Marketing lesson: the greatest selling tool is you

Day three of our blog competition guest posts - first today we have the refreshingly straightforward Sheree Lowe, of Sundowner VA. The original guidelines for entry are here, read all the featured entries, you could also read about how we chose the winner, or what we learned from running the blogging competition. Bronwyn Durand founded JupiterJasper, the Marketing Mentor for small businesses. Bronwyn is also The Brand Whisperer, with a special interest in building commercial identities for businesses. Do you get my free weekly email? Sign up to ’1 Thing to Improve Your Marketing this week’ here. I was bullied at school. A lot. A LOT, a lot. I never fit in socially, was a bit more academic than the average (and undiplomatically opinionated with it) and better at sports than most (which makes you cool if you’re male, but not if you’re female). I pretty much spent my entire childhood and teenage years trying to appear unexceptional in every possible way so as to stay under the radar. I worked hard to hide opinions, thoughts, emotions, tendencies, habits, character traits – just to be able to live a quiet life.

The bullying and self-repression had no negative short- or long-term consequences. That I can remember.

By the time I left school it was simply habit to behave this way, and spent the next ten or so years as an unhappy and unfulfilled employee not living up to any kind of potential (ie, as a PA on £20k – who was a member of Mensa with a first in Classical Latin – and considered by head office incapable of progressing beyond that role). The problem is, you can’t repress your entire self for years without something big happening. Something, as they say, has gotta give. In my case, it was jacking in the job after a hissy fit with said head office with no other job to go to. I found another job though, and did precisely the same with that one, 2 years later – only this time when I jacked it in, I’d been running Sundowner for 3 months. “I want to break free! I want to breeeeaaaak free!” The last 18 months since I launched Sundowner has been a process of breaking free of that habitual self-repression and discovering characteristics and qualities I didn’t know I had (for example, I had no idea I was at all creative, thought my social skills were completely non-existent and thought I’d be rubbish leading or talking in front of groups). I still remember turning up to my first networking event in a white collared shirt and grey pencil skirt (if you know me, you’ve probably just wet yourself laughing) – because I thought that’s what a PA/business owner was “supposed” to look like to be taken seriously.

But Camille Jones and Fedde Le Grand proved me wrong.

The Real Me I still find it incredibly upsetting when someone doesn’t like me – but that’s ok, I’m working on that. But it has taken me 18 months and the support and perception of some lovely, wonderful, insightful and encouraging people I’ve met through networking to be able to feel comfortable saying and believing this: (*deep breath*) This is the real me. Take it or leave it.

So is this – but the less said about that one, the better.

My business started to become successful once I accepted this, and little by little began to uncage the Real Me. When you’re pretending to be something you’re not, people can pick up on that and even if you’re not deliberately trying to mislead or deceive, people will have trouble trusting you – the kiss of death for most service-based businesses. You are your brand If you’re starting a small business or are self-employed or freelance, you are your brand. It has to be that way. Your personal values and your business’s values are likely one and the same, because when your business is an extension of your heart and is either the manifestation of, or a vehicle towards, your hopes and dreams, you have to believe completely in who you are and what you are doing. You are your greatest selling point, not any service you offer or product you sell – because, let’s face it, we all have loads of direct competitors selling or doing exactly the same thing. I’ve said it before on this blog – I don’t care how unique you think your product or service is, it’s not. What’s different is the person behind it, and ultimately that’s what people are buying. So let them see you – the real you.

Not like this.

Give as much of yourself as you are comfortable giving without it feeling intrusive. Trust people to love and respect the real you and if they don’t, they’re not the customers or collaborators you want anyway; the relationship will forever be filled with resentment, tension and misalignment of expectations – and who wants that? You went into business to do it YOUR way, to work with the people YOU wanted to work with and do the kind of stuff YOU chose to do, remember? Sheree is a VA who specialises in ensuring creative, open-minded small business owners build loyal relationships with their customers. Visit Sheree's original post here, where you can read the various comments that her post generated. Any thoughts to add of your own experience? Comment below!)