It’s all in the soul baby, it’s in your story, that lies within you. Your story, and your telling of this story, “your storytelling”, is what creates the magic and soul, and draws your audience and potential clients in to wanting to work with you, and buy from you. But remember, don’t take out the juicy bits, the bits you think are “too real to share”, they’re the good bits and the bits us as consumers love.
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Transcription
I loved recording this episode as authenticity is something I teach my clients and practice myself in every aspect of my life, both inside and outside my business.
Authenticity is one of the driving forces behind the success I have had in Social Soul and one of the main reasons why my clients choose to work with me. The sleezy sales pitches simply don’t exist when you are being yourself. Because that’s just it, you’re you, delivering what you’re passionate about.
The fact of the matter is, in every true success story I’ve ever read the underlying foundation is, the person behind the story has created their successes by being authentically them. Leaning into yourself does so many wonderful things for your business.
It’s a priceless commodity and no one can ever be you.
It’s all in the soul baby, it’s in your story, that lies within you.
Your story and your telling of this story, “your storytelling”, is what creates the magic and soul, and draws your audience and potential clients in to wanting to work with you, and buy from you.
But remember, don’t take out the juicy bits, the bits you think are “too real to share”, they’re the good bits and the bits us as consumers love. Gone are the days of loving on that ultra-polished Instagram feed, we want the real deal.
But I get it, it’s important to appear professional, which is why the brand photo shoots are great, especially if you are a serviced based business like mine. BUT it’s equally important to showcase the real you, the authentic you. That’s what people really fall in love with. AND THEN, without you “faking it”, they’re becoming your clients and your business is in their repertoire – without you doing what feels like SUPER HARD WORK.
1. When it comes to creating content, including showing your face live on camera, you should do it at a time of day, or a time in your week, where you feel your most creative and most authentic self. This version of you will always respond well and you’ll feel your best because of it. So, if that is the morning for you, when you feel your freshest both physically and mentally, then so be it. The morning it is. But it’s not for everyone. If you thang is the afternoon, or even later at night, this is what you gotta do and you will be respected for it in the process.
2. When you are true to yourself, you create the most success. Ever since I started investing in my business and myself, I recognise this more and more. I’ve done the mindset work and I am continuing to do the mindset work because this is what assists in creating the abundance that flows to you.
3. It’s a hard no from me…to separating business and pleasure. If you love what you do and you’re being honest and true to yourself in every sense of the word, then work shouldn’t feel like work. When you have this constant push pull energy, tug of war type of thing going on, trying to split the two, it will always feel like work. For me, if it’s “after hours” at night, or over the weekend and I have a creative burst or amazing idea moments I love spending time working on my business. This is exactly how Soulful Marketing was born. From the name of the course to the machinations of how the course is going to flow, I did this in what most would consider to be my time. As I am so passionate about bringing this to life and knowing how many business owners I can help in the process.
Remember: Create your success by being authentically you!
4. Saying no is just as strong as saying yes. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times before, but your power lies in your ability to say know, knowing it’s an authentic response and feels so good in your gut! Like deep down soul food! Learn to say know when something does not feel in alignment to you.
5. People are magnetised to strength and assertiveness. Now when I say this, I do not mean boisterous, bold and loud. I mean your own personal strength. What this looks like and how this personal strength makes you assertive. Being you is magnetising. Displaying your true self to your audience magnetises people to your energy no matter what you think. Energy plays a huge part in converting your audience to purchase. Think about how you engage with other businesses and business owners…I know for myself, I am attracted to the energy of the person behind the business and the story of the business.
6. When you are purposeful and authentic every day, taking small actions, speaking your truth, it all adds up to the bigger picture. There is no way you can maintain a false sense of authentic for a continuous period. Sooner or later, you will get tired of the façade and you will stop, quit and retire that version you have pretended to be. So do you from the beginning. Practice this every single day in your outward facing soulful marketing and I promise you, your business will grow as a result.
7. To gain real perspective on who you’ve become, and where you want to continue to go with your business, you need to take a step back and look at everything you’ve become. Assess what’s working, assess what’s not. If you find this hard, that’s where working on a strategy helps you to realign your marketing and messaging, making sure you are putting your own soul into it along the way.
Remember: Create your success by being authentically you!
8. Cut lose the negative influences in your life that act to stifle your progress. It really is as simple as that. This gets heavy and hard to carry after a while. Heavy is awkward. You would know, when you surround yourself with the positive people in your life, those that lift you up, you automatically feel more successful which makes you act as your best self would, which have the ripple effect within your business. If you’ve been in this space, or are living this space, then I bet you’re nodding your head right now, am I right.
9. To create success by being authentically you, you need to have clarity around what this is and what it means to you. This is a first before you push it out to the world. A few practical ways to do this is to start a journal. Ask yourself a question and write down the answer. Like: What does your dream life look like?”. This is a great one to freely write as it comes to your head.
10. Authenticity means being honest with yourself and your goals. If you want the stars and the moon, and all the things for your business and yourself, you need to be honest with yourself. Does this feel right? Does this feel aligned with what I want? Does this fit within my strategy? How would am I helping my future self right now by doing this exact thing? Does this fit in with my short-, mid- and long-term plan?
11. Being authentic takes practice and courage. You bet it does, and I speak from experience. I had my authentic self down to a tea prior to having my first child. My flow was amazing, and I just flew easily in and out of business and pleasure, doing everything with soul, creating all of my outward facing marketing with ease of transaction. THEN…enter this life changing moment and I found myself feeling like an imposter in my own story. AWKWARD. I didn’t know this version of myself anymore. I had to reassess what my authentic self was again. It took time and it took work, lots of work. But I did it and I’m back! Loving on my podcast. Sharing my truth. Teaching soulful ways to market your business and what feels in alignment to me. If I can learn what it’s like to start from scratch, then I know you can too.
Remember: Create your success by being authentically you!
12. Authentic success is a journey. 100% it is. You have to start somewhere. Everyone starts at the number 1 at some stage in their journey. So you can’t compare your beginnings, your 1, to someone else’s 20. They’ve done the work and are playing in their flow. You will benefit and your business will benefit with abundance when you embrace your journey.
13. Embrace your vulnerability. Vulnerability is nice, it’s real and it’s raw. Embrace this. Embrace this through your strategy and decide what it is you’re willing to talk about across your soulful marketing efforts and strategy and really go with the flow.
And lastly…
14. Embrace your imperfection. Also known as embracing you. Which is not really an imperfection, but a perfection and totally amazing!!! The sooner you begin to go down this journey, the sooner your future self will love you for this.
That concludes this episode my lovely friends and thank you so much for listening.
I really do hope this episode has helped you to create your success by being authentically you! Helped to motivate and inspire you to continue to grow your business in 2022.
xx
Hayley
