You don't need a great professional title and description...
George Kao argues that spending excessive time perfecting a professional title, brand, or niche can block business progress. Using his own long-running, imperfect title (“Authentic Business Coach”) as an example, he recommends practical actions instead: pick a quick, “bad” title and short description, get ~50 people (friends, family, referrals) to experience your work (free or low-cost early), and publish consistent content so people repeatedly see you. He notes that titles/brands can evolve and are less critical early on; real growth comes from people experiencing your work and referring others. He also shares personal specifics (full-time business since ~2010; reported 2020 taxable income ≈ $170,000).
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I've seen so many people get stuck in their business because they don't have a great professional title or succinct description of their business or their program or product that they're happy with. And so they think I gotta do more, even more branding work or I have to do more consulting with a marketing expert to get that perfect name for what I do, that perfect paragraph. So that when I put it out there, everyone is just enlightened and astonished and inspired by the amazing work that I do. Let me tell you, it is. I've seen so many people spend thousands of dollars and years trying to come up with that perfect title and description and their business hasn't gone anywhere. Do you want to be like that? I hope not. And let me give you an alternative example. Me. Look at me with my not ideal title of authentic business coach. Do you even know what the heck that means? I'm not even sure I know what that means. Really? How did I come up with that title? Really quickly? I am like, okay, I guess what I am doing. Some people call it business coaching or I have seen other people say I am a business coach. I don't even have any coaching training. Let me say that again. I have not gotten any training as a coach. I don't know what I am doing. But I call myself a business coach. Should I be calling myself that? Well, I can't call myself a therapist because that's a licensed type of thing. But there is no license for business coach, so I can call myself that if I want to. Same thing with you. If you're a life coach, you can call yourself that. Fine. Anybody can call themselves life coach. I can call myself a life coach. Don't call yourself anything that requires a license, but everything else you can feel free to use. So I just basically said, well, it looks like people around me who do this kind of thing, they call themselves a business coach. So I guess I will call myself that. But just to set myself apart a little bit, I'll add one word in front of it. Well, what word? Authentic, I guess because two reasons. One is that that's one of my core values and that's how I want to set myself apart from other business coaches. And secondly, it looks like an acronym is forming. ABC Authentic Business coach. Yeah, that's kind of fun and playful. I'll go with it. Most of you don't even care. Most of you didn't even notice that there's an acronym. It doesn't matter. This is. This is what I hope this video will inspire you to do. Now let me, let me explain why it doesn't matter. Number one, I never really got understood what my name meant. Most of you don't even get what authentic business coach means. Most people don't even remember me as that title. And yet here's the key. My business has been steadily growing for years and I've had a full time business coaching practice since 2010. So 2009 was really the. For my first year and by the end of the year I was, I was, I was, you know, I had a full time income and by, you know, anyway, I've had a full time income, full year since 2010. For all those years I had a suboptimal title. And let me, let me give you my example. Earlier when I first started, I didn't know what to call myself, but I noticed that I was helping people with doing their social media stuff. So I knew social media had to be in the title somewhere, I guess because that's what I was doing. But social media consultant, that's how I called myself. By the way. If you don't know what to call yourself, just call yourself a consultant. Really. So what, what do you do? What's the key word that people, people would easily understand? Even though it doesn't fully represent what you do. That's the key. Even if it doesn't fully represent what you do, it doesn't matter. You can still have a full time business, great clients, lots and lots of clients without people understanding what you do. I cannot emphasize this to you enough. You are working too hard on trying to figure out what you do and how to describe it. It doesn't matter. Not really. What? Yes, George, it kind of matters because of. It matters when you're trying to scale, that's true. But in the beginning, your first 50 to 100 clients, it doesn't matter. Because here's what matters. Your first 50 to 100 clients and your first full time, My God, your first full time year and the second full time year and a third full time year. Income wise, it doesn't matter. Here's, here's why. What matters is that people have actually experienced the work that you do. So what matters more than you going into a cave with a business expert, marketing expert and working on it for a year to come up with the perfect title and the perfect brand and the perfect description. What matters much more than that is to have as many of your friends and colleagues actually experience the work that you do. That's what matters the most. So you should literally reach out to everybody you know and say, I've just started my business. Or even if you've been in business for 12 years, I don't care if you don't have a full time load, full client load, this is what you should be doing. Going to everybody you know and say, I am eager to have more people experience the work that I do. I'm not even sure what to call it because people call it different things, but I know that what I do is really helpful for this type of person. Or if you don't know what kind of person that helps, just make a guess. Make a guess. Because the next email you write might be a different guess. Or that the email you write three weeks from now might be a different guess because now you've worked with people for three weeks. It doesn't matter your email is going to keep changing or the message you send post on social media will keep changing. Let it evolve. This is what I'm, this is what I'm trying to emphasize here. Please. I am so practical and so many of you are not practical. And I see you struggle with your business for years and I'm like, I don't understand. Where are you getting this idea that you have to get the brand perfect before you start? Where are you getting this idea that you have to get your niche perfect before you start? Now, I have friends and colleagues who teach niching and branding and I love them for what they do. It's just that if you are feeling stuck now, if you love doing that work, if you really enjoy that process, you should do it, you should do the branding process, you should do the niching process. If you really enjoy it and you're having fun with it and they feel like it's helping you, great. But if you feel like, my gosh, if you've done that process or even if you haven't done it and you still feel, you feel like I just want to get some clients going, then may I present my method of not knowing what the fuck you're doing, which I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Okay. But I'm still doing it anyway. You see what I mean? Like, like it's okay not knowing what to describe what you do. I still, I mean, I, to this day, Jordan. Well, my parents, I can't even describe to my own family what I do. I mean, my, my parents are kind of previous generations. So even if I could describe everything, they still don't get it. What, you sell something on the Internet, you don't have a job what? You know, and I make more money than most people I know who have jobs. So you know, just, just so, just to give you a little bit like some of you like George, do you really make enough money? Do you do for taxes? For 2020 my reporting came, came over that my, my taxable income was about 170,000. Yeah, it was 170. 170,000. As a solopreneur with no assistance, I don't need. Everything I do I can do by myself in about 40, 45 hours a week. 40 hours a week. So I don't know, I mean I, I make more money than most people with a full time job working from home, there's no commuting. And yet I don't know how the fuck to describe what I do. I don't have a professional title that I like. I don't like authentic business coach. I think it's kind of playful and fun, but I don't know what that means and neither do you. And it doesn't matter because you're still referring people to me, right? Because, because you don't need my description. You just describe to your friends. Oh yeah, there's this guy on YouTube, on Facebook, on Instagram, he talks about business. Anyway, just check him out. That's all you have to say. Do you see what I mean? And that's probably what you are saying. And that's, and that's how you build a business. You don't need. Oh, it's brilliant. Name, title. The, the brilliantly. I don't know why I can't even come up with something if I wanted to. But I almost want to model for you. It's like I almost hope that I never figure out what I do. I almost hope that I never have a great title and succinct description of my and great brand. Right now. I happen to be in a branding process with a friend who's kind of like making me do it. And so 12 years into having a full time business, I'm finally going to have a brand later this year. But I've never had a brand for 12 years. You know, like I never had a color scheme. Every day my shirt changes and these shirts, these shirts. I don't have a color scheme for this stuff. I just pick. Oh, I like that color. But colors are all over the place and my title is all over the place. I mean, I don't know. So I'm just trying to help you be practical here and to be able to make money and make a stable income as soon as Possible. That's, that's what I. And do it authentically. And authentically means that you don't have to force yourself into a brand. And like that's a box that I don't want. Some of you don't like to be constricted in the box of a calendar and a to do list and all that. I'm like, wait a second, you're getting up and yet you want to constrain yourself into a brand box. I wish it was flipped. I wish you were willing and joyfully willing to constrain yourself and constrict yourself to a schedule and not be willing to constrict yourself to a brand and to a title. And tomorrow I can call myself something different. I don't care because my, my audience doesn't care. They're going to use you. My audience are going to use whatever description for George Cowell you want. I don't care because you're still referring people to me all day long. I have a waiting list. I've had a waiting list for years and it still keeps growing every year. I can't, I don't have enough time to serve the people who are asking to pay me to help them. Do you see why it doesn't matter that you have a title and a professional description that is succinct? May I be your example forever on that even. Let me get, let me tell you this. Even in my industry that is so competitive, my industry of marketing has people who have such brilliant brands, like amazing looking websites, the most catchy title, the most, you know, authoritative sounding name and professional description. I don't, I will tell you, my professional description is I don't know what the fuck I do, but I know that it tends to help people build a business in a way that feels really good to their heart. There you go. I just came up with a succinct description. But it doesn't matter because it'll change tomorrow. Let it evolve. Let it go. You should constrain yourself instead be willing to constrain yourself to a schedule of work. And that's what you're getting mixed up here. Stop trying to figure out your calling. I just said it. Stop trying to figure out your calling. Stop trying to figure out your purpose. And by the way, I'm sorry, I do have friends and colleagues that I love very much who work on these things, who work on purpose work and this work and that work. And that's wonderful. And like I said, if you enjoy doing that work, if you really are getting a Lot of benefit. You should do it. You should pay them, do the work. It's part of something you really find meaningful. Great. But now let's talk about practical business growth. That's what I'm talking about here. You don't need that stuff for the practical business growth. You just need authentically to show up to your friends, to your colleagues, anybody you already know, and say, will you. Will you help me out and will you try my work out? Now, if you're not the right fit, if it doesn't sound like the kind of work that you need at this time, do you know somebody who might be. Who might enjoy trying out this work? And if you're in the beginning and you don't have any clients, don't charge money yet. This is a separate video. You can look up my video about the tapering strategy. Go look it up. Google it. Tapering strategy for clients. Okay. Tapering strategy for clients. Just Google it and find my blog post and my video about it. That's how you can get your first. Not just your first free clients, but your first paid clients as well. I just want you to have a livelihood that you enjoy so much. That's really the whole point of this video, and that's my passionate plea to you to let go of figuring out that perfect title for your Facebook business page, that perfect title for your Instagram, that perfect title for your website or whatever. Like, you're spending too much time on that. You can let it go and you can just. What you need to do to get plenty of clients is to have as many people as possible actually experience you being in front of them, doing the magic. Magic that you do. You just need, you know, two. Two things that you need to get all the clients that you. That you want. One is to have enough people experiencing the magical work that you do, which means your own friends, your own family, your own colleagues, your own classmates are the first ones who are going to refer you to their, you know, cousin Sally, to their Uncle Bob, to their. To their classmate Jane. They're going to refer you to say, yeah, my Uncle Bob has. Has the issue that you're describing, and you're. You're describing it poorly, but I love you and I get what you're trying to say. Or maybe I don't get what you're trying to say. And can I ask you some questions to help you figure it out? Your friends and your colleagues can help you figure it out. A bad description. So please step one, quickly come up with a bad description of what you do. A bad title because I still have a bad title. My title doesn't. Authentic Business Coach. That's the funniest thing. Because I no longer coach people. I don't do one on one coaching anymore. I've stopped, as of this year, I've stopped doing one on one. I've stopped taking on one on one because gratefully my group programs are going so well. I'm putting all my effort and energy into my group programs. I'm saying no to all one on one inquiries now. And I'm saying if you'd like to, you can work with me in the group. Otherwise, here are some of my proteges, here are some of my own clients, my own students in my group program who do one on one and they would love to serve you. Right? So it's like Authentic Business Coach. I'm not a business coach anymore. I'm more like a business thought leader who facilitates some groups. But that's too long of a word for me to put on my Facebook business page. I'm still going to keep Authentic Business Coach, you see, even though that's not the right title anymore. I don't care. It doesn't even matter. I'm trying to prove to you that it doesn't matter because it doesn't. I am going to keep Authentic Business Coach maybe for the rest of my life. Maybe in five years I will be doing spiritual coaching and I will still be called Authentic business coaching. I will just quickly switch it to authentic spiritual coaching. Whatever. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What matters is how many people are actually experiencing your work this week. That is what matters. So what matters is first badly come up with a title and the professional description. And how do you come up with a bad one? You just quickly make it up right here on the spot. Right now. Right now. I'm going to give you 10 seconds. Ready? In the next 10 seconds, I want you to speak out loud. What your title probably if you just had to shoot in the dark and just come up with one that you're going to keep for a while that most people will probably kind of understand and that's not too unrelated to what you do. Ready, set. Ten seconds. Ready, set. Come up with a title now. Go. Okay, you got your title. Done. No more. No more. Done. You're done. Comment below what your badly come up with title is. I don't even know what to say, how to call it. Your badly come up with title is Comment below if you'd like. You don't have to, but I'D be curious to know what you come up with in 10 seconds. By the way, those of you watching this video can replay, can cheat and pause the video for another 10 seconds to come up with, you know, come up with that. Okay, so now I'm going to give you 20 seconds to come up with a description. If you had to blurt out, if you had to just blurt out your description to a friend of yours. So your friends, like, so come. So can you give me an idea again? Like, what is the work that you do? Okay, ready? 20 seconds. Set, go. Speak it out loud. Just, just say it. What is it? Did you say it? All right, now, if you'd like, you can comment below on what you think you said. And don't worry if you didn't get the words right. Oh, I thought I said this. No, it doesn't matter. Badly come up with description. That's a new word. Come up with. Write your. Badly come up with description or whatever below. I'd love to see it. And that's where you start. And then you basically, with each friend that you say, hey, this is. Do you know anybody who could, like, who might want to experience this work? Like I said in the beginning, if you're just trying to get people to experience your work, you don't have to charge for it yet. You rather have a lot of people become your ambassadors and people who can say, oh my God, that was really great. Thank you for that session. Now some people will just thank you for that session and move on with their life and maybe remember you three years later. It doesn't matter. But you want 50 people to experience your work as soon as possible. Because out of those 50 people, like when they say experience your work, literally you do some work for them. You do a session or two or three. If it's really a great fit, keep going. Three free sessions. It's okay. You do some work for them or however you do your work for the right person. Right. The person goes, yeah, I actually need this. I actually want. I'm curious. I'm interested. Okay. It's something I've been thinking about. Okay, so you need a badly. Come up with description and title number one. Number two, you need 50 people to then experience your work, starting with friends, family, and the people they refer you to. Okay, number two. And number three, what you need is to have a lot of people see your content again and again and again. See, that's why a lot of you refer people to me, even though you don't know what the fuck I do. And neither do I. You know why you refer people to me? It's because you see my videos again and again and again. And even if neither of us know how to describe what I do, you kind of. In the moment of talking to a friend, you just. It kind of just comes out, oh, yeah, George, he. I think he does it. He. You know, some of you might even say, oh, George, I think he teaches an Instagram class. I know you've been trying to get your Instagram game going. Well, I. I don't. I never say Instagram. I mean, you probably have seen me launch an Instagram class, but you see what I mean? That's not part of my description. I probably should say it, because Instagram is a place where a lot of people follow me and I do teach it and I really enjoy my strategy. I don't. It doesn't matter. Like, you'll remember me for whatever you remember me for. When you're in front of your friend who needs to some more productivity skills, you'll suddenly blurt out, oh, yeah, this George Kao guy, I think he teaches about productivity too. I don't say that often enough. Do you see what I mean? Like, content will save the day. Consistent content. You see me, my videos again and again and again and again. It doesn't matter. You see so many of my videos that now you can probably describe what I do better than I can. You see, because I'm just busy trying to inspire and teach on my videos and I'm busy launching my courses now I have something like 17 courses. Like, I don't even remember what I do sometimes. You see, but it doesn't matter. I'm just busy doing the work every day. I'm just busy serving my group clients every day. I'm just busy creating content to serve all of you for free on a weekly basis. I'm busy launching my courses on a monthly basis. I'm just busy doing the work, not caring about what my brand is and what my title and subscription and description is and whatever. And yet I have so many people who just want to work with me because I'm busy doing the work. And that's what I want you to. I want you to stop worrying so much about your marketing. I want you to stop worrying so much and being concerned that you don't have the right brand. You don't have to get. You don't have the perfect title and description. I think I've said enough. I'm getting tired talking about this. I think I've said enough. So please let me know if this is helpful or if you completely disagree with me. That's fine, too, because you have a branding coach and a marketing expert that is helping you through a process that helps you to feel so integrated. But like I said, all of it, honestly, if I could say it gently, it's a vanity exercise. It just makes you feel good. And feeling good does matter. Okay, but what I'm. What's dangerous here, what I want to caution you against is to have a really ossified brand to have because it's stroking your ego. I'll just be real honest with you. It's stroking your ego. That's why it feels good to have a brand that feels. It feels integrated. You know, if you truly went into your heart, you know you're infinite. You know that you are infinite intelligence. You know that you are an eternally creative being with unlimited potential and unlimited directions you can go. That's why even though you might have the perfect brand and title and description, something still goes. It's always not quite right. That's why you go from brand project to brand project. Or the people who rebrand themselves 50 times in a year, rebrand themselves twice in a year. Okay, that's people. Some people do that. Why do they keep. Why did they keep rebranding themselves? Why? And I hope they're not spending a lot of money and graphic design work. It's because they know they're infinite and they can't stick with this one brand. I know I can't. I gave up on that when I first started. Gratefully. When I first started, I already knew. I already had a sense at that point that I am infinite intelligence and so are you. That I am unlimited, creative, eternal being, and so are you. So why are we trying to ossify our ego and go, I am this title. I am this label. Essentially, you are trying to hang on to that label because you think that's an integration of who you are. It doesn't. No. You will evolve. Probably tomorrow you're going to decide, maybe that's not such a good name. Fine, use a different name tomorrow. Change your Facebook page name every day for all I care. And it doesn't really matter now. Every day is a little extreme. If you do it every single day for. For months and months, you go, like, what's going on? Your page name keeps changing every day. Just keep the bad name for a while and then keep the bad name for three months. I've kept it for 12. Well, now, okay, I started a social media coach I'm like, I didn't know what to call myself. I'm a social media consultant and I seem to work. Be working with a lot of coaches. I'll call myself a coach too, because I don't know what coach means, but it seems to be someone who helps people. Now, those of you who are trained coaches. No, no, no. There's a very specific method. You're asking powerful questions. You're doing powerful listening. There's a whole ICF competencies. I get it, I get it, I get it. But the word coach, whether you're a soccer coach, parenting coach, what are you. Everyone uses the word coach. So I could use the word too. Okay? I know those of you certified are hating on that. These are the. No, no certified ICF competencies. Or this competency. That competency. Okay, I get it, I get it. I'm so. I started out social media coach 12 years ago because that's. I didn't know what to call myself. And then I became a webinar coach because people said, george, you're really good at teaching webinars. Why don't you teach more webinars? So I started doing that to my main thing. So I became a webinar consultant, webinar coach. People knew me about new, called me that for years. And then I'm like, oh, no, I'm now beyond social media and webinar. I'm now a business coach. Well, I just want to add a word in front of it. Authentic business coach. And that's been like that since 2014. For seven years, I've had a wrong name. Now, in the first couple years, I actually did some one on one coaching, so that made sense. But it's been the wrong name for at least the last year or two or three. So keep your bad name for a couple months. How's that? And then you could change it to another bad name for the next couple months. That's slightly less bad, slightly less inaccurate. But whatever brand you come up with, whatever title you come up with, is gonna be inaccurate because you are an infinite being and you have unlimited offerings within you. So hold lightly to whatever title you come up with, whatever description you come up with, knowing that labels don't contain the wholeness of who you are. That's all I'm George Kao, badly come up with. Title called authentic business coach. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, but I'm trying to do it as passionately as I can. That's all I'm trying to serve you with. As much inspiration as I can in the moment, whatever comes here. So I hope this is helpful, and I'm genuinely curious to know what you thought of this and whether it was helpful to you and what your badly come up with title is. And your badly come up with description is okay, and I'm really curious what the automated captions are going to write for that. Anyway, I will see you in another video. Until then, just come up with something quickly. Reach out to your friends and family and ask them to introduce you to people to experience your work, even if it's free. And then create content consistently, because then your audience will help you to come up with your next badly come up with title. Take care, I have been George Kao or whatever else you want to call me, and I'll see you in another video. Be well.
