The power of one Ted talk

As an entrepreneur, you should find your way to become a leading influencer of your new market

I interviewed Angela Maiers on my podcast. Angela went to medical school to study neuroscience. And during her study, she found out that what she really wants to do is teaching.

With time she realized she is actually an entrepreneur looking to impact people.

Angela Maiers’s TED talk

“I had a massive amount of content by then, she told me. I published 8 books, 4000 blog posts, and I was contributing to four leadership innovation blogs. I wrote very topic-specific content about Neuroscience, The anatomy of the web, The anatomy of the social transformation of the web, digital impact, and these sorts of things.

Then I had this TED talk. With TED, you get 17 minutes to tell the world how you're going to change the world. I had this beautiful talk about social media all ready to go.

The night before the talk, I watched my six favorite TED talks. They were all from profound people. And I started doubting myself. I started thinking, ‘Who am I? I can't do this. I don't have anything worthy to say.’ And then I thought, ‘You know what? That is the problem with the world.’ The reason we don't contribute our fullest, fiercest genius to the world is that we don't think we're enough. We don't think we matter.

So, the name of my talk was “You Matter.” The simple thesis focused on whether people understood how much they mattered, how much they were needed, how much they were counted on. And this message really spread out very fast.”

Your Market Category

As an entrepreneur, you are bringing something unique, something new to the market. And I believe you should always choose your core asset around what you are ‘One of a kind of.’

Angela Maiers expressed it best: What is your genius as an entrepreneur? And how will you share it?

 

You might like to read my post Building your entrepreneurial success starts with recognizing what makes you One-of-a-Kind

Entrepreneurs, who invent new products, usually also create new market categories, or, alternatively can become the leaders of an existing unsaturated market. Taking ownership of your market category is critical to the strength of your brand and the value you can achieve for your entrepreneurship.

I will write in more depth about finding the right market category in one of the coming posts.

 

Become the voice of your new category

Once you decide, based on research and market overview, what market category you can lead and take ownership of, it’s time to become the voice of this category.

You should make sure to speak “in the name” of the new category and not to promote your product. People became more and more skeptical about advertising and promotion.

The equation here is simple; people want to be updated and learn about a new category and solution that is relevant for them. However, I always say that people love to buy but hate “to be sold to.”

The idea of how an expert can become known in their field of expertise is brought to us by Mark Schaefer in his excellent book Known.

“When I wrote my last book, Known, it was about how creating an effective, powerful personal brand is really the only sustainable, competitive advantage we can have. I was addressing the question: Could anybody become known?”

Many of the successful entrepreneurs I interview on this show are recognized as influencers in their field. That’s probably how I heard about them.

How to become the influencer of your new market?

Now, you should start producing content, to teach and educate your target audience around your unique field of business:

Examples for contact creation:

• The story of the new category; how it has developed and what does it do
• A strong presence on social networks
• Consider creating a company podcast about the new market category you represent.
• Create a blog that focuses on and covers the market category
• Create the formal home page for the category
• Open groups in Facebook and LinkedIn, named after the new category
• ”How To’s” tips for potential customers

 

Consistency

The part about consistency is maybe the most important part. Because without that, usually, everything you’ve done until now will vanish.

When I talk about consistency, I refer to two elements - the first is the importance of creating some kind of similarity between the different content. If we want to create an impact, people need to be able to recognize you.

The other kind of consistency is the kind Mark Schaefer talks about, and this is the ability to keep going.

“It was one of the most profound lessons I have learned; consistency is more important than genius. I would never have made it if I had quit. You have to find a way to keep going.”

Trevor Crane, whom I interviewed on another podcast show, talked about consistency when I asked him about his key success factor:

“Consistency is the new currency. I did not like the word ‘Discipline’; I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do, not even ME! 2800 days ago, I made the decision that I would become disciplined enough to work out every day. And now, 2800 days later, I have exercised every single day, in a row; doesn’t matter if I was stuck on an airplane, or sick, I still found a way to stretch and exercise. This proved to me that I could be consistent. “

Becoming an influencer in your field of expertise enables us to make an impact. It also brings sales...!!