How To Stand Out In 15 Seconds* Using Your Smartphone

Hi everybody, it's Sheryl Plouffe here and I'm doing a Facebook Live video today that is going to turn into actually a lot of things. It's going to turn into a YouTube video, it's going to turn into an episode of Personal Brand Breakthrough, which of course is my new podcast, which I'm super excited about. It's starting to climb slowly the charts of iTunes in my category at least of education, so that is really exciting for me. It was like at 82 4, and now it's at 62 or 63 or something. So hey, you know what, we celebrate the small wins. That is one of the big things that we have to do more of as entrepreneurs is to actually celebrate the small wins. So listen, today I want to talk to you guys about how you can stand out in literally 15 seconds. And let me tell you a little bit of background on this after I introduce myself. My name is Sheryl Plouffe. I am a video marketing expert for entrepreneurs, and I really help people to put themselves in front of the camera and feel confident and comfortable to do that and be natural and conversational and all of those qualities that really help you to connect with your audience. So you can check me out at CherylPlouffe.com for some free trainings and I would ask you and, you know, ask you to subscribe to the podcast. All you have to do is search my name or Personal Brand Breakthrough on your favorite podcast app and you'll find it and subscribe. If you leave a review, an early review, that's also fantastic because it helps me to get my message out to more people. So we're doing a Facebook Live video today. I'm going to actually turn this into a podcast episode and a YouTube video and all that, but I want to talk about how to stand out, and what's exciting about this is that you can literally do this trick in 15 seconds. Let me tell you how this all came to be. I was doing a call last night, a strategy call with someone, and we were talking, and as is typically the case, you know, I give some advice and I give some, you know, tips and tricks because I like to share. So we were talking talking about that and the question to me— hi Joe— the question to me was about video and how to really better connect with the people like our ideal audience, for example. I said, well, you know what, one really simple thing that you can do is use the functionality of video in Facebook Messenger. Now a lot of people really don't use the full functionality of Facebook Messenger to connect with people, but I think that that's one of the big things that you can do. So in 15 seconds, you can go into, like, into the Messenger app of Facebook, and you can go into it. Here, let me just bring this up. But basically, you go in and use the video functionality. So say I wanted to actually let's say for example Carol here. If I want to make an impression on Carol, I want to further connect with her, and I really want to stand out and wow her, instead of typing this message that I want to tell her, it could just be a simple hello, right? Social media is about building relationships. It's not necessarily the place to actually, you know, do the hard selling. I think that's one of the big mistakes people make is that they go in for the hard sell. It's about building relationships. That's what this is, it's social media. Instead of actually texting to Carol, what I could do is open up the video functionality and just hit record and send her, you know, a 10 or 15-second message. Instead of typing it, I'll just say it. To the camera. Now of course there are some challenges there if you feel like, "Oh, I don't want to put myself on camera," and these are the things I hear so much. But it's like leaving a voice message, that's kind of how you have to think of it. It's like leaving a voice message except that you're gonna be seen on camera. Think of it that way, it might, you know, help you psychologically to get around that fear of being on camera. Of course if you want to take this further, you contact me and I have, you know, ways to help you through that, the pain and fear of that. But But basically, if you can get comfortable in front of the camera, you can literally in 10 or 15 seconds make a huge impression on your existing customers, on your friends, on anyone really, on prospects. So when you're following up with people, send them a video. You're gonna wow them because not everyone, very few people are really using the full functionality of Facebook Messenger in this capacity. So that's really one way that you can stand out. The other method that you can use that would help you to stand out in literally 15 seconds is to, through Messenger, like from text message, sorry, text message I should say, right? From text message, you know, you could go in, let's say I want to send Bobby, and I actually did just a short time ago send him an audio message. So if I want to reply because he's replied back to me now, I could go in here and I could just use the little microphone icon that's here. I press down on it, hold it, and record my message. Again, it's like leaving, it's like in the old days when we had answering machines, right? So use that functionality and then send the audio message. That sends an impression, right? How does that relate to your personal brand? Because this show is called Personal Brand Breakthrough. How that relates to your personal brand is that you start to build, you become more real, more human, it's humanizing your marketing, it's making you a real human being and it's getting to be on a more personal kind of level with someone, whether it be audio or whether it be video in this case, but this functionality is just right here on our phones and we just don't often use it enough. Now, are you gonna use it every single time you communicate with someone? Likely not, but every so often. You know what you can do? You can challenge yourself to do either a video message or a voice message once per day, or maybe twice per day, whatever number you want to challenge yourself. And maybe you try it for a week. In fact, I'm gonna challenge you right now. I'm gonna challenge you for 7 days Do one video or voice message once per day for 7 days and watch for the impact that it has. Does it move your relationship along further and faster? Likely yes. Are you going to maybe even gain a new client from it? Possibly so. And I'd love to hear the results of that because I really feel strongly that, you know, humanizing marketing and making it real, making yourself accessible is really one of the keys for authenticity, real, raw, like that's what's really working working because people want to just know you. It's really simple. They just want to know who you really are. They don't necessarily want to see the Instagram veneered you. They want authenticity, okay. Let me just read these messages first and then see where we're at. Cell phone to cell phone, can I receive, okay, can I receive on a desktop even if the message is sent from a cell phone? In Facebook Messenger, you can, yes, because I often will reply to comments and messages from my desktop that originated from the phone. So yes, that would be the case. So, you know, these, these platforms are— how do you say it— synchronized, right? Whether it be desktop or phone, that sort of thing. Yes, but great question, Bruce. Thank you for that. So I hope that's helpful for you guys. I wanted to, again, this came from my experience last night doing the strategy call. I thought, you know what, that's actually something that could really help you to build your brand, connect with your audience, build relationships, and really wow people and stand out literally in 15 seconds. So my name is Sheryl Plouffe. If you want to connect with me, please do so at SherylPlouffe.com. You can subscribe to me on YouTube. I'm on Facebook. And now of course the podcast Personal Brand Breakthrough is out and out there. So please subscribe and also leave an early review. I know we're only in the first few episodes of the show, but by leaving a review it helps to climb that, that show up the rankings. Even though it's already climbing, I'd like to skyrocket it a little bit, and your reviews will help do that. So thank you so much for watching today. I hope you have a fantastic day, and I can't wait to hear how this voice message and video message method works for you to stand out in 15 seconds. Thanks so much, I'll talk to you soon.