The School of Greatness - 894 How to Fascinate

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

DOMINATE YOUR COMPETITION. Most of us don’t have unlimited budgets to market ourselves. So how can we compete with people who do? The answer is simple: we have to fascinate. Utilize whatever you have that is unique to capture people’s attention. Stop trying to offer what your competition is offering- instead, do something they can’t. For this Five Minute Friday, I revisited a conversation I had with Sally Hogshead she shared how to fascinate by utilizing the first nine seconds of your audience’s attention. Sally is a New York Times bestselling author, Hall of Fame speaker, “fascination scientist,” and mom of 8 kids. In two weeks, Sally was able to fill up her calendar with speaking engagements by changing one thing in her approach. Learn how to market yourself no matter what your budget in Episode 894. In This Episode You Will Learn: The two choices every brand has (02:00) The four types of competitors (03:00) About the average attention span and how to utilize that (04:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/894 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

This is 5-Minute Friday! Today's guest is none other than Sally Hogshead, who is a wonderful woman and an incredible human being. Every time I get to connect with her or hear her speak, I always feel smarter from what I learned from her, but I also always feel just a deeper connection with humanity because of the way she shows up and her energy and her positivity. It's amazing how she does it all with the family, with the kids, with the business.

She's literally living superwoman. So for those that don't know who Sally is, she has worked in advertising for over 20 years and won hundreds of awards for creativity, copywriting, and branding. Her internationally acclaimed book, Fascinate, Your Seven Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation, has been translated in over 12 languages. Her newest book, How the World Sees You, is already a New York Times bestseller. She's spoken at TED. She's a regular on the Today Show and works with dozens of Fortune 500 companies. I learned from my decade as a copywriter working with brands like Nike and Target and Mini Cooper. I learned that a brand has a choice. Any brand, whether you're an individual, you're launching a product, or you have a $100 million

annual advertising budget, you have a choice. You can either have the biggest budget or you can be the most fascinating. So if you have a bigger budget than your competitors, which let's be honest, most of us don't. If you have a bigger budget, then you don't have to be fascinating. You don't have to instantly engage with an emotional response because you can afford to simply put out advertising messages that bam, bam, bam, pound the message in. And this is what a lot of big corporations do. But if you don't have that huge advertising budget, then you need to be the most fascinating. When I was really digging into my speaking career and trying to figure out a way to position myself so I could have ultra premium fees, I was only able to charge about $3,000 per

keynote. And so I took a step back and I looked at myself almost like I was one of those brands that I used to do the copywriting for. And I realized that there were four different types of speakers who were my biggest competition. And then if I could out position them, that I could be more successful. And those four types of speakers were this. Number one, they were more famous. Number two, they were more specialized. In other words, they had some kind of very, very specific research that would speak to a very, very specific type of audience. Number three, the speaker that was cheaper than me. And number four, the speaker who was

kind of the pet, like the meeting planner's friend. So to review those again, the speaker who is more famous, more specialized, cheaper, or the pet, meaning they already had some kind of a personal in. And so I stopped. How do you beat them out? Yeah. How do you beat them out? I mean, this is all of us need to be asking ourselves the same question. So I found that if I could fascinate my prospects, meaning the decision maker in those first nine seconds that I had a huge competitive advantage, the average attention span today is only about nine seconds, which means if you can fascinate your prospect in those first nine seconds, you have a tremendous competitive advantage because they're going to focus on you.

They're going to give you the gift at what your competition is already doing well, and instead positions you as being completely unique in a crowded marketplace, then you have a far greater chance of being able to charge a premium price. And so within two years, my speaking fee went from $3,000 per keynote to $35,000 a keynote. I didn't really change the content. And it wasn't like I had a makeover. It was still me and I was still speaking on the same topic. But because I was able to harness those first nine seconds, I created an instant emotional connection that allowed me to then fill up my speaking calendar in about two weeks. Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show,

then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com.. .