Transcript:

Brad Powell: 0:06

Welcome to the Standout Business Show. I’m Brad Powell, and today I want to talk about why this is the moment when playing it safe actually becomes the riskiest move for your business. Okay, so, unless you’ve been hanging out on some tropical island somewhere, then you probably know that things haven’t been looking so hot for the economy lately. And I want to talk about this because, when the economy starts to tank, a lot of business owners get really scared, which is understandable, and they start believing that their clients are going to disappear and their business will shrink and maybe they’ll end up homeless. So today I want to talk about all of this and what you can do to shield yourself from whatever fallout might come from a more depressed economy. In fact, I want to talk about the things you can do that will provide resilience for your business, no matter what the economy is doing. And if that sounds good, stay tuned and let’s start the show. Ok, so for everyone alive, today we’re being fed a constant diet via social media and lately it’s been an absolute firehose of chaotic and scary news about the economy. And with all this scary news and information, fear is a normal response. But shrinking shrinking is a choice Most business owners are going to react by shrinking. When people get scared, they tend to shrink. Shrinking when people get scared, they tend to shrink, they make themselves smaller and they pull back on their efforts and they cut back on their marketing, and they do this as a way to protect themselves. But the reality is, this is probably the least safe way to behave and, because this is where most people are going, it is a great time for you to stand out. I’m going to say that again. This is a great time for you to stand out and look, we’ve been here before.

Brad Powell: 2:17

Just five years ago, we had the start of the pandemic and so, like what happened during the pandemic? Well, everybody was freaking out. Everybody thought their businesses were going to dry up or disappear or, in some cases, your businesses were disappearing. I mean, in my case, before the pandemic, I was live streaming, live in-person, big giant conference events and all of that business just stopped overnight. Events, and all of that business just stopped overnight. No more live streaming in-person events, no more. Following a conference from city to city, that work for me completely ended. This happened to lots and lots of people, and yet there was lots of things to do, lots of things that I did during that time that pivoted and found a resilience for my business and actually moved it into a place that is far better off than it ever was before the pandemic.

Brad Powell: 3:14

And so I want to give you an example of one of my clients. Her name is Peta Blakely, and she actually started working with me right at the start of the pandemic. She actually started working with me right at the start of the pandemic and she was in exactly the same frame of mind of oh my gosh, what’s going to happen to my business? I mean her work. She’s a nonprofit consultant, and all the nonprofits that she worked for were absolutely in a panic mode because their main event, the big fundraiser that they do every year, the annual big in-person event all of those events were being canceled and so this thing that they’ve been used to doing, which was one of their biggest fundraisers of the year, just disappeared. So they were very, very concerned about where was their funding going to come from? Would they have to lay a bunch of people off? Would they cease to exist? And, of course, peta, being a consultant for these clients, was very concerned about her own work. How would they be able to hire her to continue to do her work.

Brad Powell: 4:17

We got together and we talked about this. To continue to do her work. We got together and we talked about this, and what she did, with my help, was that she started reaching out to interview a series of nonprofit leaders people who she not only worked with, but people who she’d never met, who were the leaders of nonprofit organizations that she would love to work for, and she brought them on. They actually did a live stream together. They did it on LinkedIn. So every Friday morning she would get on with one of these nonprofit leaders and they would have a conversation, and the conversation was always about what are nonprofits doing in this time of crisis. And they were great conversations and, in fact, this was a conversation that wanted to happen in this time of crisis. And they were great conversations and, in fact, this was a conversation that wanted to happen in that time. And a couple of really good things happened.

Brad Powell: 5:07

For PETA Number one, she became known by most of the nonprofit leaders in North America who she would like to serve. They got to know her. They got to know how she thought she got to carry the torch from one person to the next to carry on this conversation. She became the center of this conversation that all these people were wanting to talk about and, as a result, many of those people turned around and hired her for her consultancy, and her business grew Instead of shrinking during the first years of the pandemic. It actually grew, and now she’s become a leading authority on what nonprofits can do in times of crisis. So this was something totally unexpected, but instead of shrinking, instead of panicking, instead of running away, peta chose to take action and to stand out.

Brad Powell: 6:06

So, from this example, what could you be doing and what could you be thinking about to stand out in this moment, in this unique time? Well, I’m going to suggest that there are basically three pillars for standing out that you can consider. The first one is the one that we’re all familiar with and you’re probably already doing at least some of it, which is basic level of content marketing, and this is literally putting your face out there and becoming the face of your business and the face of your brand, and becoming the face of your business and the face of your brand. But as you do this, you want to say things that other people aren’t willing to say, and you want to show things that other people aren’t willing to show and, again, this moment in time is a perfect time to do that, because there’s lots of people who are not going to be willing to show up because they’re scared, who are not going to be willing to show up because they’re scared because they’re in shrinking mode. And so when you take a stand and you stand out in this way, people will start seeing you and recognizing you for what you do and how you can serve them.

Brad Powell: 7:18

Pillar number two is acquiring a level of social proof, and when I’m talking about this, it’s the same kind of social proof that PETA was amassing when she was reaching out to all the other nonprofit leadership people in North America. You want to connect with people who already have built trust and in their audience, in their sphere of influence, and when you do that, when you connect with those people and you host an event with them, you get them on a panel discussion that you’re hosting or you bring them on a podcast, like Peter was doing. Those kinds of things elevate your own trust in the eyes of the audience, of the person who you’re talking with. In this way, you are going to stand out to this whole new group of people and the trust that they have in their leader is going to be transferred right on to you. The idea here is that when you have connected with people who’ve already built trust, you’re able to be like a racing cyclist. You know how they pedal in these tight formations and they draft off the velocity of the person in the front. Well, this is exactly what you can do you can be drafting off the velocity of other leaders and they will pull you right along with them.

Brad Powell: 8:33

The last thing I’ll mention, which is pillar number three, is growing your network, and what I’m talking about here is focusing on becoming known by the other thought leaders in your space. Because if you’re in the situation where you’re trying to do your thing and all the people who are in your field and they are all the leaders and the movers and shakers they’ve never heard of you, when you go to speak at a conference, or when you try and write a book, or whenever you do anything you know kind of big scale to stand out, they’re going to wonder who the heck is this person. So it’s really important to build your network with this circle of people, because when you’re all known by each other, you can support and promote each other. It’s the same thing, where the rising tide floats all the boats and even in a downturn, you still want to have this resilience of the support network of people in your field who know you, who like you and will be willing to do things for you when times are bad.

Brad Powell: 9:39

None of us can actually survive on that tropical island out of the news, out of the mainstream, out of anything, and be fine.

Brad Powell: 9:48

We all need to be interacting in the world. So take this as your call to adventure. Pick one of these three pillars and start heading down that lane. What are you going to do this week? To either say what other people aren’t willing to say, or connect with those who have already built trust with their audience, or to start building deeper relationships with your colleagues and the other thought leaders in your field. I promise you, if you are taking action and you are moving in this direction, your business might even thrive, in spite of what the economy is doing.