Are you familiar with Jay Abraham? If not, you are in for a treat.
After posting about the personality profiles, I want to elaborate on the Maven Matrix Manifesto (Shade 1).
This is about being the expert, the most trusted advisor, go-to source, and thought leader.
The key is to fall in love with your clients or prospects.
There are 11 tactics:
- Gain your Market’s Trust. Care more! Clearly articulate your market’s hopes, fears and problems. Feel its pain. Identify gaps in service or quality. State the problem better than anyone. Show prospects what they should be doing differently to solve their problems.
- Establish your Maven Persona. Anchor your persona in the minds of your market with memorable personality traits that make you more human and familiar in the market. 24 characteristics below. Be consistent in your public presentation. Combine your traits with those that resonate with your market.
- Vision for the Marketplace. Have clear answers to these questions: Why do you do what you do? What’s the dream/cause that others want to be a part of? Why does the company exist? What is its ultimate goal, dream and cause. What core beliefs guide your services.
- The Creation Myth. Know and broadcast the STORY about the beginnings of you and your brand (drive, motivation). Where did it start? Why? Who were the players involved? Where did you learn your skills? What motivation drove you into the field and continues to drive you? What are your greatest achievements ad failures in this market. Reveal your hopes and dreams, current frustrations, personal failures, achievements and struggles with honesty and passion.
- Predictable Behaviors. Let the market to feel they can predict your behavior, just like predicting how a loved one is going to behave. These are the unique things you do or say that you market expects, in other words, they are predictable.
- Polarizing Point of View. Stand for something. Separate your audience to believers and non-believers. Announce your customers they should not tolerate low standards of service. The stronger, more direct and passionate your opinions, the more they resonate with the market. Soft spoken politically correct, scared to offend goes unnoticed.
- Special Phraseology. Create your own unique, iconic phrases and terminology so you will be able to easily differentiate yourself from other advisors. that make you utterly unique. Mavens set standards. Part of the process is developing your own terminology. What new vocabulary can you create?
- Communications Channel. Use consistent communication channels that your marketplace will grow accustomed to when receiving information from you.
- Velvet Rope. VIPs. Implement the above and beyond elements that make your clients, prospects and staff feel special, better than outsiders, part of a special group. Use sophisticated strategies to engage consumers in active conversations about the key issues important to them.
- Client Evangelists. Provide specific techniques to motivate your customers to spread the good news of your superior service so you’ll develop powerful outreach to the market.
- Mentors and Advisors. Follow the guides who understand how to anchor you in the minds of your prospects as the preeminent authority.
24 Characteristics of the Maven Persona.
Take your most genuine and build your value proposition and practice around those primary qualities:
- The Confident, Tycoon, Big Business Builder. A workaholic, always looking for the next big deal, conceited. Donald Trump.
- * The Puppeteer Behind the Scenes. Calculated and mysterious, works in the shadows. Everyone knows this character is powerful but not sure how. Henry Kissinger.
- * The Researcher. Curious, hard-working, impulsive finder of truth. Introverted, confident, persistent, passionate.
- The Well-Placed Intelligent Source. Shows you what is happening behind the scenes. Confrontational, high standards, demanding, determined, forceful, organized, disciplined. Bill O’Reilly.
- The Self-Made. Determined, persistent, proud of accomplishments, has high expectations of others. Carl Icahn.
- * The Contrarian. Distrustful of anything big. Believes in conspiracies, well read but on the fringe. Sam Zell.
- * The Eccentric. Enthusiastic, make your own rules. Hates to be lumped in with the rest of a group, values uniqueness. Generous, animated, unconventional and adventurous. Richard Branson.
- The Iconoclast. Not concerned with tradition, doesn’t respect authority unless deserved. Willing to take risks. John G. Spurling of University of Phoenix.
- The Angry Man. Argumentative, self-righteous, excitable and sometimes amusing insider. Jim Cramer.
- The Prodigy/Genius. Introverted, super intelligent, confident and aggressive. Sometimes condescending or socially inept. Bill Gates.
- The Fun Guy. Optimist, happy, sees the good in situations like Terry Bradshaw/Charles Barkley.
- The Voice/Face Behind the Orchestra. Organizer like Steve Forbes or Chase Revel.
- * The Synthesizer. Tony Robbins
- * The Importer. From one industry to another, like Jay Abraham.
- The Outcast. Jeffrey Katzenberg.
- The Common Man. Howard Stern.
- The Intellect. Newt Gingrich.
- The Advocate. Vic Conat.
- The Mad Scientist. John Kim of Bell Labs.
- The Supreme Possibility-Optimist. Zig Ziglar.
- The Futurist. Faith Popcorn, John Naisbitt.
- The Absent Minded Professor. Albert Einstein.
- The Wizard. Steve Jobs.
- The Family Man. John Chambers of Cisco.
Well known mavens: Federal Express, Dominoes, Google, Bill Gates, Stove Jobs, Phil Night of Nike.
Benefits: Free prospects, referrals, money and streams of income. Creating effective ads is a breeze, affiliate sales with skyrocket, turn competitors into a sales force.
Seven Lessons, to become a maven in no time:
- Counter Programming: Understanding your prospects and being willing to respond to and address their fears, confusion and needs.
- Key Theme. Create a central theme to everything you do.
- Future Pacing. Taking your perspective buyers on a journey into the future and the benefits they will enjoy.
- Growth Question. Is your business designed to consistently acquire new clients and keep them for a long time? You need a core or flagship product that defines your unique position.
- Assume Authority. You can proclaim your expertise, then defend your position in any underserved market.
- Inventory Yourself. What are your unique abilities and gifts, talents and strengths, unique life experiences? How do you harness/optimize?
- Dive Deep. Depict yourself as somebody that sees things at a deeper level of analysis, research, relevancy and understanding that anybody else.
25 Maven Character Blocks. Personality building blocks. Find the right combination:
- Trusted advisor for life. Wants to help for a lifetime.
- Here’s what you’re not being told so here’s the truth as I see it and what action I think you should take because of that.
- Congruity of positioning and communication.
- Extol your own achievements or value.
- Listing flaws to prove that you you’re human too. Makes you more relatable.
- Treat the relationship you’re building as a long-term investment you’re making in the marketplace.
- Recognize the long-term strategic gain that your clients are after.
- Know your own strengths and weaknesses.
- Be the maven who shares what the industry norms are – but you are the first to do it.
- Celebrate your skills and distinctions.
- Control their risk pointing out the overlooked risks and dangers, that other people don’t share.
- Use as much research and data as you can. But be sure to summarize, compare, interpret and analyze it for people so they can appreciate it and know what it means for them and act on it.
- Have a clear and easy to identify voice and style.
- Acknowledge you’re human. Most people will respect and relate so much better.
- Challenge the status quo thinking. Aka “Hey guy’s I’ve got an even better way, follow me!”
- Don’t overplay your hand. There is a sequence, an order, a progression that you need to develop. If you try to shorten it, you kill the power of mavenhood.
- Revere your own brand equity and continually add to it and use it as a vehicle to reassure clients and prospects.
- The Rothschild Factor; this is a story that’s told many different ways. Someone in France wanted to borrow a lot of money from one of the Rothschild’s banking families and they refused… but then offered them something even better.
- Associate with people who have incredible trust and respect. Get pictures, get endorsements and get associations.
- Derive power from your group. There is more power coming from you as a maven of a group than just what is coming from you as an individual.
- Enter into a committed relationship with your market. The maven says, “While others do X,Y, Z, I only do X.
- Never minimize your brand. A lot of you will actually say “Oh, I’ve got this free report that you can have.” You should say, “I’ll buy you a $200 report because I think you’re worth the investment.” The posture in that is about times more powerful.
- Acquire the knowledge to specialized partnerships. This Maven brings breakthroughs.
- Hire the best, pay them richly, but pay them strictly on performance.
- You can be shy and quiet and not be invisible. (Be careful that you’re not like most people, who don’t know how to do this well so they actually become invisible.)
Business now becomes a choice:
Mediocrity or Mavenship?