The Simplest Way to “Stand Out From the Crowd” Online

This transcript has been automatically created and minimally edited/formatted. As such, there may be some errors in the text.
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[Episode preview]

Creating content that just says, here’s what you need or here’s the thing or here’s the answer or whatever it is without clarifying who you’re talking to does not honor different people’s lived realities. But if this is what you do in your work, you also need to be doing this in your content. The simplest way to stand out from the crowd online is to show up in your content like you do in your work powerfully and deeply in service of your right foot people.

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[Podcast Intro]
Hey, welcome to the Sustainable Success podcast. This is your home for honest conversations about building and running an online business that brings you as much joy as it does revenue. I’m Carly Jo Bell, the Sustainable Success mentor and your guide on this journey with self trust as your North Star and foundations under your feet, you’ll be able to look external for ideas, internal, for answers and build your business your way. Let’s dive in.
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[Episode begins]

the simplest way to stand out in the crowd online is not by having a unique value proposition or trying to define exactly the thing that makes you different from the competitors or the people who do similar work as you. It’s not by talking about why people need to work with me or why I’m the best at this or why that my work is so great. It’s not by sharing unpopular opinions or showing up in your marketing in your underwear or sharing one vulnerable thing per day on social media. The simplest way to stand out from the crowd online is to show up in your content like you do in your work powerfully and deeply in service of your right foot. People think about the content that really grabs your attention in this online business world and not just grabs your attention because we know there is a lot of that but the stuff that really makes you think differently that encourages and inspires you to step even more into the person, the business owner, the leader, the any other role that you play that you wish to be. It’s the content whose author or creator is showing up as powerfully and deeply in service in their content as they are in their work, probably even consistently showing up powerfully and deeply in service in their content as they do in their work so much so that you come to look forward to reading or listening to or watching or otherwise engaging with their content before they even publish more of it. It’s the content that stops your scroll that keeps you reading line after line after line that makes you think and even sometimes act differently. It’s the stuff that you find yourself sharing screenshotting, saving reading again and again, showing up in your content like you do in your work goes beyond being authentic or even being yourself. It goes way beyond content buckets, content pillars and other surface level marketing strategies. This is about you bringing the true power of your work to your marketing, not the entry level stuff, not the 101 level stuff, not the stuff that you think that people want, even though that’s not actually the work that you do. It’s not hiding, for example, the spirituality behind the scientific or hiding the mindset behind the strategy. It is you bringing the fullness, the breadth and the depth of your work to your marketing. When people think about wanting to stand out online, what often ends up happening is that they try to manufacture something unique so that they can stand out. But think about it. Have you ever had a moment where someone you are in relationship with romantic platonic doesn’t matter where they call something out that you do that you never realize that you did. And they’re like, I love that about you. It’s unique. It’s quirky. It’s my favorite thing about you. Think about how wonderful that feels for you to be on the receiving end of. But also think about how the reason that that is so special is in many, in many ways because you didn’t know that you were doing it and it’s just who you are. You didn’t try to manufacture something to be unique. You just are unique. Whereas think about the other side of this, if you are in relationship with someone again, it doesn’t matter what kind, romantic or platonic, but you’re in relationship with them and you are trying to be unique, you are trying to be so special, so different. Does that feel good to anyone including yourself? No, in fact, often it’s those things that you’re trying to be unique around that end up feeling really annoying to a lot of the people that you interact with because it doesn’t feel real manufacturing something unique does not make you unique. It is not gonna make you stand out online. Another thing that a lot of people do to try and stand out online, stand out from the crowded market is they spend a bunch of time creating a unique value proposition or a value statement. And sure, of course, there might come a day where you’re a well established business, you have a big brand, you have a team and you need to be able to clearly articulate the thing that makes you unique because everyone on your team needs to also be able to clearly articulate that and use that thing to inform the work that they are doing in continuing to build your brand. But when it’s just you or even a couple of you, you and a team member or two trying to come up with this unique value statement trying to make it happen before you have organically found. What makes you unique is actually again, often going to lean to you manufacturing something. And this is why I actually, I don’t recommend people who are, you know, under multi six figures to even spend any time trying to come up with a unique value statement. And instead I recommend to them that if they want to stand out online, if they want to quote unquote, be unique, then what they actually need to do is show up powerfully and deeply in service in your content. I’m going to tell you how to do that in a second. But first, I want to clarify what I really mean when I say show up powerfully and deeply in service in your content, show up in your content like you do in your work powerfully and deeply in service. What do I really mean? What I really mean is that first and foremost, you allow yourself to say the things that you actually want to say. But that second, you run those things through the filter of what does my right fit client in this moment really truly need. I was talking with one of my private coach, consulting clients the other day and she was telling me that she had been reading this particular book and the book was like, you know, never talk about yourself and your business, you always need to talk about your audience. And I told her like, I agree with that to an extent, but I also dance and what I mean by that is if you want your business to be sustainably successful, do the things that you most love doing and the way you most love doing it with the people, you most love working with. Part of that means that you need to be able to actually say the things in your content in your marketing that you actually want to say. And there is a level of filtering that and not filtering it in a way of like, you know, hiding parts of you or in a way of, you know, trying to be something that you’re not or, or tone yourself down. I do not mean filtering in that way. That is actually the complete opposite of what I mean, because you don’t want to have to do any of those things in your work either, right? But your content kind of sets the tone for what your people can expect in your work too. What I mean though when I say filter is that there are a lot of things that you could talk about, there are a lot of things that I bet you really want to say. And when you are doing so within the context of your business, you want to run those things through the filter of what does my right. Fit client in this moment, really truly need. So we’re starting from what do you actually want to say? Right. We are starting from like what would be a true, accurate expression of your work here and of your beliefs here and all of that. But we are moving it through the filter of what does my right foot client in this moment really truly need because that’s also what you do in your work. When you are working with a client, you’re not coming in with these things that are completely out of left field. And you’re just like, well, I just wanted to say that that’s not in service of them. Not at all. Right. If I’m coaching a client on, I don’t know, let’s say their lead generation strategy or their content marketing strategy or whatever, I’m coaching a client on that. I’m not gonna all of a sudden come in and talk about. I can’t even think of something completely unrelated that I would want to talk about. I don’t know either way when I’m coaching a client, I’m not gonna come in with something that’s just not related to the work we’re actually doing. And I’m also not gonna come in with just things that it’s like, even if it could be related in some way, things that aren’t actually relevant to that specific conversation. Like if I’m talking with a client about their content marketing, I’m not gonna all of a sudden talk about self doubt, unless they themselves are talking about self doubt or self doubt is showing up. And now it makes sense for me to bring in a conversation on self doubt because it aligns with what they need in this moment. So showing up in our content like we do in our work means in a lot of ways, say the things you want to say at the level you want to say them, don’t like hold yourself back and run those things through the filter of what really is in service. What is in service of my right fit client in this moment? What does my right fit client in this moment really truly need when I say, show up at your content like you do in your work powerfully deeply in service. I also mean, giving real value away to your audience consistently and for free. So often when I talk with business owners, one of their biggest fears is like, well, if I, you know, I don’t want to give everything away. And to that, my question is, can you actually give everything away? Can you actually give everything away? You can’t? And I’m gonna, I’m gonna show you why, but I just, I need you to really hear this. You cannot actually give everything away. I remember very early out of my business back when I was still a social media manager, I just was really frustrated by the fact that so many people in this online business world. It just felt like they were kind of gatekeeping things and weren’t actually telling people what they needed in order to succeed on social media. And so I was like, I’m gonna make a course, it’s gonna be free. And I’m going to basically teach everyone everything that I know about social media marketing. I built the course and in the process of building the course, I realized that I knew way more about social media than I thought that I knew in social media marketing. And not only that, but that at a certain point, if I was to continue trying to share every single thing that I knew, I actually would one get caught in the loop of not being able to do that. Because the further I went, the more I realized I knew and that pattern just kept on happening and happening and happening. But two, it actually would come to a place where it was no longer in service of my right foot client to continue sharing every single thing that I knew because the average business owner didn’t mean to know all of those things about social media marketing. When we have this fear of, I’m going to give everything away. What if I give everything away, then people aren’t going to work with me. What that often ends up doing is making us hold back, making us not actually create that content where we are showing up powerfully and deeply in service. Are we end up giving people a one on one level or an entry level of our work? Or we end up kind of hiding things, not because we’re trying to be like, ha ha ha have this but hiding things because it’s like, well, if I give this to you, then you’re not going to work with me. When the reality is that hiding things, hiding pieces that are so crucial to your work does not serve your audience. But it also doesn’t serve you because not allowing yourself to go into the depth and the breadth of your work and actually bring that to your content, ends up attracting people who do not want the depth and breadth of your work. And then you end up with frustrating client experiences where clients don’t want to do the mindset work. They just want to do the strategy work and they’re frustrated that you continue bringing in the mindset pieces because that’s not what they hired you for. Ask me how I know showing up in your content like you do your work powerfully and deeply in service means giving real value to your audience consistently and for free. And I’m going to show you how to do that in a little bit. So hang on a second if you’re still in that. But wait, Carly, I don’t want to give everything away, but I hear you. How do I do that showing up deeply in service powerfully and deeply in service in your content means honoring a bunch of people’s different lived realities. I remember one time I was scrolling on Facebook and this other business owner that I was friends with had put this post up where they were like, if you’re not doing this, then you know, you’re gonna, I don’t know, some, some outcome, I don’t even remember exactly what it was, but you have to be doing this And someone had commented like, you know, actually I’m in this kind of stage in business and this is happening and I actually don’t need to be doing that. Like someone actually comes and kind of pushed back and I was like, you go and I remember so clearly the, the reason this post in this whole moment sticks with me is because that business owner who had posted that you need to be doing this or else you’re gonna fail. It wasn’t exactly that. But you get the idea. They replied to this other person’s comment, the one who said, actually, I don’t need that and they said, yeah, this post isn’t for you. And I just remember reading that and I’m like, yeah, but you didn’t clarify that. Like literally the post was one of these like one sentence post, the color block posts where there’s like the color behind it and then like one sentence of text over it and it’s like you’re gonna say you need this. And then when someone comes back and says, actually, I don’t, you’re gonna tell them, oh, this isn’t for you. Why are we not nuancing earlier? Why are we not singing here? Is who this is for? Or if you are here, this is what you need. Think about. If you’re working with one client, one person is gonna need one thing, another person is gonna need another thing and all of that is OK. And do you go to both people and say no, you just need this or do you go to both people and say, hey, because of Xy and Z because you’re in this particular situation here is what I would recommend. And then for the other person because you have ABC here is the other thing for you that I would recommend creating content that just says here’s what you need or here’s the thing or here’s the answer or whatever it is without clarifying who you’re talking to does not honor different people’s lived realities. But if this is what you do in your work, you also need to be doing this in your content. This is a little bit of a side, but this is a big part. Why I love long form content because in long form content, I can speak with nuance about the things that I say. Whereas with short form video or snappy captions, I have to really work to distill it down to distill down what I’m saying into something super specific super small so that I don’t have to add the various layers of nuance to what I’m saying. But showing up in your content like you do in your work powerfully and deeply in service means honoring a bunch of people’s different lived realities. It also means using marketing messages that are transparent about what you can actually guarantee. I know my like literally, I find it so easy to accidentally without even thinking, get caught up in promising things that sound really great in marketing. But that in practice could only be promised if certain other things were already in place. Now. That’s not to say that I’m over here trying to be some, you know, that at my core, I’m some unethical human who just wants to make a quick buck or whatever. And I’m just gonna promise you the world or that I don’t think that that’s who I am and yet because it is so normalized to create marketing messages that sound good. And our definition of sound good means a very specific thing in this online business world. It’s so easy to accidentally move in that direction a little bit because that’s what we have been taught frankly, unconsciously actually sounds good. And so that’s what we’re going to use in our marketing in our messaging. But do you do that with your clients? Do you do that in your work? I hope not. And I bet you don’t. So if we are showing up in our content like we do in our work powerfully and deeply in service. This means using marketing messages that are transparent about what you can actually guarantee and maybe guarantee isn’t even the right word because there’s very little you can guarantee, but that you can promise or that you can confidently promote. So how do we show up powerfully in our content like we do in our work? There’s four steps here and I’ll go through each of them. Although of course, you can join us inside of marketing magnified if you’d like us to go into this even more deeply. The first step to shine up powerfully in our content like we do in our work is to know the person to whom you are speaking. It is to know your right fit client. So many people know their ideal client, but they do not know which version of that ideal client is a right fit. And so it can end up feeling really confusing to create content when you’re like, well, what I know about this person is that, you know, they’re a mom, they like pineapple on pizza, they are afraid of not fitting in there. And it’s like, well, what am I creating content on, am I creating content that talks about their fear of not fitting in or am I creating content to their aspiration of truly taking care of themselves? What are we speaking to here? And at some point, it’s just to get really confusing because when you’re like, oh, well, all I know about this person is that they like pineapple and pizza and they’re afraid of getting to know themselves deeply or they’re, you know, they want to make more money or whatever it is. Like at some point, we hit a limit and from that place of feeling limited, we actually end up creating content that does not serve, we create content that is that more one on one level or entry level, we create content that assumes that they don’t know that they need this or that they’re not already looking to purchase this. We create content that speaks to their pain more than it does their, their own power. When we only know our ideal client, it’s really hard to show up in our content like we do in our work. This is where I often will hear clients say things like it’s so easy when I’m actually talking to someone, I know exactly what to say. But when I’m trying to create content, I don’t know what to talk about. Well, it’s because when you are talking in person to someone or over zoom, when you are talking face to face with someone, of course, you know how to adapt things because you know more about them when you’re trying to create content for a little bit of a faceless entity. And all you know is some demographics and a few psychographics about your ideal client, you don’t actually know the person to whom you are speaking. That’s why you need to start by understanding who your right foot client is. That is who is your ideal client? Sure. But which version of them is best positioned to succeed? Which version of that person is purchased ready? And which version of that person is physiologically ready to transform. Right? Now, once you know that person to whom you are speaking, then you find what we call their Pqes problems, questions experiences. Now, PQES are a strategy, they are not a foundation. So there are other ways to find topics, other strategies to find content topics. This is just the one that I use. And this is where I encourage clients to start some place so that they can kind of get their sea legs when it comes to finding content topics. And then of course, if a different strategy works better for them in the future, great, I encourage them to do that because again, what I really care about is foundations, Pqes problems, questions, experiences are just a strategy. They are not the end all, be all the thing that everyone has to do. But once you know your person, you start to then ask what problems is this person currently facing? What questions are they currently asking? What experiences are they currently having from that place? You can now begin to speak directly ideally using the four foundational types of content to those PQES to those problems, questions and experiences. If you’ll notice when you don’t know who your right fit client is and you’re just trying to create content. A lot of content I end up seeing is what I call convincing content. It’s, you need this thing that I sell or here’s why you need a life coach or here’s why you need a website or businesses that have websites have x amount of extra sales per month or whatever. You know, this convincing content tends to be the content that I often see people go into when they don’t know their right fit client. When we know our right fit client, let’s just say I’m a website designer as I know my right set client, my true right fit client sure might be a specific type of ideal customer. But from there, what I also know about them is that they’re best positioned to succeed with my work, some of his best position to succeed with my work of giving them a new website. As an example, I don’t build websites. Let’s make that clear. Someone who’s not, who’s best positioned to succeed already knows what their offers are already knows who their audience is already has messaging, already knows how to market is already selling consistently reliably successfully, has already built frankly, all of the foundations of their sustainable success system. So when it comes to now me developing their website, they already know, well, here’s the goal of the website. Here are the offers that need to be highlighted on the website. Here is the messaging that I’m using throughout the website that I have already turned into copy or I’ve paid someone else to turn into copy. They are already best positioned to succeed in my work. If they didn’t have those things, they actually wouldn’t be a right fit client, even if they aligned with my ideal client because they have to have those things in place in order to be able to succeed in my work. I also know about this person that they are purchase ready. So my right fit client, if I’m a website designer is already actively looking for a website. What that means then is that if I’m creating this type of convincing content, like, you know, businesses with a website, make X amount of percentage increase of sales that content inherently is not speaking to my right fit client. It’s speaking to someone who again might be aligned with my ideal client. But my right fit client already knows they need a website. So one of their PQES, one of their problems, questions experiences is never going to be why do I need a website? But it might be I want a data driven website that moves people to the right spot. That could be one of their problems, questions, experiences. That would be maybe I would classify that as an experience, right? So now I can create content that speaks directly into this PQE. And I want to do that if I want to do this effectively through our four foundational types of content. The four foundational types of content are ones that I have very specific formulas for that really help people to actually again kind of get their sea legs and learning how to create them. I teach those inside of marketing magnified. So I’m not gonna go into them super in depth here. But those four foundational types of content are sales content, educational content, transformational stories, and aspirational or more emotions, focused content. When I know to the person to whom I’m speaking, I know their PQES, their problems, questions or experiences which really are just content topics. And I’m speaking directly to them using the four foundational types of content to all of those pqes and that I’m doing those consistently doing all of those things consistently. That is when I am now able to show up powerfully in my content like I do in my work because I am speaking directly into the present day lived reality of my right foot client of the person who is best positioned to succeed, who is ready to buy and who is physiologically ready to transform. I’m speaking directly into their present day lived reality and in using the four foundational types of content, I’m giving them different entry points into the content depending on what it is that they need in that moment and bringing them educational content that allows them to actually fully solve a problem. And they’re able to then make a very tangible shift in their life in their business, in whatever it is that I help them with. And then that now creates this positive association with my brand because they’re like, oh wow, when Carly said to do that thing, I did that thing and it worked where I felt a difference. I noticed that things were now working differently because I did that thing, sales content. I’m inviting them directly into my work. I’m saying, hey, are you experiencing this thing? I have a solution that I have built specifically for that. Would you like to step into it? I’m now giving them that entry point, aspirational content, the emotions focused content. This is where you really speak to what these people are experiencing, but what they want to be experiencing as well, what they’re looking to expand into and in calling out both where they are and where they want to be. You’re able to then again, kind of give them this entry point into going deeper with your work because it allows them to tap into their emotional experience in addition to sometimes the more logical experience as well. Transformational stories actually kind of do all of the above taps into the emotions, taps into the logic taps into the connection, taps into the sales taps into all of these pieces. And now again, as an audience member or as someone who is engaging with content, where the business owner creating that content, knows the person to whom they’re speaking, knows their pqes is speaking directly to those pqes through the four foundational types of content and is doing all of the above consistently. The audience member, the person who is a true right fit client is going to get a real taste of what it is like to work with you because you are speaking so saliently into their present lived reality. So what happens when you show up powerfully and deeply in service in your content? One of probably the most unexpected things for most of my clients in marketing, magnified when I teach this process to you or an expand where I also teach this process. One of those unexpected results is that you become even more sold on your own work, which then makes talking about your work feel even simpler because you believe more than ever before that you have something truly valuable to sell. It’s amazing. It’s like the more you talk about it, the more you’re like, oh my gosh, this is amazing why am I not talking about this more? Another thing that happens is that you actually release a lot of the stress or the tension or the frustration or the angst around things like engagement or comments or likes or follows or virality. Because now there is actually fulfillment in the act of creating the content itself because just like you feel when you’re working with a client, you’re like, I love this. Well, I hope you feel like that, right? But you love that process of working with a client. And if you bring that same energy into your content, creating content actually becomes way more fulfilling even if it’s still challenging. But working with clients is still challenging too, even if it’s fulfilling and then everything else, the engagement, the comments, the likes the follows going viral, everything else becomes a little bit of a cherry on top and it releases so much of that stress, so much of that anxiety, so much of that inst around needing these external validators and really above all showing that powerfully and deeply in servicing your content just like you do in your work. What this does is it actually helps you to figure out what makes your work unique we talked about before. You don’t want to have to manufacture the thing that makes you unique, you want to find it. And by consistently talking about your work, you actually are going to understand your work better and in understanding your work better, you’re going to see how it differs from what other people do online and you are going to become so much clearer on. Oh, this is the thing that makes what I do different. For example, I’ve been using the language sustainable success in business for over three or four, maybe even five years. At this point, I don’t know for a while, I’ve been using that language for a really long time. And it was only through that process of consistently using that language consistently refining and honing my definition of what sustainable success means that I was able to then find how, hey my approach, my foundations focused and self trust led approach to building real lasting sustainable success is what makes me unique. But I couldn’t have manufactured that three years ago, I had to go through the process of consistently talking about my work to finally understand what the thread was to finally understand what the differentiator was. It wasn’t something that I made, it was something that I landed on, something that I found through the journey of continuing to show up, do my work and continuing to show up and talk about and market my work. It’s almost like how when you learn something and then you teach on that thing that you’ve learned, you almost always end up learning that thing even more deeply by both doing the work that you do and talking about that work in your marketing. It’s kind of the same thing where you are doing the work, you’re now talking about doing the work and in that whole process, you are better understanding exactly what your work is and what your unique thing is. And then of course, you know, this has kind of knock on effects where now building your core framework or developing your branding or whatever it is. Feels so much simpler because you already know what makes you and your approach unique rather than trying to build a framework, build a brand, write, copy, whatever it is before you actually know what that unique thing is. And then trying to like fabricate something unique. My invitation to you here today is if you felt or are feeling pressure to figure out what your unique thing is, let yourself happen upon it naturally. Actually, even a better way to say that is let yourself organically create your thing simply by showing up daily or regularly in your content. How you do your work powerfully and deeply in service of your right fit clients and leads. And of course, if you want some guidance on how to do this more consistently, I invite you to come and join us inside of marketing magnified talk soon.

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[Podcast Outro]
Thanks for listening to the Sustainable Success podcast. You’re home for honest conversations about building and running an online business that brings you as much joy as it does revenue. I truly believe that these are the conversations we need to be having more of in our online business community. If you know too, would you leave me a review and/or share this episode with the friends?
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