360 DPI

Reflecting back over my year has reminded me of something I learned in one of my own workshops. What’s the “One Thing” that makes you different?

Recently, my colleague Karen McCullough and I gave a workshop on how to market yourself as a public speaker.  It was a day of giving away all the things that worked for Karen in her career as a public speaker, some of which I helped her with, and all the things that did not. The workshop ended up being very interactive, with most of the participants adding extremely valuable information and experiences to the mix.

One of the most notable people there was Julie Haralson, the Marketing Director at Texas Children’s Hospital and a marketing consultant.  She shared a piece of information that has helped me immensely in the area of Personal Branding.  It was the concept of “The One Thing”.   Julie posed that very question to us, and it really clarified the crux of personal branding.  In a world where we’re all trying to stand out and be noticed, very few of us can easily identify that One Thing that defines us.  Julie reminded us of the movie City Slickers and this important scene where Curly learns about the secret to success and happiness.

Take a moment to think about that one thing that makes you different?  It’s not an easy question to answer.  I’m still working on it.

Sometimes it’s good to talk about success: what works and what doesn’t.  Because I work mostly with speakers, I have a certain affinity for them, for their struggle to forge their own path in a strange landscape that has no real road map.  One of the most daunting challenges for a public speaker is to find their target sweet spot.  What audience will respond the most?  Who will continue to hire them?  Where will they find the most gold?  Only then can they truly begin to market themselves.  Until a speaker has this puzzle figured out, the road is dark and uphill.

I work with a talented man by the name of Chris Loomis, and for a few years now, I have watched as he has struggled to find his target sweet spot.  He is a large, imposing man with a booming voice and a likable and aggressive demeanor.  I have worked with him over the years, capturing his talks on video, sitting with him in seminars on branding and watching him get in front of audiences to speak on Leadership, Success and Sales.  As time goes on, and as the challenges become greater, a speaker can get discouraged.  But not Chris.  His determination was attractive.  Chris was always willing to try another way.

There came a moment when Chris decided to reach back to his corporate past and focus his expertise on what he gained as the Marketing Manager for DuPont’s environmental and safety services division. Little did he know that this shift would be the key to his finding his target. The amazing part of this story is that it unfolded so quickly. Chris changed his speaking topic to Safety Education, put up a video on YouTube and on his website, and before he could take a breath, had Exxon Mobil knocking on his door. The Oil and Gas giant has hired Chris to speak to it’s teams all over the globe on Safety. Not only once or twice, but as an ongoing project to last three years.

My own part in this success story was on encouraging Chris to keep recording his presentations on video and getting them up on the web. The right key words and tags got the search engines to find Chris and bring him back to the audiences that really needed to hear his talk. Check out the video.