"If your content is only about your bells, your whistles, your features, your resume, how awesome you are instead of regularly, consistently communicating very clearly the positive impact your clients get from working with you, then they're going to scroll on and you will not grow your revenue. That content that talks all about you is verbal vomit." — Curt Mercadante
This episode brought to you by Cultivate Elevate's USDA organic mushroom powders and Shilajit. Get 10% off their products by clicking here.
In today’s episode, Curt Mercadante discusses why you should replace your “value proposition” with a clear and compelling “Impact Statement” that speaks simply and clearly to the positive impact your clients WANT to get from working with you.
FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE:
Curt Mercadante:
My name's Curt Mercadante. This is the Freedom Media Network and this is the Freedom Friday episode. I'm so grateful you have even chosen to spend a sliver, a small part, a slice of your life, of your week, of your day with me and the others who are listening to this message today and we're going to talk about your message. We're going to talk about some branding and sales. For those who don't know me, for the past 25 years, I've helped large corporations, small businesses, associations build their brands. I help small businesses.
Curt Mercadante:
Hell, I help individuals be more prosperous. One of the ways I do that is by helping them craft an impact message that they deliver and communicate on a regular basis to their ideal clients so they can generate the right revenue for their businesses. And one thing I mentioned there is ideal client. Coming up on April 21st and 22nd, we'll do it again in the fall, we have our Freedom Business Growth Bootcamp. And the first thing we do in that bootcamp is get really clear, get really freaking aggressively, radically clear on who your ideal client is because it all starts with the who.
Curt Mercadante:
Now why do we start with the who? I've had clients who've argued with me and said, "No, I got to start with the what. I need to know what I offer." Here's the deal, if you don't start with the who, you won't know what they want. And that brings us to today's message in terms of what is your impact statement? Now I've recently shared over on LinkedIn, I shared on other social media networks, the fact that we work with our clients and I urge my clients to take that term value proposition, you may have heard it before and flush it down the toilet.
Curt Mercadante:
Now why do I urge them to do that? Well, look up proposition in the dictionary. Now one definition has to do with prostitution, propositioning people. Now if that's your business, there's no judgment, but likely it is not. So you want to be put in that category of prostitution. Maybe you do, no judgment again, but the other definition has to do with you making a proposal and that's the problem. Isn't it? Everyone posts on LinkedIn how sick they are of getting proposals as soon as they connect with someone.
Curt Mercadante:
I connect with you and you say, "Hey, I checked out your LinkedIn profile. I have a proposal to make you. I have a product I think you would like." That's called verbal vomit. You see a small business owner. We're so smart and we know what our clients need. And we verbally vomit all over them. I was checking your LinkedIn profile and I noticed that I think you're going to like my product. We're assuming that we know and that our potential client knows what they need. And you know what happens when we assume. Make an ass out of you and me.
Curt Mercadante:
So it's not about propositioning, it's not about making a proposal up front. So I want you to take that term value proposition and put it to this side and replace it with impact statement. Because my definition of a business and maybe it's yours too, I invite you to adopt it is making a positive impact on the lives of other people, on the lives of another human being. I don't care what business you're in. If you're selling golf balls or high-end consulting, you are making a positive impact on the life of someone else.
Curt Mercadante:
And the reason someone's going to buy, yeah, there's that no like and trust factor, but you are communicating positive impact, the positive impact your potential client wants. Let me ask you a pointed question. Does your potential client, let's call him John or Jane, John or Jane, do you think they wake up in the morning looking, hoping, oh my gosh, I wake up in the morning and I'm hoping to see so and so's advertisement, new feature, bells and whistles? I'm really looking for an announcement about what you are doing in your company today. Of course not.
Curt Mercadante:
Your potential client may not know you exist. They may not know they're in need of your solution, but they wake up. They have a want, maybe they have a pain, maybe they have a wound, they have a challenge. And so they get on LinkedIn, they get on Twitter, they get on Instagram and they scroll past your content because your content is just to about announcements. Your content is about you. I call it ego-based content. Now what's the alternative? John and Jane, they wake up, they have a wound, they have a challenge, they have a pain point, they have a want and they log onto Twitter or Instagram or YouTube or LinkedIn.
Curt Mercadante:
And as they're scrolling, maybe they're just on there to do business. Maybe they're on there to check their resume, but they all of a sudden see your content and your content speaks to them. Why does it speak to them? Because it speaks to them in terms of positive impact. Maybe it's a solution. Maybe it's a sale for their wound. It fills their pain point. It helps them. It fills that hole. That is their want. They got on LinkedIn to look for something else, to check their resume and there is your content. There is you sharing positive impact and it speaks to them.
Curt Mercadante:
Now maybe right away they don't pick up the phone and call you and say, "Hey, I want what you have." But regularly because you're consistent now consistently posting content that communicates the positive impact your potential clients get from working with you. They see it time and time again. Every time they log on, they see you communicating positive impact to them until finally they view your profile. You reach out, you have a conversation, they become a client. Boom, you have new revenue for your business.
Curt Mercadante:
And the way you generate new revenue for your business is helping people, is providing positive impact. But that potential client right now because all you do is post about your bells and whistles and you, you, you, you, you, they keep scrolling past you and then you get frustrated and wonder why I'm putting my energy out. Curt says post consistently and I'm doing it. Because it's not the quantity of what you do, I'm a big fan of consistency, but if your content it's all about you, you, you.
Curt Mercadante:
If your content is only about your bells, your whistles, your features, your resume, how awesome you are instead of regularly, consistently communicating very clearly the positive impact your clients get from working with you, then they're going to scroll on and you will not grow your revenue. That content that talks all about you is verbal vomit. It's the same as in a retail shop, a customer comes up to you and you verbally vomit on them by talking all about you instead of the positive impact you want. And notice that all your clients want. And notice I say want instead of need. Your clients may not know what they need. You may know what they need, but they know what they want.
Curt Mercadante:
And I often compare this to Elon Musk. Elon Musk often talks about what Tesla customers want not necessarily what they need. And how do I know this? There's a lot of Tesla customers out there who buy the car not because they give a rat'sass about the green agenda or sustainability, but they want a status symbol. They want a self-driving robot car. They want the bulletproof glass of the Cybertruck. They want a car that goes zero to 60 in 1.7 and Elon Musk knows this.
Curt Mercadante:
Three and a half hours on Joe Rogan. A few minutes was spent talking about sustainability, the rest was talking about the cool features of his car because he speaks on a regular basis to what his clients want. Now I have some people who may be watching this right now and your clients and I watch your content all the time and it's announcements. It's ego content. It's all about you, your bells and whistles and features and you wonder why you're not growing your revenue. Because you're talking about yourself. You are verbally vomiting on a regular basis.
Curt Mercadante:
That's why in our Freedom Business Growth Bootcamp, we work with our clients to craft a very simple one sentence, clear and compelling impact statement. And the reason it's compelling is it speaks to what your clients want. Now the first step in where we start in that bootcamp, actually we start with your beliefs because if you have crappy beliefs, you're not going to sell anyways. But after that, we get really clear. I think we're up to about nine or 10 pages on your ideal client. We get really clear on your ideal client because if you don't know who your ideal client is, then how can you know what that ideal client wants?
Curt Mercadante:
And if you don't know what your ideal client wants, then how can you put together an impact message that speaks to what they want? And if you don't do that, how can you communicate that message consistently? And if you don't do that, how can you grow your revenue? Right clients, right message, right revenue. It is that simple. So do you know what your impact message is? Here's a hint. If it's all about you, your bells, whistles and features and not clearly about the positive impact your clients want from working with you, send me a message. Come into our bootcamp.
Curt Mercadante:
By the way, the Freedom Business Growth Bootcamp is April 21st and 22nd. It is virtual. It is two days. We get in. It is intensive. By the end of that bootcamp, you will know your ideal client very clearly. You will have a clear, compelling impact message. You will have a daily process to communicate that message to those ideal potential clients on a daily basis. I'm going to teach you how to turn LinkedIn into a revenue engine very simply. All that and more in our Freedom Business Growth Bootcamp.
Curt Mercadante:
If you want to generate more revenue, send me a message. You can also go to freedommedianetwork.com, look up in our Freedom Academy and learn more about the bootcamp. But as a quick review, take that term value proposition, throw it in the toilet. Stop verbally vomiting on your potential clients, by talking all about you and your bells and whistles and features. They care about that down the line, but at first they want to know what's in it for me. So you got to speak to what your clients want.
Curt Mercadante:
First, you got to identify that ideal client, know what they want, identify what they want, reverse engineer, put together your impact message and then put together a daily consistent process to communicate that message to those right clients so you can generate the right revenue. So I ask you again, what is your impact message? If you don't know it or you think you do and it's all about you, it's time to go back to the drawing board. Again, I want to thank you so much for watching, for listening.
Curt Mercadante:
My name is Curt Mercadante. This is the Freedom Media Network. If you need help crafting your impact message so that you communicate it to your ideal clients to generate more revenue, send me a message or go to freedommedianetwork.com, look in our Freedom Academy, check out our Freedom Business Bootcamps, send me a message, jump in, we will help you generate more revenue. Thank you so much. Come back to our next episode. We're going to have a wonderful guest. We bring you these Freedom Friday episodes of course every Friday. I'm grateful you are here. Have an abundant rest of your day and an abundant and prosperous life. Thank you.
Comments