so how do we stand out in a crowd there is uh an idea I have that might help you to do this a little bit of where this came from I used to work in a factory not so long ago and it was like pretty much any Factory you could think of it was full of uh lots of people doing the same things day in day out it was dirty it was smelly and we weren't making much of a difference in the world world and we were given heavy workloads and it was really stressful with
lots of deadlines in fact I got to be honest with you Secondary School maths teacher that was my factory and this is what I was producing I was producing thousands and thousands of children who could pass tests and I looked at my boss's job one day and yeah I thought apart from your salary there's nothing about your job that I want and that started to sew the seeds of Entrepreneurship inside me so there I am in this Factory and I looked at my boss's job and thought I could do something else here I wanted to
plan my exit from teaching and I took a job in sales I didn't realize at the time but actually when I was in teaching I was selling because I was selling a dream I was selling a dream of a better future I selling a dream of prospects and a dream of hope and every single one of us is in sales you're in sales right now you might not be selling a dream but you might be selling products and services not now but sometime in the future you might be selling a vision you could be a
leader trying to engage people with your leadership style or trying to get them to buy into your vision of where you want your Empire to go you could be selling an idea a system a methodology a concept you could be selling an argument an opinion A View you might well be selling an excuse a reason an explanation above all the number one thing we're all selling is ourselves if I don't buy you I want buy everything else that stands behind you people bu people and if I get to know you and get to like you
and get to trust you then the chances are I will buy from you and we're all selling this idea of us you want other people to choose you to promote you to hire you to pay you to go out with you to marry you to recommend you how do we stand out so that we're the one that gets chosen now a few years ago when I took this job in sales part of my role was networking I had to generate leads for this company as well as convert those leads and sell them so when I
realized I had to do that I got my brand new business cards and I went out to every single business related event that I could and I didn't realize how much networking I was doing um until I came home one evening and my wife was there with a bottle of wine and some chocolates and I said what are we celebrating Rob it's been two years since your first networking event and the subject had been I've not seen you for that long it's been two years it had gone like this I'd gone to the opening of
an envelope I was everywhere every single business event you could think of that was me and she said to me I was wondering and I thought there's a tough question coming up here because women can ask men some very tough questions like does my bum look big in this will you do this magazine quiz with me is she prettier than me do you still love me after all these years would you marry anyone else if I died these are all tough questions and Men we've got nowhere to go with these it it always ends badly
so Amanda my wife had a wonderful question for me and it was a very legitimate question she said to me how much business have you got from all of this networking because I've not seen you so for question and I didn't know the answer so I I went into my office I I did some checking and this is my track record for two years of networking have a look at this and be impressed I went to 126 business related events I spent 284 hours of contact Time pressing the flesh shaking hands saying hello to people
swapping cards That's not including travel to and from the events how many days out of my life was that I spent $ 7,485 on breakfast lunches dinners memberships bacon sandwiches and I collected 987 business cards here's a question for you how much business do you think I got from all of that activity in two years and I'll give you a clue it's a really round number nothing it felt like I was busy there was always another event to go to there was always another business card to collect there's always another hand to shake but in
reality i' got no business from all of that activity and when I realized this it was a moment of intense shame I was humiliated I I felt a lot of regret that I'd wasted all this time particularly as I'd only been married a couple years and I made the decision that something had to change I had to think a little bit differently I either went back to teaching which for me was a fail or I became world class at this network and it always puzzled me why some people got the business and some didn't how
some people stood out and some didn't so I started to look into it and I thought if some people are making money from this networking and business stuff then if I do what they've done I can get the same results so I began to be a student of of selling yourself and I started to notice what made some people stand out and what didn't and I'm going to share with you what I found and to do that I'm going to explain to you the problem and the problem is in one word noise it's very noisy
out there let me explain this noise to you there are millions and millions of digital TV channels all over the world now millions of of audio channels and radio channels you can listen and watch anything you like at any time of the day or night it's noise there are so many mobile phones now musling in on our lives making more noise social media is the new inbox you conquered your old inbox and now you've got three or four other inboxes and loads of other messages and loads of other people to connect with and follow up
and build the relationship with but it's more noise it's more activity it's more clutter the worldwide web dumps billions of megabytes of information on you every single minute of the day it's noise we are in a bulging population more and more people graduating with the same qualifications as you looking for the same jobs with the same looking CV or resume looking for the same pay packet to service the same customers and clients selling the same products and services everything looks and sounds the same and everyone's saying buy me choose me pick me me promote me
hire me pay me go out with me marry me and do you know what the World Hears one word blah blah blah blah it all sounds the same and as the wonderful marketer Gary Hamill tells us sameness sucks how do we stand out how do we make an impact how do we look a little bit different to everybody else there is a way I've got the answer I think and it's in your reputation it's in your good name let's explore what a reputation is very simply a reputation is what people see feel think do and
say when they come into contact with you or your name that's your good name that's people talking about you when you're not there are you okay with people talking about you and you're not there or would you rather not be talked about your reputation is your personal share price on the stock market of life it's that little piece of real estate in people's minds that they occupy thinking of you and it's very hard to get a bit of that when your share price is high people will find you invest in you look for you in
short your reputation is your rep which is the reason everyone pays there's three things we want people to pay us the first thing thing is we want people to pay us attention we know about how much clutter there is how do we get noticed how do we clamber above all of the dro that is out there and get people to say I'm just a little bit different and I'm the one that you want we want to solve the tyranny of choice which says when people need what you do how can you ensure that they pick
you first above and beyond all of the other choices including the choice to do nothing the second thing we want people to pay us is respect and that looks like people supporting you and encouraging you and paying you a fair days wage for a fair day's work it means people defending you if you're attacked it means people treating you nicely and when you have a good name and a good reputation you will get the respect that you deserve and the third thing we want people to pay us is money the bigger your reputation the more
you will get paid that's the way it goes now I I don't apologize for talking about money the late Zig Zigler tells us that money is very important it ranks right up there with oxygen and as a an American Minister says to us he's called the Reverend Ike he said the best thing you can do for the poor is not to be one of them money is important makes the world go around and in the good old days money was the currency of business there weren't checks and credit cards and bank balances you did business
on a handshake you did business on a reputation you did business on a good name you fulfilled your promises and your obligations and people would come back to you and the word would spread and there are many benefits of a great reputation then and even now because what we find is the people that stand out with the strong names are the ones that get picked the ones that are chosen the ones that get the perks the interest in projects the ones where people come to them instead of you chasing after everybody else so what's your
reputation what are people saying behind your back and more to the point how do you get them to even think about you if we can get people talking and thinking about us we've got a chance to be the standout number one compelling obvious go-to choice for what we do so I'm going to share with you how we can build a strong reputation we saw the seeds of it when we're younger a reputation takes a lifetime to build it's like a a big oak tree growing from a Little Acorn and they said that the worst time
to to build a to to sew a tree to plant a tree is now the best time is 20 30 years ago but at least you can start now and I'm going to start by giving you four things that you can do to sell yourself and stand out in a crowd of equals let's start with this red box let's bring in the red box by creating a gray box and let's put everyone in the world like you in that gray box it's very homogenized it's bland it's commoditized if you look and sound the same as
everyone else then when people need what you do they'll go to the cheapest or closest or most convenient they can find and that's not a War to be in because there's always someone willing to do it cheaper than you so we need the red box and the red box says what is it about me that is unique what is it about me that my competition cannot duplicate or replicate what is it that they would find it difficult to copy or claim so what goes in your red box let's analyze it your red box starts when
you're born and we build in your character this is how we build a reputation and a good name your character is what you stand for what you hold dear what's important to you your values your principles it's your very call on top of that you start to grow and learn and you build experience the experiences you've had in your life I haven't had they are unique to you and when you start to talk about your experiences you're operating in the red box if you talk about the stuff that everyone else has done you're in the
gray box and that's difficult for you to stand out so the skills that you have the talents that you have I've not got your weapons I've got different weapons I've got different talents I've got different DNA so I'll fight a different battle to you in a different way but there are ways that you can beat me in talking about what's unique to you your expertise the knowledge that you've got you've got stuff in your head that I couldn't even dream of but when you talk in more general terms it's more bland and it doesn't stand
out as much so build on your character and your inner being with everything you can learn and train and get good at after that you get your personal brand your personal brand is the outward manifestation of all the things you've got going on inside it's the way you walk it's the way you look it's the way you talk it's it's the way you you deal with people it's it's your website it's your business card it's your dress sense it's all of those messages that come out from what's on the inside and finally is your reputation
which is what people think when they come into contact with all of those messages when they interact with your personal brand what are they thinking if you can talk about what's in the red box your uniqueness you've got a chance of standing out concentrate on what's in here every time you're interacting with people and building your brand your elevator pitch your resume your CV the conversations the pictures that you do concentrate on the red box the second thing is build a network now you're out there you've got to build that brand with more people I
don't take my word for it that networking is a fantastic way to build your reputation I'm going to share with you some quotes from famous people that think networking works but think of it like this your network is who you know and your reputation is who knows you the bigger your network the bigger your reputation you've been doing it since you were very very young networking it's just talking to people and and having conversations Robert kosaki says the rich people build networks your richest resources will always be in your richest relationships and it's it's no
good being famous if you haven't got people to be famous with and for Brian Tracy says that most jobs are filled through networking and Peter duer one of the world's most famous management Consultants says that all the deals are done over meal times and yet we don't teach it in our universities so build your network and dig that well before you're thirsty the third thing you must must do is raise your profile if you don't have a high profile it's like being brilliant but Anonymous it's having a market stall and and putting it in the
desert no one will see your Brilliance if you don't raise your profile to raise your profile two of the best things you can do is speak and write whether that's a blog or a book or a presentation or a body of work share your ideas raise your profile because it's no good being the best kept secret in the world the third final fourth and final thing is to be authentic you might be very good at what you do but if you try to be somebody else you want to get a hybrid of what you should
be be authentic and this looks like being yourself not trying to be someone else not trying to imitate someone else because you might be good at being someone else but you should be great at being you and as Oscar wild told us be yourself everyone else is already taken authenticity comes through from the very inside of your character right through to your personal brand and right through to that reputation we want to get through the noise if you talk like everyone else and sound like everyone else you will never stand out but the good news
for you is that we are in tough times and in Dark Times anyone can stand out and make money when times are good you can be lousy and do well when the economy is good and everything's going great but when times are tough like this and the Outlook is gloomy you have a fantastic opportunity to stand out like a beacon like a lighthouse by sounding and looking and being just a little bit better than everyone else and to do that focus on your red box and you will become the number one go-to choice for what
you do thank you
