How To Stand Out In Your Market Without Spending All Your Time Marketing - With Nkiru Asika
Jul 04, 2021Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Nkiru Asika.
Nkiru Asika is an online marketing strategist and international speaker with a background as an award-winning journalist and TV producer. She is the Founder of Women Building Authority, an online platform that provides done-for-you marketing services, high-value events and a membership offering training, coaching and promotional opportunities supporting female entrepreneurs to get seen, get heard and get paid. In addition, she represents Rethink Press, a top UK hybrid publisher, as their Commissioning Editor (North America & Africa) helping entrepreneurs plan, write and publish their books.
Why you've got to check out Nkiru's episode:
- Discover how Nkiru helps women, coaches, consultants, expert service advisors or any business owner selling their expertise. Typically most of her clients are not new to business but are new to online and are starting to think about impact and legacy.
- Learn what their biggest challenges are which are mainly due to the competitiveness of turning up and building a business online in a noisy marketplace and how this can make them feel like the biggest kept secret.
- Understand the impact on their business and their morale when they are struggling to be visible online and how this can lead to sales becoming a struggle too.
- Why you need to stop marketing so much and instead focus on building your brand authority in your industry. And why you need to do this in a way that is authentic to your unique personality.
- How to get access to Nkiru's 23 quick and easy ways to instantly boost your brand authority.
Resources / Links
Transcript
Tom Bailey: Hello and welcome to succeed through speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results.
Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Nkiru Asika who is an online marketing strategist and international speaker with a background that's an award-winning journalist and TV producer. So in Nkiru hello, and a very warm welcome to today's.
Nkiru Asika: Thanks very much, Tom. Nice to be here and hello to all Toms’ people.
Tom Bailey: Excellent. I appreciate you being here and just have interest whereabouts in the world are you right?
Nkiru Asika: I am in the beautiful city of Toronto that I haven't had a chance to see much of in the last like year, because we'd be locked down, but you know, I'm in Toronto, Canada.
Tom Bailey: Thank you so much then just let me now share a little bit more about you before we do get started. So Nkiru is the founder of women building or authority, which is an online platform supporting female entrepreneurs to get seen, get heard, and get paid. In addition, she represents rethink press, which helps entrepreneurs plan write and publish their books.
The title for today's episode is How To Stand Out In Your Market Without Spending All Your Time Marketing and Nkiru is going to show us how to do that in just seven minutes. So question number one today is who are your ideal clients?
Nkiru Asika: My ideal clients really you know, women typically coaches, consultants, experts, service providers, you know, a woman whose business involves sending her knowledge or her by. Or expertise, which means she's really selling herself. And she may be, she may be new to building her business online, but she's not new to business, so to speak. And typically I'd say most people are, most of the women are over 40. So, they're sort of thinking about legacy. They're thinking about impact, you know, as much. You know, making money and they want to develop it. They want to stop hustling. Right. They want to build a business that's sustainable that aligns with who they are. So, that's my best.
Tom Bailey: Excellent. Fantastic. And what would you say is the biggest challenge that they typically face?
Nkiru Asika: The biggest challenge I would say is that it's so competitive online right now. I mean, especially since the pandemic, it's like the whole world just woke up and realized that my God, if I can't set online you know, up the, up the Creek without a paddle, basically. So, it's, it's really noisy. So, people, you know,my clients, my market, they’re feeling invisible, they’re feeling like, you know, the best kept secret that putting stuff out and nothing's happening that wondering how do I, how do I grow my email list? How do I build my audience? How do I get hugs? You know, how do I get anyone to notice me? So that's, that's the biggest challenge.
Tom Bailey: I love that being the world's best kept secret, you know, that's not a good place to be nowadays. No, it's the world's best kept secret. What impact do you think that has on either them or their business?
Nkiru Asika: Well, it affects, it affects that business and it affects them or out. I mean, you know, the truth is if you're not visible and you're struggling to be visible online settings, you're going to struggle to sell. And then when you struggle to sell. It kind of makes you want to hide away. So, it ends up being a sort of vicious cycle and it's demoralizing, you know, a lot of people, you know, you'll be, you're putting out, you know, you'll be spending time writing blog posts and in social media and, and it's as if like nobody can, like you put out stuff, nobody reads that email. That's this dark gray it's it's quite dark and yeah, it, it could actually kill not just your business, but also your passion for the business. Yeah. That's, that's what I see happening.
Tom Bailey: I think a lot of people are struggling with this right now. So, what is the one piece of advice that you might give somebody to help them get started?
Nkiru Asika: Yeah. I think the advice I have, which may sound sort of counter intuitive in a way. And especially if you ask someone who. Like I said, you know, setting your advice or knowledge on an advice and knowledge-based business, you need to stop marketing so much. I think that that's where people get into, they just get caught up. Right. Focus on building your brand, building your brand or authority specifically. Frank Khan, who's like one of the biggest on my marketing legends. He said a quote that I really firmly believe in which. Positioning yourself as an authority is the single most important thing you can do to raise your perceived value in your market.
So, if you think about, about that, like what does it mean to raise your perceived value? It means, you know, you get more clients more easily, you'll get better quality clients, you'll get better opportunities. You'll get people wanting to partner with you. You will get people wanting to invite you onto that. You know, right. Without you getting, like driving yourself insane, almost trying to market over time, because you did not start your business because you want it to be an internet marketer. You, you want to serve your clients. So, focus on building your, like a credible and memorable brand. And raising your visibility, establishing your credibility. That is all what building authority is about before you get into tactics.
Tom Bailey: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, before somebody goes off and starts, you know, and doing lots of different things to build their brand, what's the first thing they should do when it comes to brand building.
Nkiru Asika: The first thing really is, you know, I would say spot with you, you know, Lean into who you are, you know your mission, your vision, your values, your strengths, because in the end, you, you are the X factor in your business. You are the greatest differentiator, you know, out there you are, you are your greatest, unique selling proposition, but a lot of people sort of don't want to bring out who they are. You know, they think that they're trying to be corporate almost. And actually, the advantage you have as a solopreneur or as a small business person.
But, you know, you can show your personality, you can share your, your, why you can share your, where, you know, you can, you're gonna attract people to you just for who you are. And that is that that's the sort of first base of your brat. You know, the second would be who you serve, you know, getting really clear about who you serve. And then your message, you know, what is the, what is the message that you're really trying to. To get across, not to everybody, but to those perfect people who you've already identified.
Tom Bailey: Perfect love that. And you know, that's distinct about not being authentic and trying to fit in a quote that I live by is, you know, why try to fit in when you were born to stand out. It’s really important to try and make yourself stand out in your market. So next question from me then if somebody does want to build their brand, stand out in the market, what is one valuable resource or piece of content that you can share to help people get.
Nkiru Asika: Well, what I've got, I've got a little gift to give today that should be useful. It's a free report called 23 quick and easy ways to instantly boost your brand authority. And essentially, you know, building authority takes time. It is a marathon, it's not a sprint, but that assets and things you could do in like an hour or less, that will just sort of give you that momentum and enhance your, your profile. So that's what I've put in this report. So I think, yeah, I should find it quite well.
Tom Bailey: Excellent. I've got the link here, which is bit.ly/23quickways quick ways. And I'll put that link into the show notes. Great. Thanks. One more question for you. Is what would you say is your greatest either mistake or failure that you've made along the way? And what did you learn?
Nkiru Asika: Well, I mean, I guess you're talking about business what's okay. About life, you know, we'd be here for like another year. Yeah, in terms of the business, I think I've, I think I've made the mistakes everybody else may have, has made. And especially with what I was talking about before in getting sucked in to the, the marketing, like hell hole. You know, when, when I first started trying to do business online, I know I was chasing every shiny new object. I was like, obsessed with, you know, which, you know, should I be ginger? Should I be, you know, is it webinars you're looking for like that thing, that's going to crack it. Yeah. That like silver bullet and, and you're, you're listening to 50 million gurus. At least that's what I was, you know, and it just, it's just, you know, just ends up being overwhelming, you know? And I wasn't getting any. Since I finally realized that, you know, hold on, festivals, stop. You know, secondly, I do actually have some wisdom within myself. I either, because sometimes you sort of give all your power to other people somehow.
And then I began to understand the power of authority, the power of, you know, being clear about your brand, being clear about who you are, bringing out who you are. Being clear about who you serve and being clear about, you know, the way you want to do business, the way you want to market that is aligned with you. And it's not necessarily what guru A or B is telling you to do.
Tom Bailey: Yeah. Thank you so much for that one. And one final question is what is the one question that I should have asked you that will also bring some great value to our audience today?
Nkiru Asika: I think he could have asked maybe what is. What is the easiest way to effectively build your authority? And I would say, yeah, I would say, you know, especially if you're a coach or your consultant is anything like that, there is a way that you work with people, right? So, but you, but you may not have thought about it. So, the easiest way to really establish your authority and sort of put yourself in a category of one is to document your process, document the way in which you work with.
Think about what is it you do to take your client from point a to point B to the transformation and package it, you know, brand it, give it a name, you know, that is your signature framework. That's your unique methodology. And that is the way that only you do this thing. So, you kind of effectively eliminate your competition. They, they may be in the same market, but then, but they didn't have. I dunno, Tom Bailey perspective. Right? So, it's a very sort of easy, but powerful way to just make yourself stand out and give yourself like instant authority and credibility. You know, yeah. I would definitely say that.
Tom Bailey: And to help you move away from charging by the hour as well.
Nkiru Asika: Yeah, that's always good.
Tom Bailey: And Nkiru, thank you again so much for being here today. I really appreciate you coming along and sharing such great value with us audience.
