I’m sorry — who did you say you were again?
This week I’m speaking at the California Society for Association Executives in beautiful Monterey. I’m trying out my new business cards, which are bright, sleek mini cards that point people to the new site, AskBethZ.com. This event is more or less my coming out party for the author/speaker path I’ve been wanting to take, a diversion from the freelance writer/marketing consultant road I’ve been on for almost three years.
Last night I ran into a speaking guru and personal brand expert, who asked me what I did. I froze. Speakers are obliged to be able to spout their conversation-provoking “brand promise” or tagline or elevator speech in a nanosecond — confidently and with conviction. It’s a thing, and I don’t have that thing.
So I stuttered and said, “Oh, I don’t have my little speech down yet, but let me give you my card.” So I got out my cute little cards that had been impressing people all day. I was hoping he’d love how adorable and colorful they were and would see how I was positioning myself. He said, “You certainly need to work on your brand promise.”
Sigh. Deflate.
And then there was a wonderful coincidence — this guy is actually a brand promise coach for speakers and authors! And he could help me hone my brand promise with one-on-one consultations! My… I am a lucky girl to have found such expertise at a time when I need it so much.
All sarcasm aside, though, he’s right. My tagline — Beth Ziesenis, The Quick Tech Trainer — was a suggestion by another speaker during a 5-minute breakfast conversation at another conference. My first draft was something like, “Hi, I’m Beth Ziesenis, and it really makes me happy to help people.” That wasn’t quite catchy enough. For a while I’ve gone with themes around me being “The Cheapskate Freelancer,” but speaker coaches and marketing gurus really, really hate the whole “cheap” theme.
Is it just me, or is it almost impossible to be your own marketing analyst to elevate your business? I spend so much time answering emails, writing for clients, sending bios to meeting coordinators and making travel reservations that I feel like I never have time to really think about my own messaging. And when I do come up with an idea, it’s tough to find people to bounce it off of because I work alone and don’t have much of a community around me.
What I need is a me — an outside consultant who can take an objective look at what I want to do and help me figure out how to say it. Any volunteers?
This week several people at the conference came up and said, “I used to keep up with you via your blog — aren’t you writing anymore?” Thanks for the encouragement to get back to the blog, and thanks to the guru for giving me an ego-bruising encounter as a writing prompt.
Bryan Floyd on 29 Mar 2011 at 6:46 am #
If I understand your post, you want to move from being a writer to a speaker. I assume your desire to help people is by leveraging your skills as a writer and showing folks how to transform their written word into oration.
This is brand transition; so leverage what you have built up over the past few years into the new you:
“Taking words from paper to podium: authoring with clarity – speaking with captivation.”
If the above is the case, the next step is to develop your offering and differentiation into an elevator pitch. This is a case where you should practice your skills! Write it out. Re-write it. Then again… then practice saying it. Then rewrite. Then say. Revisit it once a week. Post it to all your friends for comment. You will find that over a month or so, you will have a living definition of the new you. And one that you can pitch… in a elevator (or a blog).
Beth on 29 Mar 2011 at 7:03 am #
Thanks, Bryan! Your help deserves a cupcake.
Roy Moses on 29 Mar 2011 at 2:18 pm #
I was beginning to wonder if you ventured too far out into the great Pacific and fell off the edge of the earth. Welcome back, just don’t look for any help from me. Remember that I am very old and very crotchety and very leery of all of this new jargon — especially on the Left Coast. I thought branding was something done on a cattle ranch with a hot iron. Then there is the “speaking guru and personal brand expert” plus the “brand promise coach” until my mind is areel.
I liked the “from paper to podium” phrase but deliver me from the non-word “authoring.” We have let so many writers with little vocabulary and low standards bastardize so much of the English language over the years that damned if some of the dictionaries haven’t begun to include them.
Several years a group of English teachers in California proposed that “street English” should be acceptable in classes. When a bunch of truants are standing around on a street corner “shucking and jiving,” as they used to say, they all know what the others are saying, was the so-called logic.
My only thought was surely they aren’t serious — but apparently they were, until cooler heads shot down the idea. Suppose a bunch of math teachers decided if students decided that two plus two should equal five, and teachers went along with it, then you’d never be able to balance a check book.
Pardon the rant, Beth, and good luck on you new world.
Roy
Jenny on 30 Mar 2011 at 7:27 am #
Good luck, Beth. We have a social stigma to overcome when promoting ourselves, that whole being humble bit. Seems it is much easier to make others shine, but you are brilliant. And knowing you, now that you’ve stated your desire, your quickly spoken brand will manifest. Congratulations on your success!
Bryan Floyd on 31 Mar 2011 at 7:14 am #
…one additional thought. Here is the elevator pitch I (regularly tweak) have for my company:
Synapse Wireless is the creator of SNAP, a modern mesh network operating system that provides embedded intelligence and wireless communication for connecting machines with other machines or people.
SNAP is used by engineers to design products that require monitoring and control, such as energy systems, building automation, asset management and many more.
Synapse’s solution is not complicated to use. There is no setup required and application development is as easy as writing scripts. You do not have to understand network communication details, only what you want your application to do, which may include distributed computing via the Internet. The result is a superior and differentiated product with faster time to revenue.
Michelle Tubb on 06 Apr 2011 at 11:52 am #
Glad to see that you’re posting again! I’d get bummed out everytime I’d visit and saw that you didn’t have a new post.
Michelle Tubb on 06 Apr 2011 at 11:53 am #
see not saw