Promote! How I do it, Baby

When several multimillionaires say to you, "Marilisa, you are a natural self promoter." You take note. I must be doing something right.

The earliest memory relative to the promoting groove happened while I was still in junior high.

Other kids had a group, this group would stand at a certain place in the mornings as everyone arrived for school. They'd wait for me. Was I selling drugs? Nope. They just wanted to see what I was wearing that day.

I dressed flamboyantly. I had access to three different wardrobes. My mother's, who was seriously stylish and remained the same size since high school, my sister-in-law's, my brother was way older than I was and, therefore married, and my own. I never wore the same thing twice to school.

My next attempt at self promotion didn't go well. I moved from the liberal school to the conservative school. Why the administration was all up in my boobs, I can't say- but I got in trouble for not wearing a bra to school.

So, I had an idea- on the very last day of school, I decided to wear a bra, like I had been doing, but decided to put a little spin on the whole affair.

Recruiting all my friends, I instructed, "Okay. Here's what we're going to do. We will wear our bras outside of our clothes! What can they say? We have our bras on. It's the last day of school. Who's with me?"

Word spread about my "bra protest" so much so, that when all my girlfriend's went into the bathroom to make the switcheroo, the teachers busted us! Still, I liked the attention. I started noticing that I was good at making you notice.

Yesterday, while I was meeting with a client, the following occurred.

Over 90% of my companies do business with other companies. So my client in this case, was a business too.

Tracy had my competitor's card. She also had my superior marketing materials. She literally walked over to the trash can and threw his card away in front of me!

Am I bragging on my marketing materials? You better believe it. Those materials came from the input of a lot of talented people. I steered the process along, but it was the advice I received and took to heart, that makes my materials pop.

Cliff and George just happened to be in my client's business at the time. Who are Cliff and George? The best promoters in the world, are who Cliff and George are.

Cliff and George play with the big boys. The heavy hitters. Businessmen out of Russia and China and huge national firms call on them for their expertise.
When any of these companies need to change their product image, guess how much it's going to cost right off the bat? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's just to get started!

I haven't seen them for a long time and was delighted- because the talk always turns to business and I'm always learning something new from them.

P.O.D., what's that? George, Cliff and I had a big discussion on P.O.D., Point of Difference. If nothing your company is bringing to the table does not stand out in any way, differentiate itself, George and Cliff tell you- sorry. Can't accept your job. Not even worth the trouble.

The greater issue is:

Unless your business has something of value that is unique in the market place, you're going to have a terrible time promoting it!

Back in initial creation stage, if you scrimped on your branding, being just mediocre, or you scrimped on your offering, being average at best, you can promote until the cows come home to no avail!

An efficacy exists between the original creation of your business and the ongoing promotion.

Synergy between both is a must.

But specifically, how to I promote?

In three distinct ways.

I promote generally. I promote specifically. I promote creatively. I promote by pushing myself forward and saying, "Look at this!" I do not apologize for it either.

General Promotion:

I make sure everyone knows about me and my companies. They might not need something from me now, but they will, or they'll know someone who will.

Huge rule of thumb: THE CONSUMER CAN NOT BUY FROM YOU IF THE CONSUMER DOES NOT KNOW ABOUT YOU.

Specific Promotion:

When I want to target a niche group, I do this. Who's my buyer? Where are they? When are they ready to buy? These are my key questions.

No Cost Promotion:

Heck yeah, I'll call up the t.v. stations and the newspapers. The last time I was in the paper, the owner of the paper was saying to me-

"I own the paper. I can do anything I want."

"Well, Max. As you said, you own the paper and can do anything you want- did I mention I'm going to need the front page?"

What could he say? I got front page.

Bashful and promoting do not go hand in hand.

How Aptitudes Repressed or Expressed, Can Shape Our Lives

Everyone has aptitudes. Aptitudes can be defined as those talents and skills that are innate in one's nature and that change very little, if at all, over time.

Aptitudes differ from "interests". This week, I became interested in fishing, but discovered I have little natural aptitude for it. To begin with, I honestly wanted a Dora the Explorer fishing set because, not only was it just cute as a button, if I inadvertently dropped it in the lake, it floated! But Tony told me that, uh... no, you are not going to embarrass both yourself and me in that fashion and flatly said I could not have it. I chose a "Ladies fishing set" instead, which was only one notch down in cuteness relative Dora- so I just tied an ugly white string to my pole- in case of a dropping mishap.

And those little minnows- gosh I felt so bad to stick... right. Back to business.

A.I.M.S. is a service I employed a few years back to help me figure out the proper and best direction that I could take with my talents, whatever they were, because back then, I wasn't sure what I was good at doing. I knew what I couldn't do, however. I can not cook my way out of a paper bag. I even flunked home economics and got kicked off the cheer leading squad. Yeah, I'm still bitter about that. Scratch "culinary arts".

"A.I.M.S." stands for "Aptitude Measurement Service". The idea is, you go in their brightly lit and mostly austere office, and pay a rather large amount of money, and they test you rigorously over the course of three full days.

This test is not a little multiple choice affair or fill in the blanks.

Here was what Entrepreneur Chick walked away with- both good and bad.

Unfortunately, the results of the test, in my opinion, is only geared to those entering the "job market". I am an entrepreneur. I am the job creator. I am not the job seeker. It took me several years to figure out why none of their expert recommendations- "private detective", "advertising", "marketing", "public office", "teaching"- appealed to me! That was the bad.

Here is the good. I am a "specialist extrovert", which only a small percentage of people are. Mostly, people are a "generalist introvert", meaning you know a little bit about everything and could be characterized as shy and withdrawn, or a "generalist extrovert," or a "specialist introvert"- meaning you hone in on one area of specialty, say you are a cardiologist, but you tend to keep to yourself more than you tend to be outgoing. I believe, only about 3 to 5 percent of everyone tested fails into my category.

I, they determined, function best by having "direct contact with many people" and that "routine tasks and activities are to be avoided" and that I score extremely high on the "idea-phoric" scale- denoting that I can "easily generate ideas quickly to solve problems." That's an entrepreneur. That's who I am.

When I learned to express who I am and not fit into something that's not a match for me at all, is when I began to flourish like two guppies in a big pond! I mean, I took off! It was so EASY.

In closing- if one does not understand where their aptitudes lie, and those aptitudes remain unexpressed, this can be a foundational cause for depression and deep dissatisfaction with life overall. As you see "who you are", is not in continuity, with "what you do". "What you do", is not "who you are". See the dichotomy? You see the inherent damage? It's like huge cow on the train track, just standing there. Someone's going to get hurt. There's surely going to be a derailment.

I would encourage everyone to go out of their way to deeply seek to understand who they are uniquely, as pre-determined by a natural set of aptitudes, and then build your life around what those are- going along with your intrinsic inner "current" rather than fighting a strong and perpetual under tow that will only ultimately drag you down deeper and deeper and deeper, into a person you were never meant to be.

(I dedicate this post today to a same-soul Sistah, Ms. Avery.)