Ep #165: Personal Marketing for the Individual

Welcome to the Get a Six Figure Job You Love and Thrive podcast. This is episode 165, personal marketing for the individual. Stay tuned. Welcome to the Get a Six Figure Job You Love and Thrive podcast, where I, Natalie Fisher, am teaching you weekly how to land your premium role that you love and thrive in it. Let's go. So I came up with this term, personal marketing. Because I've had a week, I tell you. So last week, or depending on when you're listening to this, I just ran the biggest training I've ever run in my entire life. We had over 500 people there and we did have like varying amounts of people joining every day. And then I had people asking me for the replay and a ton of people joining the program. And it was the most awesome, most exciting experience for everyone. And with that, I had a lot of ideas about marketing and how we tend to do it wrong when we're doing it for ourselves and why so many people are struggling when they go to interview or they're not getting the roles they want. And so I wanted to tie that all in together because I just had a really successful marketing experience that I can see very clearly why it worked. And I want to bring that to you here so that you can market yourself in a really successful way. So, The first thing is the thing I notice people doing wrong and why it doesn't work. And then I'm going to equate it to business and me asking someone to join me in my program, or you asking someone to hire you. It's kind of the same thing. It's like marketing is putting yourself out there. It is letting people know about you and who you are and what you do. And then the sale or the offer is the commitment piece. Right? So marketing is kind of like the fun flirting, getting to know each other kind of thing. And then the sale or the offer or the proposal or whatever, however many parallels I'm going to use here, is the commitment piece. Okay. And so a lot of people are sometimes okay with the marketing part, and then it's the closing part that doesn't seem to work for them as well. Like they're not— Closing sales as often as they are getting people in. They're getting interviews, but they're not getting the offers. Maybe they're going on a lot of dates, but then they're not getting into a committed relationship, right? So I can take this all— sometimes I get carried away and we do too many parallels, but as long as it's applicable, I'll go with it. It might fall apart. Okay. So, so as long as we are working with these parallels, the main one I want to focus on is, of course, The marketing yourself as an individual person. So the problem that most people do is they just apply for jobs and they just keep applying through the, through the ATS, the applicant tracking system, through website, just kind of throwing in the resume without really knowing if there's someone on the other end who's going to look at it or if they're actually going to see it. A human's going to see it without actually making any personal contact, right? So that's kind of like. Sending a message, and I've been on the receiving end of this, right? Where like, I'll be on the receiving end of a dating site where my inbox is literally flooded with messages from men. At one point I did go on this one site and it would literally be impossible for me to go through every single one of them and respond nicely and politely. And a lot of them were really, really just boring and Not very good, right? Like it was just like, hey, or like, how's it going? Or like, what are you up to? Like it would really take somebody to say something really interesting that would spark my attention. That meant they looked, they paid attention, they had a good question, they sparked my curiosity. Something had to be different for me to actually pay attention to it first and then decide if I wanted to respond, right? And that's kind of what happens with resumes. It's like they all just come in and you don't really know. Who's like, who you're going to respond to, and you can't possibly respond to everybody, right? So that's like a big mistake that we make is we just, like a lot of people submitting resumes think that maybe they're being original or think that maybe their resume is quote unquote good or their cover letter is quote unquote good, but it's not attracting attention. It's either not saying something to stand out enough or the process is just not working right. And people are submitting it into too many and this is just not possible for that one person on the other end to reply to everybody, right? So that's why they have those systems in place, right? Okay. Versus if you were to go to a networking event, then you have the opportunity to talk to humans one-on-one. You can actually go up to a human, you can say hi, you can have a vibe, you can ask them a question, you can offer to get them a drink. You can, you have all these other options when you're in the room with them, right? So instead of submitting a resume, if you go to a networking event, this is, this is already gonna be a different experience of marketing and getting yourself out there, right? So now you have actually spoken to somebody, you've made a connection with somebody, you've learned somebody's name. Maybe you have gotten their information to connect on LinkedIn or their business card or something. Now they're going to probably remember you and know you're a human being and recognize you and remember if you've had a conversation about what you do, how you help, and where you might fit, what you might be able to do for them or anybody they know as far as helping them, right? So it's very different. Just that example, right? So it's like if I take that to dating, it's like you go to an event where there's single people or a singles event and you can actually talk to a human being. And so you won't get ignored in an inbox. And even if it doesn't, if nothing comes of that experience, it is just a more connective, better experience than continuing to just throw stuff into the inbox that's flooded and never hear back and then be irritated about it. Right. Right? It's just a more connective experience anyway, which if you can take the small wins from that, and if you can learn to enjoy that experience, you will be more successful because you will do it more. Right? So if you can learn to get to that point where you see that as valuable, as actually building valuable, like meaningful, or even just human, like it's way step above trying to throw things into an inbox where nobody's gonna check it, or they just might send an auto-response rejection, or they just might never see it, or they might glance and just be like, yeah, that's like the 100 other ones that we have here, and kind of put it out of their mind, right? So, submitting resumes, and I just keep saying it because people keep coming and telling me that they've been doing it. It's just, I could sound like a broken record here, but it's like, if you submitted 100 resumes and you haven't gotten any responses, it's just not the right way to go about it for you. It's not going to work. If you tell me you've submitted 100 resumes and you've gotten 10 really amazing, great interviews, then That's different, right? Then it's like, okay, yeah, that strategy's working for you, but most of the time it's really not. Okay? So that's the problem is, is most of the time people are doing their marketing the wrong way. They're thinking the way to get someone to know about me, the way to get hired, the way to get this commitment is to keep throwing resumes into all these crowded, flooded inboxes and hoping that one of them gets back to me. That's not the way to get people to know you unless of course it's working. That's the only caveat, right? And it's the same with like, Guys looking to meet somebody or women looking to meet a guy, it's not if that's what's happening. If you're if you're submitting a bunch of messages and they're not getting back to you, they've got flooded inboxes. Doing more of the same is not the answer. Okay. So the way that I saw marketing this week really work, and why is because you give a person an experience of you when you meet them in person or for in my situation on Zoom, right? So in the situation of sales, it's like, or like getting a commitment, it's like, it's the difference between messaging somebody in their inbox and saying, hey, do you know of anybody who might be hiring for this kind of role? Unless you've got like an established relationship with this person, if you just cold message them and say, oh, do you know anybody who's looking for this kind of role? The likelihood is like they might respond and they might be helpful. They might be one of those people who does that. But the likelihood is they're not going to go outta their way to go and find that information for you. Because you've just kind of come at them with a request right away. And this is something that happens a lot in my industry. Coaches get pitched for a lot of services all the time. I get pitched for design services, for SEO services, for, oh, I can help you increase your sales with your copywriting and I can do this and I can, all these services. But the first messages they send me are pitching services. And it's like, I'm not going to hire any of those people that have just sent me a message to sell me something. And I'm trying to think, but I don't think I ever have. There might be a caveat if it was a really well thought out, really well done message that very specifically framed value for me first. And in fact, actually, I did get one of those for video content. They were like, "We will make you ten free videos, and we'll see if you like those. And then if you like those, we'll propose a plan for how we can help you with your video content moving forward." And that was something that I was interested in. It was well done. It felt different. The vibe was different, right? So there are exceptions to the rule, but most people are just really, really terrible at it, right? So they're just trying to go. straight for the sale, right? And that doesn't normally work. Okay. So it's like it for, for you, if you're reaching out to people in their inbox, if you try to go straight for a commitment, it might not work, right? So even if you go straight for asking them for a chat, it might not work. Some, like there will be some people who will, and it depends how you ask and the vibe and everything, but normally there needs to be some marketing first, right? So for me, that was putting on this big event, right? Which helped people get to know me. It helped people understand my style. It gave people a lot of value. Upfront, and then it made people really comfortable to then come in and join me and work with me, right? And so in that same sense, networking is marketing for the individual person in that personal marketing is networking. Because when you put yourself out there and you add, you offer value, you're having conversations, you're making comments on people's posts, like helping up their engagement. Maybe you make a recommendation for somebody on LinkedIn. That is a great way to add value to somebody, or you compliment them on one of their ideas, or you support them regularly in their, like, on their LinkedIn feed, or you just check in on them if you haven't heard from them in a while. Like, there's all these different ways to add value to people, and that's like personal marketing essentially. You're, you're like offering support, you're making yourself known, you're, you're not just going into their inbox saying, hey, do you have a job for me? Can you recommend me for something? Can you do this? But you can do that the more that you have been marketing yourself successfully, then when you go and do that, then when you go and ask someone for a favor, they're going to be like, oh yeah, I'm happy to help you. Yeah, I'd love to help you because you've been so helpful to me. You've been so supportive to me, right? And so that's what ends up happening. And that's what I see with my clients who are marketing themselves successfully is they will start to have more ease in getting opportunities coming to them and having people helping them look for opportunities. And if something comes up, they're going to Message them and say, "Oh hey, I thought this might interest you. This might be a clue for you. This might be good for you." And they're doing it because it's reciprocal, right? Because this person has already done it for them, right? They've been supportive. They've been active. They've been there, right? It's not like they just showed up and said, "Hey, can you recommend me? Hey, can you give me a job?" That's like if I started DMing people who were looking for work on LinkedIn and saying, "Hey, do you want to buy my program? Do you want to buy my program?" That doesn't work because they're just like, "Well." You just want something from me right away. And like, we just met and I don't know you and I don't know anything about you and I'm not gonna just make that, that jump right away. Right. And so that's what happens is we tend to wanna skip all that. People tend to, like, in their whole career, they tend to just be like, oh my God, okay, now I need a job. Now I'm desperate. Now let's just network and let's just hope this works right away. It's like, no, that's not how it works. It's just, it like, it wouldn't work if someone approached you like that because Us humans don't like that. We need a little warming up, right? We need a little bit of familiarity. We need we need a little bit more connection, right? So that's why I love doing my three-day series, and they've been the most successful things that I've ever done for people who haven't even really known me for that long because that gives them a chance to know me, right? So even if you did, there's nothing stopping you from doing a personal three-day series where you offer value and you meet people and you create an opportunity for connection there. You will see things happening from that, right? It, it, like, it's not, it's different than just kind of going into people's emails or DMs and being like, hey, I need something from you. What can you offer me? Right? Even if it's worded nicely. And sometimes it can work. And like, I, what I would, was encouraging earlier was like, yes, just get on and ask people for a conversation, but then try to give value in that conversation. And that also works, right? If you get someone on the, on the Zoom and you end up having a conversation with them and then you form that connection. Then you offer value to them. You think about them. They become somebody that you now know. You see them around on LinkedIn. You support them. You give them like a link to an article that's helpful, or you give them a tip or something. Then you're like more likely to be like, oh hey, I'm applying for the job at your company. Would you put in a word for me or something? They'll be like, oh yeah, absolutely right. No question because you've already built that trust up, right? So that's what happens, and a lot of. Professionals have really weak marketing games, and that's normally what I see happening is you have a really weak marketing game cuz you don't really know how to market yourself. And that's okay. Like that's basically what I've made my whole career out of is, is helping people to do that in a way that feels really good and authentic to them, not transactional. And so if the marketing game is really weak, what I see happening then is we try to do more of the same of what's not working and not understanding why it's not working. And then when we do get interviews, So say you do get interviews, then you, you need to work really, really hard to try to convince people that you're the right person, right? Like you need to really nail that interview. You need to like be really on point with everything you say and it needs to, it needs like the stars need to align more. But if you have a strong marketing game, it's a different experience of an interview, right? So if you've even been referred by somebody, if somebody knows you that has brought you in, If they've heard anything about you previously, like that's going to help your interview succeed, right? It's already setting the tone for, oh, this person is trusted. They're referred by a trusted source, right? Even if someone comes to me from a referral or somebody that I know, they're going to be more warmed up to me because they already heard about me from somebody that they knew and they trusted, right? And referring people is no small feat, right? Like I appreciate people who refer me so much because I know that's their name on the line. That's their reputation on the line, right? Like you don't want to refer prefer someone who's not going to deliver or not going to do a good job, right? So people need to kind of get to know you. They need to warm up to you. They need to trust you. And that can't happen if you're in extreme needy scarcity, desperate, like, I need this now. Why isn't this working? I'm trying, I'm sending out all these messages and it's not working. If you're in that state, like you're, you can't create that path for yourself. You can't market yourself effectively because you're too self-focused. And that is Definitely something that you'll have to find a way around, right? Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, and a lot of people can get stuck there for a long time. So let me start by saying networking is essential. It is essential, and I don't like the word. So I was like, I'm going to change it. It's going to be personal marketing for the individual because the word networking just has a sleazy connotation. It's I don't like the word. I think it's used incorrectly. If I if you look it up on the computer, it could mean network. Networking computers together to do things like I don't like the word networking, but essentially I love marketing, right? I love marketing because to me marketing means I'm giving. It means I'm contributing. It means I'm leaving people better than when I found them. They are helped by me. They are helped by just being in my circle, seeing what I have to say, being around me. They are being lifted. I had a lot of really great comments about the three-day series saying how it had put them in such a positive headspace, such positive vibes. They really enjoyed just hanging out with me on the, on the live streams. I love marketing, right? And essentially this is what networking is. It is marketing for you, for yourself, right? And it makes it so much easier to call in the right people when your marketing game is strong. So those are essentially the unskippable steps of getting a 6-figure job you love is you need to Market yourself, which is getting yourself known out there in front of people so that they know you exist and they know what you do. And then the second is you have to make a sale, learn how to close a deal, which happens when there is a commitment, an offer is extended, money is exchanged. Somebody has made a decision that they're gonna move forward and work with you and not everyone else, right? Sometimes a sale can be harder to get when your marketing is weak or nonexistent. Mm-hmm. Right? The offer is harder to get when your marketing is weak or nonexistent. So the thing professionals are, when they're weak, is they find themselves, like I was saying, working really hard to get that sale because they have to build that know, like, and trust in the interview itself. And they only have the interview to do that. And some people can totally do that. I have done that, but I had the marketing game that was strong before. Like one of my referrals came from somebody who I used to work with. She referred me to her husband and her husband's company hired me, right? Or somebody who I'd previously worked with referred me to their company, right? And it was always a lot easier. I think that's why my interviews went so well. I think that's why I had a high success rate was because of that, because I'd built a strong reputation and relationships, but like apart from that, right? And if I can do that, anybody can do that. Okay? I don't have a college degree. I don't have any special Anything about me. I'm just willing to just be myself and put myself out there and be helpful to people. And you know what? I feel like most of the people who are listening to this podcast enjoy being helpful to other people. I feel like we are all inherently helpful in nature. And it doesn't mean you have to spend hours helping people that you're not getting anything back from. It just means it's a mindset. It's a way to think, right? And if you, if you think in a way that Helps other people. You just start making those connections. You start making the connections of oh, this could help this person. This would be helpful to this person. Oh, I think this would be a good idea. I should suggest this to this person, right? And they people appreciate that so much. And then when it comes time that you need something, they're jumping up saying how like yeah, what can I do? Absolutely, right? So that's what I really wanted to emphasize. It's like marketing is important for you. You you kind of have to do it and. I believe it's becoming more and more and more important as time goes on, as more people get into the market, as it does get more competitive. The people who are good at marketing themselves as individuals are going to get better job offers, easier job offers, higher paying job offers in companies that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten into because of their marketing game being strong. So when they do have a strong marketing game, What ends up happening is it's more a vibe of a conversation to discover whether you're a good match or not, whether this is going to be the right fit, whether or not you're going to like this, whether or not this is going to work for both of you. It becomes the conversation of a good match, right? It doesn't become the, okay, well, convince me why we should hire you because we're not really sure about this, this experience. Can you tell us about this? And can you tell us about this gap you've got here on the resume? I'm not really sure what you were doing in those 2 years and whether or not We can trust you to be able to deliver. It's not like that. It's more like, oh, okay. And it's more like a friendly chat between colleagues who are just getting to the point of how are we going to make this work, right? Like, what kind of things are your strengths? What do you enjoy doing? Tell us about what you've done in the past. Like, how do you think you might be able to bring that to help us? Like, it's more of a vibe of a match win-win situation for both of you than it is a Okay, you've got to convince us because we've got all these other candidates and why should we hire you kind of thing, right? It's different. It's a different feeling when your marketing game is on. So it can feel harder when it's not. And if you haven't experienced this, it's because you've probably been submitting a bunch of resumes into the black hole and you're probably complaining because you don't know what else to do, right? So people who do that have to explain themselves a lot more when they do get an interview. They have to work a lot harder for an interview because there's a lot of missed Trust, right? They don't know you. They're very skeptical. Human nature is to be skeptical, is to be guarded, is like, okay, well, what are they hiding, right? Or like, how do I know they're going to perform? Or like, it's very skeptical mindset, and it's not, it's not very fun for the person on the receiving end of it, right? Because you want to be treated like you want to be given already the benefit of the doubt. You want it to be a positive coming in, and sometimes it can be, absolutely. But I'm just saying, generally speaking, Having a strong marketing game is going to increase chances of it being really successful. So, lack of marketing has to be made up for when they don't know you, they don't trust you, they don't know anything about you, and you've been picked out of a stack of resumes if you're lucky, right? So, you might find yourself fielding a lot of those questions like, why were you laid off? Like, why should we hire you? And I don't like that, those questions. I don't like the way that they put candidates in those positions. And I believe in flipping that dynamic completely. And being like, well, I don't know, why do you think I should want to work here? But that's a different topic for a different podcast, which I think I've done already. But we don't want to get ourselves into that dynamic if possible, right? So, we don't want you to have to do so much heavy lifting to gain trust and inspire people to feel safe, right? We want to have built that along the way. Okay. Why? Because the humans making the decisions about you, they need to feel trust and safety to make that decision. And that is why they put people through so many resume hoops and so many interview hoops. I mean, where they make you do 5 interviews and a take-home test, and then a full day— they fly you out for a full day to talk to everybody. They do that so they can feel safe, because they don't feel safe because, because hiring is a really big decision. It's like, if we hire the wrong person, that costs them a lot of money, right? And it costs them a lot of time and a lot of wasted resources. So they do everything out Front to avoid that. And it is your job as a candidate, is your responsibility as a candidate to ease all those concerns, to help them feel comfortable and safe. Instead of what people can do is when they start to get bitter in the process is they get defensive and start thinking, God, why should I have to explain myself? Like, I'm qualified. They should just understand. Right. And it's like, if you've been in, in the process for a while and you're getting frustrated, it actually contributes to prolonging your success like that. So. They need to feel safe. Having a strong marketing really helps them to already see that that's a positive experience entering and that they can feel safe with you right off the bat. And then it's more about like, okay, let's see how we can make it work. So essentially, I think that's what I wanted to cover. So when your marketing game is strong, that's what happens. The offers, the commitments happen a lot easier and more frequently. The chats are more pleasant. They're more like an equal playing field where you're feeling like you're looking for a win-win in a match and the skills that they need are matching up to what you can offer. And the interview just confirms what they already thought about you or what they had already heard about you. So they don't care so much about your resume or the details as much as they want to get to an agreement that works for you both. And that was exactly my experience. This is exactly how it's been for me. And so your marketing game is more important than people talk about. And when we say the term networking, people, it's very general and vague and people are like, ah, yeah, I just have to talk to people, right? But they don't actually know how to create that environment where people feel safe to refer and want to help and all that stuff. So I can't help but shout out my client Colleen again. I don't know how many times I've done it, but she's really good at networking and commenting and helping people out. So that when people are ready for something, they think of her or they want to go out of their way to help her or whatever. And like, I even hired her myself for some things because that's just how she comes across. So it's kind of like you can put yourself out there in that same way that allows you to, to do that. And sometimes it can be scary. Sometimes we don't want to, we're nervous. We're like, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to comment. Right. But marketing yourself can be really magical. Literally, it can be magical and it can be fun. And it's what happens when one human being, like even online, smells the authenticity and conviction and skillfulness of another human being. Okay? When magic is activated, you understand why the tactics that everyone else is doing don't work, right? You can't get that magical feeling from submitting a resume and getting an auto rejection that nobody saw, right? You understand why submitting hundreds of resumes is completely unnecessary and doesn't work. People just want to know you. As a person, and they will feel amazing about it when they know you, and you will feel amazing about it too when you are connecting with the right people. And not every experience is going to be magical, no, but there will be a lot that are. You will form awesome collaborations. You will make friends. You will have different things in common. You will discover the coolest things about people. By the way, this is how I sell things. This is how I sell my program. This is how I sold myself. This is how I market and sell myself. So these are my thoughts. I hope they're helpful. My program and how the advanced people in my program, this is how they do it, right? And the process unlocks exactly the kind of effects that are available for you too. And it's not rocket science. It's not difficult, right? It's just, it involves doing more than most people are willing to do, which is why most people are just submitting crazy amounts of resumes and complaining for no results. Yeah. Right? And it just astounds me how many people continue to do that. So don't be one of those people. So you need to know about the 8-week Career Creator Challenge starting inside the Six Figure Curriculum, available exclusively inside. And I'm asking you for 30 minutes a day for 8 weeks, and we're gonna go nuclear on opening up opportunities and creating offers in your career. Okay? We're gonna kill all the things that aren't working, feeling heavy, boring, not inspiring anyone to hire you. And there's no surprise because you're probably not very inspiring. So we're going to finally get to the root of your hard work about sending all these applications out, interviewing, that hasn't gotten you offers so far, and fix it so fast you'll almost feel weird about it. But I'm not gonna lie, it only works when you actually do it, when you actually apply it, meaning you follow the steps, less than 30 minutes a day, and you do it for the 8 weeks. So this challenge, it's gonna be available inside the program. Even if you're listening to this afterwards, it will still be in there so you can get in there and you can get started and you can do it. Your brain is going to want to make it more complicated. Your brain is going to tell you to make it harder, to spend more time on more sending in more resumes, and that's not the answer. So stop doing what's not working and get into the challenge, get into the program so that you can actually start applying something that does work for you. And your career will be unrecognizable in the next 8 weeks if you apply that work. And That's what I had to share with you today. So if you are already in there and you're going through that challenge with me, amazing. Welcome. Excited to have you. And if you're not, then you should highly consider it. All right. I will see you next week. Bye-bye. Hey, have you left me a review yet? If not, leaving me one now comes with an awesome bonus perk. I'm going to give you access to my 90 It's titled 8 Reasons Why You Get Interviews But No Job Offers. This course is normally $97, but when you leave me a review as a thank you, I will give you access to it for free. And it's helped many professionals like you land their premium job offers and make more money just by simply going through this 4-day training that I did. I received so much feedback on so many of the results just from this $97 training. And I'd love to gift you that for free. So all you have to do is leave me a review on your favorite podcast platform, preferably iTunes, screenshot the review, email it to me. The details are in the show notes of the episode, and I can't wait to read your reviews and send you access to that course. Thank you so much.