Standing Out as a Leader

SUMMARY

We've all seen it on social media, where everyone puts up the best picture of themselves and portrays their actions. If you are in a particular profession, you can see everyone doing the same thing. After some time, what ends up happening is that people just turn off their ears and their eyes because it's the same stuff, just being regurgitated over and over again.

Finding something that is exclusive to you, or gets other people's attention and interrupts their scroll and day in a way that makes them say: "What's that about?", captures their intention in an empowering way that will make them go: "Well. I just need more of this person."

That is what great positioning can do.

This week, I want to help you wrap yourself up and present yourself to the world so that the right people enter that world and want to have an opportunity to work with you.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you sometimes feel like you're invisible — like there are so many people out there doing what you are doing that it's challenging to stand out?

Well, stick with me because in this week's episode. I want to help you to get to a spot where the only person they see is YOU.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around the 9 crucial shifts that every leader needs to make in the professional shifts area by looking at your Positioning.

Last week, we started the conversation in the professional shifts, looking at your performance. We talked about shifting your performance from high performance alone to sustainable performance.

Today, I want to help you wrap yourself up and present yourself to the world so that the right people enter that world and want to have an opportunity to work with you.

We've all seen it on social media, where everyone puts up the best picture of themselves and portrays their actions. If you are in a particular profession, you can see everyone doing the same thing. After some time, what ends up happening is that people just turn off their ears and their eyes because it's the same stuff, just being regurgitated over and over again.

Finding something that is exclusive to you, or gets other people's attention and interrupts their scroll and day in a way that makes them say: "What's that about?", captures their intention in an empowering way that will make them go: "Well. I just need more of this person."

That is what great positioning can do.

You can also look at this not just from the perspective of someone who is looking at getting clients, but you can also use this shift if you are employed in an organisation.

A lot of times, people can be just part of the team — they blend in instead of standing out because there are many other people just like them.

When you make this shift in your positioning, you will stand out and get the attention of the right people, whether you are employed in an organisation or in your own practice.

I remember in my corporate career, I was very good at what I did technically, and I got a lot of attention by doing my job well. However, I wasn't all that good at working with people (which is ironic now that I'm The People Builder). Because of my poor people skills, I got the management's attention for the wrong reasons, which certainly did not help me.

I really hope you can learn something from my experience in this episode.

So, how do you position yourself?

The shift we will talk about today is going from being invisible to in demand.

I want you to look at this through the lens of self-care — of sustainable performance and everything we have discussed in the previous weeks. For example, you need to look at your identity, limiting beliefs, and desire to please people from the perspective of self-care. Doing so will allow you to position yourself in the right way, where you've got boundaries around that so that being "in demand" becomes a positive rather than a negative.

The first thing you need to do is to JUST BE YOU.

Authenticity is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but I still love it. It means being the real deal. When you position yourself and create your own personal brand, you need to be okay with who you are and with the fact that there are things that you do or have that other people don't.

Nowadays, being authentic is a major thing because people's BS meters are really tuned in. Most people can smell an imposter miles away. They understand when someone is not being who they really are.

With that mindset of authenticity in place, you can now look at amplifying your authority in your area. Doing so will help you go from being just like everybody else, to standing out.

One of the ways to do this is to become a thought leader — someone who is known for knowing something.

So, whatever your area of expertise is, be it article writing, doing videos, presenting or speaking on stages, running a podcast, or just doing lunch and learn talks with your team, it allows people to understand your topic from your perspective. Those nuances of what you know, and the experience that you bring into that, allow you to have (on common topics) your own unique thoughts. Those unique thoughts and your way of looking at the topic will help you to stand out.

Now that you've worked out what you know and how you're going to present that, you're able to Craft a Magnetic Message.

A magnetic message is not one of those "elevator pitches" where people ask you what you do, and you give them this canned speech, or what you put it on your LinkedIn profile. It's more than that.

A magnetic message is something that comes out of the essence of who you are and what it is that you do in the world.

Creating your unique message is not the message of your company, but it is the brand that is "YOU".

Then, the third thing to do is to get your skills built up as an Influential Presenter.

I'm not talking about being a polished performer. I'm talking about being okay to either stand in front of this camera or a room, or just write or speak, or whatever you're doing in an inspirational way.

It's not just giving information; it helps people with their transformation.

So, those are 3 things you can do to position yourself in a way that helps you stand out, so that the right people come across your world, see who you are, and want to work with you.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue the conversation in the professional shifts by rounding it off with the third shift, which is in your productivity.

I'll see you then!