"Self-Promotion for Entrepreneurs: 7 Proven Ways to Grow Your Brand"

What's up, Believe Nation? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So to help you on your journey today, I'm going to talk about the 7 ways to self-promote as an entrepreneur. So one of the things I get asked a lot by entrepreneurs is, how do I get my name out there? How do I promote myself? How do I draw attention to my myself because a lot of entrepreneurs are not Type A personalities. A lot of them don't want to put themselves out there and be a name. They're nervous, they're shy, they're scared. And so today I'm going to share with you my 7 ways on how to self-promote as an entrepreneur. Way number 1 is to just believe in yourself. A lot of entrepreneurs just don't have enough self-confidence and self-belief in what they're selling and what they're doing. I used to do these events at a big bookstore here in Canada. Called chapters, and we would have hundreds of people show up at this event. And one of the exercises that I would have them do is find somebody else in the room, understand what their business was, and then network with the other people in the group to find 3 leads to help that person out. So find one person, understand their business, and then talk to everybody else in the room, and don't come back until you found 3 people that can help them. And everybody did it. Everybody was able to find 3 leads to help that entrepreneur new friend of theirs, but they weren't willing to do it for themselves. That's the really funny part. They were willing to step up, they were willing to be courageous, they were willing to go and talk about this new person who they had barely met and promote their business, but if you say, "Go and do this for yourself," they weren't willing to do it because we don't have enough self-love, we don't believe in ourselves enough to get out there and actually do the promotion. And so none of the techniques that I'm going to talk about today are going to help you until you believe in the product. And for me, it just comes down to knowing that the thing that you do is valuable and remembering the customers that you're helping out, remembering the clients that you have served and how happy they are to work with you. Trying to channel that and funnel that when you're on stage or when you're at a networking event or when you're talking to a new potential prospect. Know in the deepest part of your heart that you provide value and that you can help and channel that belief into every conversation that you're having. Way number 2 is tell your story. This is the way that you beat the big guys. A lot of entrepreneurs, we have our websites, we have our social media content, we have our messaging that we put out there, and we want to look professional. And that's great, you want to look professional, but too often entrepreneurs get way too corporate, and then I can't tell the difference between your website and your offering and some big corporate offering. And if the corporate has a big brand name and everybody knows them and they have the reputation and the history and the client base, and you're just starting up or you're smaller and we don't know much about you, then what's the reason that I'm going to pick you over the big company that I already know? The reason is going to be your story. This is how you win as an entrepreneur. And that doesn't mean don't be professional and don't try to have a great image of yourself. It means tap into the thing that makes you come alive and why you started this business. I firmly believe that every single entrepreneur needs to have a page on their website that tells your story. Why you started this business, why it's so important to you, a foundation story that when you look at it, you get inspired. Like, yes, that's why I do it. Ideally, you can make a video. Ideally, you can get in front of the camera for a minute and tell your video and share it. But if you're too camera shy, you can't quite get there yet, at least show a picture of you and write out a couple paragraphs as to why this business means so much to you because this This is how you beat the big guys. This is why I'm going to pay more to work with you than go somewhere else, because I believe that you will serve me, because I believe in the passion that you have for starting your company, and I want to work with somebody who cares. If I cannot tell the difference between you and the big company, I'm going to go with the big company every time because they have the reputation. Tell your story. Way number 3 is use social media. It's never been easier to reach your target audience because social media makes it so easy to get out there and connect with multiple groups. And so I'd be looking at reverse engineering where are your customers spending their time. Are your customers on Facebook? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they on YouTube? Are they on Instagram? Are they on Twitter? Are they on Pinterest? Where are your customers hanging out? And then go there. Marketing 101 is be where your customers are. If all your customers are going to this crazy rock concert, then you wanna be at that crazy rock concert. Wherever your customers are is where you need to be. And so across the different social media platforms, your customers are hanging out there. Are you a part of the conversation? The first step to having success in social media is just tracking your name to see if anybody's talking about you, and then tracking important terms, important conversations that your customers care about, and then being a part of the discussion. It's not going on social and just selling your stuff. It's about helping people with problems. You're an entrepreneur, you solve a problem, or at least you should. If you want to have success, you have to solve a specific problem. Go to social media, see who has those problems and are talking about it, and then go and answer. Help them with their questions. They're going to look you up, they're going to see what's in your bio, they're going to check out your website, and they're likely going to buy from you if they love your offering. So use social media to find new customers.

Hey guys, it's Marcus here, the Affiliate Marketing Dude, and today I'm bringing you step number 4 on how to promote yourself online as an entrepreneur. You see, the best way to promote yourself online is to go out there and find your perfect customer. Okay, if you are like a self-help person or a lawyer or a banker, or maybe you're just selling products online, you want to find the perfect person that fits that mold. Now what you're gonna notice is that the perfect customer is kind of expensive to get. Let's say that you are a tax attorney and you want people that are struggling with their taxes so that you can help them, right? That would be your perfect customer. Now what I like to do is look at that and say, well, you know, the perfect customer is someone typing in tax attorney. Now since that's so obvious, it's very expensive. So what I do is I go back a little bit and say, who else needs what I have to offer? Who else needs what I have? And you might be able to find people who are looking up certain tax forms, right? And you can find this using the Google AdWords keyword tool. And there's all kinds of people looking up tax forms. And what I found is there's actually some tax form, I think it's like 9954 or something, right? And that tax form is actually for people that are looking for payment plans with the IRS. Now you can actually bid on this word or make a little video and put it on YouTube YouTube and talk about this form, talk about how to get a tax plan with the IRS, and become an expert in that field. There's actually thousands of people every month that are looking up that form. Now I can get this traffic really easy with YouTube or with search engine ranking, or even I could get this traffic for like 10 cents on Google AdWords. So now I'm getting people very cheap and they want what I have to offer. And they can be my perfect customer. Now this works no matter what industry you're in, no matter what you're doing online. All you have to do is go back a step and learn how to find your customer who doesn't know you exist yet. That means a customer before they actually need your product exactly. Like this tax form guy, he needs your product, he just doesn't know it yet. So how can you go out there and find people who need your stuff but just don't know it yet. Thanks again for watching. I hope you enjoyed this tip. If you want to check out more stuff, you can go to my channel, Affiliate Marketing Dude, here on YouTube. Back to you, Evan.

Way number 5 is bring value to others. You should be a known quantity to the important people in your industry. And so I look at my channel as an example. People reach out to me all the time wanting me to promote their app or promote their website and promote their new business, share with my audience. And most of the time I say no. One, because I actually have to use your thing. I have to actually be an active participant and a customer before I will recommend it to my audience. But mostly I say no because I don't know who you are. I like working with people who are known quantity to me. Yet there's going to be a lot of people who comment on my videos, who share all my videos, and I know who they are because they're sharing everything. Because every time I put out a piece of content, They're replying, they're giving it to their friends, they're tagging people, they're responding. And so for those people, if they ever needed anything from me, they have a shot. I'm going to say yes. I'm going to at least take a look at that email because I know it's coming from somebody who I know, like, and trust. And so before you reach out to influencers, before you reach out to people who have some authority, who if they recommended your thing you'd be able to explode your business, make sure you are bringing value to them first. Make sure you are a known quantity to them before you reach out for an ask. So I did this at the start of my YouTube channel. I wanted to work with collaborations with different YouTubers who had a bigger audience than me. And the first two I did it with was Tim Schmoyer and Derral Eves. And these guys have great YouTube channels. If you want to learn how to run a successful channel, I would go subscribe to them immediately and check out their content. I wanted to do collabs with them, but before just straight asking, I was an active member of their community. I commented on every video that they put out. I followed them on Twitter and responded to some of the tweets that they put out. I tried to share information and messages that I thought would help them. And not just, "Great video," right? That doesn't really mean much, right? Go in detail. Share some knowledge. Tell them how it really made you feel. Tell them how you really learned from it. I did that over a couple months, and then I reached out and I said, "Hey, Tim, I'd love to do a collaboration with you. Here's what I think I could bring to your channel." And he said yes. And that was my first collaboration, and I've done it with Tim 4 or 5 times, I've done it with Derral at least once, and a bunch of other people. Before you reach out, make sure you are a known quantity to that influencer. Way number 6 is form alliances. So this ties in really well to the last point about the collaborations. You want to find out who are the people who already have access to your target market, both online and offline. So whatever it is that you sell, those customers are buying from other people too. Not competing products, but related products. Look at the buying cycle. Who are people buying from before they buy from you and after they buy from you? Those are the people that you want to have some introductory talks with. Go meet them, say hi, follow them on social media, try to line up a coffee meeting at their local business, and get to know them. Because what you want to do is have them recommend you to their clients that you're both serving the same market, but you're selling different products and services. And so make that list, start reaching out, and it's one of the fastest ways to be able to promote yourself and grow your business, because instead of selling one customer at a time, making that one connection to the right partner, they can introduce you to hundreds or thousands of potential clients for your business. And way number 7 is be the expert. You're an entrepreneur, you should be good at what you do, right? You should be one of the world's leading experts in your industry, and if you're not, then you need to hustle harder because it's hard to really bring a ton of value if you're not an expert. And so understand what you are potentially one of the world's greatest experts at, and then start sharing that perspective. So you can go to social media and share your opinions and comment on things that are happening in your industry. You could speak at different industry events and be seen as that expert on stage. You can make YouTube videos and other content talking about, again, things that are timely to your industry that when people are caring about it, they're going to go to Google or go to YouTube and search, and they're going to pull up your content that's going to lead to a result. You can do old-school style, make PR lists, reach out to reporters, look at industry magazines. Anytime a reporter is writing an article on a certain topic that's related to your industry, you want to reach out to that reporter and give your two cents on it as well, because the next time they write an article, they need an expert. You're making the lives of these reporters easier because you are an expert opinion. So they don't have to go out and find somebody else, and then they use you again and again and again and again, and then they refer you to their friends and their colleagues in the media as well. And so it's super important that you take that knowledge, that expertise that's been built up over how many years of running your business, and put it out there so that whenever anybody's talking about your industry, you become the person that they come to for the expert opinion and advice. And so I would much rather speak at the front of a stage to my target audience and then have everybody come up to me afterwards wanting to work with me than me trying to go one by one trying to pitch them on how great I am. And it starts by you sharing your expert opinion across all the platforms. Thank you guys so much for watching. I'd love to know from you which of the 7 ways most resonates with you, which one you're going to immediately apply somehow to your business. Leave it down in the comments below. Did I miss an 8, 9, or 10 that you want to add to the list? I would love to hear from you. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon. Raise your standard. Apple at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me.

I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated. Hey Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.