnel it is:
- Position yourself as a leader. Get a great website that makes you look like a top earner. It’s like pulling up in your own Lamborghini online.
- Earn their trust. Tell your story on your own personal website and present yourself as an authority they can trust.
- Have them apply for your time.
- Have an assistant call the applicant and set up an appointment for you. Chances are there are people in your life who would be happy to work as your assistant and make these phone calls for you. If not, there are inexpensive services you can utilize.
Remember: People don't join businesses... They want to follow a leader!
Tools & Resources
• Google Profile - Works great when you Google your name!
Related Marketing Strategies
• Twitter
• Blogging
• Squidoo
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Search Engine Optimization
• Video Marketing
• Article Marketing
• Press Releases
• Google AdWords
For questions about Personal Branding and Positioning, please send an email to resources@michaelwyrosdick.com with “Personal Branding” in your subject line.
