Kat Millar

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3 Tips For Growing An Entrepreneurial Mindset

 

Would you like to know how successful entrepreneurs think?

In this video and article, I share with you three ways to grow an entrepreneurial mindset. 

You might be wondering, what is an entrepreneurial mindset?

If you Google it you get all sorts of things that people say are an entrepreneurial mindset.

If you compare it with the 9-5 mindset, you’ll see that there are some crossovers. 

Being a high performer, working hard, having excellence in your job, being great at what you do. These are some of the crossovers between whether you’re working for someone else or you’re working for yourself. 

But there are some unique things that entrepreneurs have in their mindset if they’re going to be successful. 

When I’ve been asking this question to people, I ask them – what do you think is the actual mindset that’s different?

Based on my research and my own observations, I’ve come up with the 3 that I think are the most important.

1. Be Committed

If you want to grow an entrepreneurial mindset, you must be committed.

Committment covers a lot – resilience, the ability to figure things out the ability to go through, failure – the ability to just keep going and not give up…

If you’re committed to figuring things out, no matter what it takes – you’re going to figure it out, then that means that you’re going to have a mindset of growth, right? 

You go all-in on it, rather than just dipping your toe in the water and saying “I’m just going to stay safe. But if it doesn’t work out, then I’ll go back to another job”. 

If you’re committed to being the identity of an entrepreneur, then it’s amazing how the resources flow to you – how the people flow to you how the money flows to you.

When you’re committed, you say “This is what I’m doing. This is who I am. And no matter what it takes, I’ll figure it out:. 

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the entrepreneurial mindset and watching a lot of videos of people talking and TED talks about the success entrepreneurial mindset, and people are saying – it’s not that I’m any smarter, it’s not that I’ve got a super personality. 

Which is good news!

It’s an even, equal playing field when it comes to entrepreneurship.

In fact, a lot of entrepreneurs, say that they don’t feel smart and that they haven’t got a traditional education or had great marks at school or anything like that. Any of us can choose to be an entrepreneur because everything can be learned. 

With technology the way it is, with courses, with the amount of information that we have access to, any of us can choose this, as a venture or a vocation is something that we get paid for. But we’ve got to be committed, we’ve got to be committed to no matter what happens because it is going to be tough.

Be committed to what you want. Be committed to that vision that you have, of your future best self, have your dream life, of your vision. 

When you know yourself when you know your vision, your goals, when you have a plan, and you’re working towards it every day and you’re committed to it.

It doesn’t matter how you feel. It doesn’t matter whether you wake up in the morning and you say, I kind of can’t be bothered today. 

Because you’re committed, you’re all in and you’re saying, I’m going to set deadlines and I’m going to stick to them because I don’t have a boss telling me what to do.

When you’re the entrepreneur, you are the leader, you’re the CEO. And you’re also the person doing the grunt work until you have a team. You must come from that mindset of I have to show up no matter what, I must be committed. 

There’s some research that shows that when we set a deadline It doubles the likelihood that we’re going to achieve it if we have a deadline.

If we set a goal that’s specific and not ambiguous like…

I’m going to make 10 phone calls every single day for a month. That’s a clear goal.

Or I’m going to get five clients by the end of this month.

Or I’m going to run three meetup events for webinars in this quarter.

Those goals that are very specific they have a deadline.

With a deadline, you double the likelihood of achieving it than saying my goal is to have a great business.

Ambiguous goals don’t work. Goals without deadlines don’t work.

2. Be Curious

Number two is to be curious.

When you’re curious, you will ask yourself a lot of questions. You will also ask other people a lot of questions.

I get quite surprised sometimes when I ask people questions, and they don’t know the answer to it, and I know that they haven’t been asking themselves that question. 

For example, I’ll ask someone to tell me about their dreams. Often people fumble over the answer and they don’t really have their dreams articulated or they don’t have any goals.

I’ve always set goals and it’s always really helped me; it doesn’t mean I achieved them all. But the pursuit of a goal is what makes you stronger.

When I was working nine to five it was; you learn your job, you get good at it. And then you just rinse and repeat every day. 

I wasn’t having to bring creativity or innovation or growth to it. I was having to just turn up, do my job and go home. And for me, that was hard. Because I’m a very curious person. I like learning why I like figuring out how to do things better.

I was working for this insurance company, and we would have to post people a claims form. I remember saying to my manager at the time, why don’t we scan it in? Or why don’t we go paperless?

And she was very opposed to the idea – she said no, this is the way we’ve always done it. This is the way we do it.

I wasn’t trying to rock the boat; I was trying to bring in some new ideas and I was curious about how to do things better. But that kind of thing got shut down. It was more this industrial mindset of just churn out the factory linework and just get it done. 

When you’re an entrepreneur, you can get curious – you think, how can I do things better? How can I plan better? How can I be this person, is this best version of myself?

Entrepreneurs constantly think, who’s the best version of myself that I’m working towards, and they start living that out on a daily basis.

For example, let’s say you want to be a great speaker.

Instead of saying, I’m going to do that in three years, you start turning up on a smaller scale, you start doing Facebook Lives now, you start getting in front of groups of people and practising and being that identity of a speaker in order to live that best future self now.

Rather than thinking – I’ve got this goal I want to achieve in the future, start living it now. Start acting as if you’re that now, because you’re not going to get better until you show up as that person and practice and get better.

Successful entrepreneurs, they don’t mind showing up and getting it wrong. They are not attached to perfectionism.

A friend recently told me; perfectionism is fear in high heels. It’s just doubt and fear and keeping us small and keeping us stuck. 

When you’re curious, you think, what’s an even bigger goal?

What’s an even cooler thing that I can aim towards instead of just staying stuck at that status quo?

Being curious is thinking – how can I update my skills? How can I get more knowledge? It’s being hungry to learn; it’s placing yourself in learning environments all the time.

If you have curiosity naturally, it’s an asset as an entrepreneur. If you don’t have it naturally, how can you start incorporating it into your life is just start asking yourself more questions – more quality questions and write them.

Questions like – How can I make this week better than last week? How can I make this event the best event that I’ve ever run? How can I be the best version of myself for people today? How can I show up differently?

Always be curious and ask questions and do your research.

3. Be Outstanding

Number three is to be outstanding.

When I first heard this concept of being outstanding, Tony Robbins was talking about it and when I was at his “Unleash the Power Within” event.

I thought that it was almost like better than excellence. I researched the word outstanding. The definition of it, it talks about being the best, you’re being almost a level above great, because good enough, is not good enough anymore with a competitive marketplace we have now.

We can’t just be great, and we can’t just be excellent. We’ve got to be outstanding.

When I heard that I thought, wow, I’m already working hard. I’m already trying to push excellence in working on improving. What else do I need to do?

But I realised it wasn’t about necessarily going up, but it was more going lateral.

How can I go laterally, to be different to stand out? If you’re not willing to stand out, which has an element of risk and has an element of fear. If you’re not willing to do that, you’re not going to make it as an entrepreneur.

Outstanding means you show up and you’d be visible consistently. Even if it’s not going to be perfect. Because you will never do a perfect Facebook Live video, I’ve never done one.

You’ll never do a perfect workshop; you’ll never do a perfect speech. It’s never finished. You never arrive. If you’re creative, if you are high-achiever, you never arrive.

But you can just keep showing up and standing out and be willing to have a voice, which is not always easy because you’re going to get judged. You’re going to get some doubters some haters.

The most successful people have the most people not liking them. If you see anyone that’s doing well, you’re going to see people that don’t like what they’re doing.

But if you want to be successful, you’ve got to be willing to be outstanding to stand out. And that means being truly authentically you.

You don’t have to go and change. You don’t have to go and do crazy stuff. You don’t have to do anything crazy. You just must just be yourself. Because if you’re being yourself, you’re being outstanding, but I mean truly being you.

That means showing up in your full authenticity, which can be tough. It’s vulnerable, especially in this world where we can Photoshop everything, where we can edit everything, to be willing to stand out by just being who you are.

It is one of the bravest things that you’ll ever do.

There was a study done of over 20,000 people who are extremely high performance. Through this study, they discovered that the most outstanding people are the ones who really understand who they are and perform out of their own authenticity.

A lot of people are trying to change themselves to be someone that they’re not.

You just must turn up. Be the best version of yourself. Meaning, you’re always curious, you’re always pushing the boundaries.

You’re committed. You’re always learning, you’re always trying your best.

And you’re willing to just keep showing up consistently.

Not easy, but it’s doable, and worth it.

Success Secrets of Successful Female Entrepreneurs

On Thursday, I’m running an event in the city called ‘Success Secrets of Successful Female Entrepreneurs’.

If you haven’t registered, it’s nearly full. Make sure that you register your space because we’re just about full up. 

Learn More about Secrets Of Successful Female Entrepreneurs
How to Create Content that Connects

I also have a workshop on Saturday called How to Create Content that Connects. It’s all about how to write copy for your business and how to create consistent quality content through your blog, articles, workshops, webinars, and on video. 

Learn More about How To Create Content That Connects

I’d love to see you at one of the live events soon!

And remember – be curious, be committed and be outstanding.

Kat xo

 

 

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Why Clarity Is So Crucial… And How To Get It

Over 90% of people who come to me and talk to me about their business, say to me that if they were to get one thing, they want clarity.

Clarity is such a nice feeling, right? You know when you get clear… when the penny drops, when you have that ‘aha moment’, that light bulb moment – it’s a good feeling.

But it’s more than just a good feeling. It’s crucial in business.

So why is clarity so crucial?

Well, the first reason is – if you don’t have clarity about what you want to do in your business – about who your ideal client is, what you’re offering,  how you’re showing up in the world, you can’t plan. 

And if you don’t have a plan, you can feel really lost, right?

I’m sure you know that feeling where you just feel lost, you feel overwhelmed, you feel confused, and once you get that clarity feeling of “Oh, that’s what I need to do, that’s what I’ve been missing.”

You think – “Okay, now I can plan”.

When you have a plan, you can share your plan with other people.

So in order to be able to share with other business owners, with coaches, with friends, with your community, online, with people that you’re talking to in person – if you can’t articulate your vision to them, then you’re not going to go very far in business.

To be able to clearly articulate, this is who I am, this is what I do, these are the kinds of people I serve. You can use this in multiple places. How many of you are on Facebook, Facebook Groups where people say “Hey, what do you do?”

And you kind of fumble your way through it.

I’ve seen this a few times where people kind of ramble and they give this big waffle because they haven’t put time into getting clear on who they are, who they serve, what they offer, what they do.

I see this when I go networking too, people give a convoluted answer and start talking about the method, but they’re not clear on the result.

They don’t have clarity on “This is who I am, this is what I do in the world and these are my goals.”

The other why clarity is so important is because the lack of clarity is bad for our mental health.

When you don’t have clarity and you’re not clear and things are like you’re going through this bush and there’s no clear path. Our brain is always looking for patterns, right? It’s always looking to put things together.

When we’re not giving our brain clarity, it lives in this fight or flight state like this cortisol pumping out, because your brain is trying to look for patterns, but you don’t have clarity.

That can be stressful.

I remember when I didn’t have any clarity about who my ideal client was.

I thought that I was serving all these different types of people and I had a lot of fear around niching. A lot of fear about people missing out. All these people that I could help wouldn’t be helped.

I remember not wanting people to not come to my events if I said that it was just the service-based business owners, that all these people who have products that I could probably help them with.

I could help them with presenting, marketing, communication skills – there were lots of things I can help them with.

Yet I knew that I was doing a dis-service to all the service providers, all the coaches and the people who provided a service to people if I didn’t get good at just serving them.

The first time I put on a workshop and I said who it’s not for, and I listed all the people who it’s not for and actually brought up a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. And I didn’t like it, because my brain was more comfortable with this bigger group of people.

But I had to push through that threshold almost go into a portal and come out the other side and go, I can help more people by niching.

When I got that clarity, I decided that I help service-based entrepreneurs to grow a profitable business to get to a hundred grand a year, those are my people.

So much relief came from that and it was almost like the damn open and all these ideas started flowing through and then I could start really targeting and helping these people and getting a great result for these specific people.

I know a lot of you, you struggle with niche and going to tight because it can be a little bit scary, but I encourage you to make those decisions, to get the clarity in your business that you need.

Some of you don’t even know what kind of business you want yet you haven’t launched a business.

I think you are convinced of the importance of clarity and direction.

So, let’s talk about how to get it.

There were three questions that I asked myself that helped me have massive clarity and I’d love you to write these down and use these questions.

Here are the three questions to ask yourself:

1. What makes me most fulfilled and happy?

Most of us know this, but we don’t always give ourselves permission to do it. So, a lot of people who say to me, I just don’t know what I’m passionate about. I don’t know what makes me happy.

I would question that, because often we have layers of conditioning from society, people who have told us what we should want or what makes sense based on our talents and our skills or what we good at as a kid.

Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should do it.

I’m good at playing the drums. It doesn’t mean that I should be a drum teacher.

I’m good at moving countries. It doesn’t mean that I want to teach people that.

Just because you’re good at something and you’ve got talent around it doesn’t mean it’s fulfilling.

I was not good at speaking when I started, but speaking made me so fulfilled.

Getting up in front of a group made me so fulfilled and happy. I just had believed this lie that I wouldn’t be good at it because I’m an introvert. So, it’s just this massive lie that I believed.

I believe deep down I knew that I wanted to get up on stage and talk to people, but all these fears and limiting beliefs came up because my brain was trying to keep me at those safe things.

Maybe for me, it wasn’t video games, but it was other things like going to the gym every night instead of maybe stepping out of my comfort zone and doing something different.

When you really go, okay, what makes me fulfilled and happy, regardless of what my mom said, my schoolteachers, said, my friends say, my clients, say, regardless of what anyone says.

For me it was speaking, coaching, training, being a thought leader, having my own business. And no one really said to me, Oh, you should be a business owner Kat. No one really suggested that to me. I just had to give myself permission because it really makes me happy.

I realised that I was the kind of person that wanted to build my own dreams and not someone else’s. That makes me happy. That’s not for everyone. Not everyone is wired to want to have their own business.

And if you are more of a team player and you don’t want to take that risk because it is hard work, then maybe it’s not the right path for you. And that’s totally okay, right? To go, what makes me fulfilled and happy. So that’s question one. 

2. What difference do I want to make in the world?

What do I want to leave here as a legacy when I’m gone?

How do I want to make the world a better place? Who are the people that I can best serve and grow and contribute to? Because that’s going to give your life meaning, right?

If you’re just searching for your happiness and you’re not actually thinking how my passion and my gifts and skills, and experience could help other people because we’re all wired for contribution.

Once we’ve got the recognition and significance in the certainty and those things in place that make us feel good, once we’ve kind of got there, we need more.

That’s why successful people are often philanthropic because they get all the money that they want and then they ask what next? Most of them don’t just retire and sit under a tree. They’re usually doing bigger projects, helping more people.

So, get clear on what difference do you want to make in the world.

For me, I want to help loads and loads of small business owners and passionate business entrepreneurs and to create freedom and never have to work again if they don’t want to, to create six-figure businesses to be able to travel the world.

That’s the difference that I want to make. I want to encourage thought leaders to have a voice.

I want to help women to be able to sell better and stand on stage and own their power more. I want to help all small business owners to be able to attract a tribe to set up a business that they, love, that they can still have a lifestyle that’s the difference that I want to make in the world.

What’s the difference you want to make in the world?

3. What do I feel wired to do?

What do I feel called to do? And I know for some of you that might sound a bit, woo woo language, what do I feel called to do? If you look at the movies, you know, most of these heroes, they have a calling, the call comes.

If you’ve investigated the hero’s journey and you’ve watched movies like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Wonder Woman, they get this call and they just feel called to it.

And I got the call when I was watching speakers, I was going to conventions and conferences. I was watching these speakers. I was like, I got called. It’s like this is what I want to do. I want to be that one up on stage, influencing people, having a bigger impact using the one-on-one model that I was stuck in.

What do you feel uniquely wired for? I knew that I was wired to be a leader. I knew that I was wired to be a business owner at a very young age.

As a kid, I used to go doorknocking and offer to do things for people in exchange for money. I even knocked on my neighbour’s door and she said, “Oh yeah, I need to rake my leaves around my pool.”

And me and my friends spent two hours raking her leaves and we didn’t negotiate the terms.

I hadn’t quite learned that. I remember she gave us an apple each and a 20-cent coin each for two hours work. And I mean, this is probably 1985 but still 20 cents…

I remember walking out of there smoke coming out of my ears. Going “I got ripped off”, but I knew I was always wired and called for doing my own thing, whatever that was. I didn’t know what it was. It didn’t have clarity on it. I just knew that’s what I wanted.

Clarity is like a snowball. You know, you don’t get this blinding flash and everything’s crystal clear and that’s it. The more clarity you get, the more it builds like a snowball.

You’ve got to step out, act, get a little bit of clarity, keep moving, a little bit more clarity. And as I keep learning, investing in myself, researching, as I’m sure you are. As you seek out mentors, as you go to more courses, as you research, as you study, clarity keeps coming as you keep moving.

Here are three quick actions that you can take to help you get clarity straight away:

1. Focus on what you already have clarity about

You already know things that you are crystal clear on. You might say, I never, ever want to work as a construction worker. You’ve got clarity on that. You might say, I never ever want to work for this specific person ever again.

Sometimes visiting the things that you already have clarity on. I did this nightmare job activity. I read this really cool book called “I could do whatever I want, If only I knew what it was”- by Barbara Sher that my sister loaned me, and she had this really cool activity where you work at your nightmare job.

And for me, it would be stuck in an office with grey walls and stressful phone ringing or working on the road in the middle of the night all these things that I would hate to do.

And you can write a list of the things that you really don’t want to do. And through a process of elimination of what you don’t want.

The things that you know you can get closer to a yes. So, that’s helpful. Focus on what you do know, the things that you never ever want to do. And that will start to bring up some of the things that you do want by default.

2. Revisit your values

Come back to those things that are important to you. If you sit down and write what’s most important to me in life.

I did this with a client today. What’s most important to you in life? And she said my partner, my family travel, security and achievements.

She started listing them off. And so, I said, what is it about family? Oh, it’s a connection. So, we came up with her top five values and then I said, what needs to happen for you to know that all these values are in place? Because if she’s really valuing an achievement.

She’s really valuing achievement and not getting it at her current workplace, we need to change that. Because if it’s a high value, your brain will go after it. Right?

When I figured out my top five values, which were freedom, growth, creativity, health, and love. When I worked out that those are my five top values, I realised that my current job was providing none of my top five values.

I realised, that has got to change.

Doing some values work is really, powerful because then you decide your client, your goals, you set up your whole year, you set up your whole business based on your values. You know you’re going to chase it; you know you’re going to do the hard work, right?

Because it’s aligned with your top values. It’s such a powerful exercise. 

3. Write down your non-negotiables

It’s kind of like if you’re looking for a date, right? You don’t say, he must be six foot one and with brown eyes. You don’t have to be that specific.

But if you say, I wouldn’t go out with a smoker, I wouldn’t go out with someone that was a gambler, I wouldn’t go out with someone that has kids  – those are your non-negotiables.

You have your maybe top five things that you want in a person.

For example, they need to be a good listener, kind and caring. They need to be willing to travel, whatever it is, right? And you do the same thing with your business. You say, who are the people I do not want to work with? And you can write almost like the opposite of an ideal client, like a nightmare client.

Someone who’s always late, they pay me late or they don’t pay me at all. They’re just really focused on money; they don’t care about people. And you just write this non-negotiable.

For example, I’m not going to work with them. I’m not going to do this type of business. I don’t want to do network marketing, or I don’t want to have a product or a shop or whatever it is.

You write down your non-negotiables and you’ll find from these three activities you will get massive clarity, like incredible clarity.

Want to get clarity on the strategies working best in 2020 to attract more clients?

? Discover how at…

ATTRACT YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS 

The Most Effective Way To Get More Paying Clients, Fast 

FREE Sydney 1-day workshop

Kat Millar presents this exciting event for service-based business owners who want the KEY marketing secrets that attract new paying clients FAST – WITHOUT being a marketing expert.
 
➡ Saturday Feb 29, 2020, 10am – 5.30pm
➡ Full Details Or Get Your Ticket ? Here >> bit.ly/attractfeb29

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Wondering what your passion and purpose in life is?

Since the dawn of time, human beings have asked themselves “What’s my purpose?”

If you want to be fulfilled, happy and content, finding your passion and purpose is one of the best places to explore.

When you know your purpose, you live a more meaningful life and feel a deep sense of fulfillment.

For some people, their purpose and passion in life are obvious. They have clear talents and develop them into skills they can use as their job or business.

For other people, like myself, the road is not so clear.

I’ve definitely been on both sides of knowing what I should do with my life.

Many of us enjoy a bunch of random, seemingly unrelated things.

When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life, I looked at the things I loved.

Writing, going to conferences, walks in nature, weight training, listening to books, playing the drums, latin dancing, sharing to groups, deep conversations, travelling…

I found it so confusing to try and figure out what things I should attempt to turn into a career and what things should be left as hobbies.

What it came down to was that I believed the lie that we can’t make money from the things that we love.

It’s a lie that seems to be so insidiously entrenched in our culture and it’s simply not true.

Many, many people make money doing what they love. They chose to refuse the notion that we must endure work in order to get money to pay for our hobbies and lifestyle.

I felt suffocated working in stale offices under fluorescent lights, amongst the politics, gossip and having to ask permission to take time off.

It took me a while to figure out that being a business owner was the best path for me. That my purpose was about helping others to find freedom through entrepreneurship.

It enabled me to do multiple things and combine multiple skills with my knowledge, experience and most importantly my passion to help people.

But after realising it, I still had to give myself permission to ‘go against the grain’ at the time.

I needed to give myself permission to stop asking “Who am I to do that?” and start asking “Why not me?”

I needed to leave my ‘safe and stable’ job.

Something that helped me to figure out my purpose was asking myself these 3 questions:

  1. What makes me most happy and fulfilled?

  2. What difference do I want to make in the world?

  3. What do I feel wired for and called to do?

In my heart, I knew I wanted to speak and write. I wanted to train and coach. I wanted to be a thought leader. I wanted to help people reach their potential. I would do these things if nobody paid me to do them. They made me come alive.

I needed to explore, to ‘date’ some things until the clarity came.

Clarity is not static. It doesn’t come from sitting in our house over-analysing everything.

You can’t think your way into finding your purpose; you have to ‘do’ your way into it. The more we act, the more we get clarity.

Clarity comes when we’re moving and doing things.

True fulfillment comes from designing your own life.

Do you want more clarity on your purpose?

Here are 3 actions that will help you:

  1. Ask yourself regularly “How can I use what I’m passionate about to help others?” This will expand your mind to endless possibilities that will give your life richness and meaning. We’ll fall short if we only focus on ourselves.
  2. Actively look for opportunities to get to know ourselves and others better. Research. Watch videos and listen to podcasts. Read every book you can get your hands on that calls to you. Seek guidance from people who can help you find your purpose.
  3. Pay close attention to the people and opportunities that show up in your life. They are there to either teach you something or help you on your path.

Follow these three steps consistently. If you do, you will wake up one day and realise that your life is completely transformed.

You’ll feel fulfilled, happy, and content because you’ll be passionately living your purpose.

Do you feel on purpose? What helped you get there? Post in the comments, I’d love to hear 🙂

 

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3 Secrets To Creating More Engaging Content

 

I did a poll recently in my Facebook group Amplify Your Influence asking “What do you need the most help with?”

And a lot of people said how to create content, and how write in a way that’s influential and engaging and compelling.

As business owners, we need to be able to capture people’s attention and to be able to keep people engaged with what we’re saying.

This so that people can get to know us better, because the more that people get to know us, the better we can help them.

If you’re not getting to know your people and if your people are not getting to know you within your tribe or community, it’s very hard to influence them.

Think about the people who most influence you, for example.

It’s probably people who you already have consumed a lot of this stuff, maybe you’ve watched videos, maybe you’ve read their articles, listened to their podcast, maybe they’ve got some stuff on YouTube.

The people who influence our lives are people that we know and respect. And I don’t mean we necessarily know them in person, but we know them because we’ve consumed a lot of their content.

Why have we consumed a lot of their content?

Because they know how to engage. They know how to be compelling, influential. They know how to hook us in. They know how to keep us watching, keep us listening.

And in this economy where attention is so valuable, it’s so valuable to be able to capture people’s attention and to be able to inform them, educate them, inspire them, empower them, entertain them, all of those good things, we need to know how to have engaging content.

Also, Facebook really likes it when we are getting engagement, when we’re getting comments and likes.

When Facebook sees that people like your stuff, that people are engaging, that people are responding well to it, they are going to show it to more people.

So if you’re about to launch a program or an offer or some kind of course that you’re putting out, maybe you’re about to release a book or a coaching series, something like that, one of the most important things is to plan out your social media content really well before the launch.

This is so that Facebook has seen that you’re getting a lot of engagement and they’re going to push your posts about that launch out to the community even more.

There are two main reasons that we want to have engaging content to build the trust with our following.

Firstly, to be able to help them provide value, help them go from A to B, help them solve their problems.

Most people are consumed with their problems.

So if you show up and you give a solution, if you give them help, tips and tools and tricks and secrets, things that you’ve learned along the way, they will keep you top of mind.

They don’t need to be groundbreaking, earth-shattering things, by the way, because a lot of people just need reminders.

They need to bring things top of mind.

So if you show up and go, “Hey, have you meditated today?” … it’s not like no one’s ever heard that concept before. But it refreshes it for them.

It doesn’t have to be a brand new concept to be valuable, it can be a reminder.

You could be that breaking someone’s day up with a little bit of inspiration, something funny, something that that’s helpful, depending on your ideal clients, your target market.

I teach a lot of secrets to attract clients through content. But here are three of my favourite secrets to creating more engaging content.

1. Wrap your posts with questions

Wrap your posts, sandwich your posts with questions.

When you start with a question and your caption and your social media caption, and by caption I mean you’re posting your image and you’re putting the writing with the image, you want to start with a question as much as possible whenever it’s relevant.

A question hooks people in as opposed to a statement.

So you might say, for example, you’re posting a photo of you at an event. So you can either say, “Here’s me at this event, amazing event.”

Or you could say, “Do you love going to live events? Do you love the energy of a live audience? What’s one of your favorite things about going to an event? Do you ever find that awkward moment when you ask someone to have a selfie and they don’t want to? Has that ever happened to you?”

You’re hooking people in with a question.

You might start with a problem.

“Do you ever feel frustrated at this? Do you ever struggle with this? Do you ever wonder blah, blah, blah?” So a question at the start of your post and then a question at the end of your post. So a question at the end gets the person thinking.

You might want to say, “What’s your favorite tip?”

You might share three tips and you say, “What’s your favorite?” You might ask, “What’s one thing that you can do today to feel blah, blah, blah.” like whatever you’ve just talked about in your post.

So you’re not just posting for posting sake, you’re posting so that you can actually provide some value and get someone thinking, get them thinking outside of their normal way of thinking outside of their box and challenge them.

Throw out a challenge to get someone thinking a little bit differently.

You don’t want to try and change everything in one caption. It’s just having one main idea. In speaking we call it knocking over the one domino. The domino effect that you knock over this one domino and it affects everything else.

So think about your topic, the thing that you help your clients with. Think about your topic and what’s all different ways to share about that topic. And you’re wrapping that caption about that topic or whatever…

For example, my topic is influence, but underneath that, I’m talking about content for example, in this video.

So one thing is how to engage, how to get people to engage. That’s my one domino purpose for this live video. And then within that one big idea, there are three different secrets.

You don’t want to try and push over too many dominoes. It’s just one domino, one big idea, how to get people to engage, but then there are three secrets.

So whatever your topic is, underneath that main umbrella topic, let’s say your main thing is confidence, you help people get confident.

So underneath confidence, you might have the topic of positive self-talk for example. And then you might say, “Here are my three secrets of how to use positive self talk to get a promotion.”

And so the whole idea of that post is to help someone get a promotion through their positive self-talk.

But you’ve got three tips. I hope that makes sense. So you’ve got that one big idea and you wrap it with a question.

So you put a question at the start, a question at the end.

Not every single post requires it, but I want you to challenge yourself to think before you just post statements, how can you actually turn it into questions?

All right. Secret number two, and it’s not a secret at all, a lot of people do it, but a lot of people actually forget to do it…

2. Share simple stories

When you share simple stories, not a whole hero’s journey and the turning point and the protagonist and antagonist or whatever it is, the hero and the villain.

You don’t have to make it complex, you can literally share a simple story.

You might say something like, “I was out walking in the Bush the other day and I came across a Kookaburra and blah blah blah…”

And you tell a little bit of a metaphor from that story.

So you just share stories behind the scenes in your life.

It doesn’t have to be complex. You just want to draw people into that story. If you’re just posting facts and figures and tips and how-tos in steps without any story, it can be a little bit dry.

People could just Google that, right?

So you want to inject your personality, you want to inject some visuals to what you’re sharing and actually bring it to life.

3. Have a balance between credibility and vulnerability

Credibility is basically sharing with your audience the experience you have, the qualifications you have, the cool things you’ve done.

So maybe you’ve spoken on a podcast or maybe you have been interviewed or you’ve written a guest blog post for someone, you share that with your community.

So you’re sharing, that’s credibility. That’s positioning yourself as an expert in your industry. And you’re also positioning yourself as the authority. So that’s your credibility.

But if you just show up and talk about how amazing you are all the time, people aren’t going to like that.

You don’t want to put yourself on a pedestal above people. You also want to balance that with vulnerability by being very transparent in saying something like, “You know, I still struggle with this sometimes.”

Or, “I still find this hard and I find myself in a hot mess on the bathroom floor crying.

And then I have to jump on and do a Facebook Live. Who relates?”

So you’re actually showing yourself to be a really real, normal person. You’re not trying to be all polished and perfect all the time.

And finding that sweet spot and the balance between being professional, and personal.

It should be in both. Not trying to be like everyone else and trying to have it super polished, but just showing up and being real and speaking from the heart. You can do this by not over-planning things.

So for example, with these Facebook Lives, I just plan my three points.

I plan the top title and then I just speak from the heart because I know my content.

So I haven’t planned word for word, so I’m not constantly losing connection with you by reading notes.

You’ll notice that I’m always looking at you. Well, I’m actually looking at a lens on my iPad at the moment, but it feels like I’m looking at you because I’m not so caught up in my notes. That’s where you got to stick with where your credibility lies.

My credibility lies in helping business owners to grow their business through specific marketing strategies. One of them being content creation. So I can speak about this topic all day. I don’t need notes.

So you just have your little prompts. I just put a little piece of card with a hole cut in the middle around my lens so I can just refer to my three key points, but other than that, I’m just talking to you about something I love talking about, something that I know about, and that’s what you can do as well.

So often people put off doing a Facebook Live because they think they’ve got a plan every word. You don’t. If you had to plan every single word, you’d probably not do enough of them.

It’s actually better to get something out there that’s unperfect, I’ve never done a perfect Facebook Live ever, but people still get value from that. I always get people saying, “I needed to hear that. That was really interesting. I’m going to try that.”

You don’t have to be perfect to be able to help people.

Now I’m going to recap the 3 secrets.

Number one is to wrap your post with questions, a question at the beginning, a question at the end as much as possible.

This is by the way, how to really get people engaging and hooking people in.

Number two is to share simple stories. Share a simple story that happened in your life recently, today, yesterday. You might share some big significant story from years ago, but you don’t have to.

And then number three is to have a balance between credibility and vulnerability. So that you are talking about your expertise and your authority, but you’re also balancing that with a good amount of humility, transparency, and sharing how you struggled as well.

If you would like to know more tips on how to create content that connects and engages and draws people in and builds that trust and that rapport with people so that they will take that next step towards you, I’m running a free workshop on Thursday the 31st of October in Sydney.

It’s Halloween, so hopefully you’re not trick-or-treating that night and you can come and check out the workshop, or maybe you go trick-or-treating afterwards or before.

I’ll be sharing how to create content that connects, lots more specific tips and tricks, the exact words to use and not use in your content, mistakes that people make when it comes to creating content and copywriting.

I’m to go through seven steps of how to create engaging content and loads more. It’s action-packed. I’m going to be putting on some snacks and you get to meet some other like-minded entrepreneurs, so come along and join us.

Learn more about the ‘How To Create Content That Connects’ Workshop

 

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How To Use Your Tonality To Come Across More Confidently

Want some simple hacks for how to use your voice to come across more confidently?

 

 

In order to come across more confidently, we have 3 ways to do it:

  1. Our body language (posture, gestures, facial expressions etc.)
  2. How we say it (tonality)
  3. What we say (the words)

This is part 2 of a 3-part series on confidence about the different communication styles of confidence.

In part 1 I share how to use more confident body language.

In this article, I talk about tonality – how we say things.

Our language is like musical rhythm and melody. There are seven notes in the musical scale. And we can take our voice up and down.

Think about the pitch, the power, the pauses and the pace of the way that we speak. We can use the variety of these things within our tonality to come across more or less confident.

At both a conscious and an unconscious level, we can tell when someone’s confident by the way they express the words coming out of their mouth.

The words coming out of our mouth is only about 7% of communication – that means about 93% of our communication is body language and tonality.

Tonality makes up about 38% of our total communication.

To come across more confident as a business owner or in the workplace, it comes down to three things – our body language, our tonality and the words we speak.

You know very quickly when someone is unconfident.

Think now about an unconfident person – the way they speak.

Our brain is wired to be able to pick up if someone is certain and confident and sure themselves or not because we tend to trust people more if they’re more confident.

So you’re already doing this at an unconscious level.

Now think of the most confident person you know. Think about the tonality, how they actually speak. They do certain, predictable things that project confidence.

What are those things? Here are 3…

1. Speak With More Volume

People who are confident, generally speak louder.

There are quiet people who are quietly confident too and don’t feel the need to speak loudly.

It’s about finding the sweet spot.

You will probably know where you sit in the spectrum.

The most important thing is to bring awareness to where you’re at and whether you need to speak louder, clearer and stronger.

I’m sure you’ve been in a meeting where there’s someone who speaks super loud, and they actually get a lot of attention. Even if it annoys you, they do generally come across as more confident if they’re speaking louder.

Sometimes it’s to compensate for them NOT being confident.

But in many cases, when people want to increase their confidence, I notice that they could increase their volume.

So, if you want instantly be noticed or respected more and if you want people to perceive you as more confident, start increasing your volume.

I used to speak so quietly. I was so unconfident and when I was in a meeting, I would speak so timidly and shy.

I remember being in this boardroom meeting when I first was working for a big company. And my Supervisor asked me to speak, and she kept saying “Speak up Kat, we can’t hear you”

I remember not liking the attention not liking people’s eyes on me. And so I just spoke really, really quietly.

But, as soon as someone speaks quietly, for example, if someone stands up in a meeting or at a networking event and speaks really softly, it’s often a sign they’re not too confident in what they’re saying.

If you’re really shy and timid and nervous about what you’re saying, you’ll probably speak really quietly, and you probably won’t get that respect and that confidence from other people that you’re looking for.

If you currently speak quietly and you want to be heard more and be more confident – you may need to turn up the volume knob.

I’m not saying shout… I’m saying project confidence.

Even if it feels uncomfortable (which it probably will), if you’ve been speaking quite quietly for a long time, it’s going to take practice.

Confidence is going to come as a by-product of competence.

As you take lots of action in your life, and get better at stuff and build your skill acquisition and you get more knowledge you become more confident.

As you start facing your fears and doing things like public speaking and Facebook Lives and webinars or going out and making sales calls, you will find it way easier to speak with confidence and naturally have a higher volume.

Whatever it is that you’re doing to face your fears and get stronger and more confident as a person will help.

That’s going to be a byproduct of being more confident naturally.

But you can also be perceived as more confident instantly by just turning it up, so that’s an easy little hack you can do straight away.

Just start speaking louder and you will most likely be perceived as more confident.

2. Take your intonation across, or down

Intonation is the rise and fall of your voice. Think of musical notes.

If you are asking a question, it’s ok to go up in your intonation at the end of the question.

But if you go up in your intonation when you end your statements, it sounds as though you are questioning what you’re saying.

you’re when you’re

When you’re speaking to a client or potential client, speaking on video, on a webinar or at a workshop, you want to make sure that when you’re making statements that go across or down in their inflection.

In order to come across more confident, you want to train yourself to only go up if you’re asking a question.

If you’re not asking a question, go straight across, or go down. Deal?

This is particularly common with women. Often women speakers go up at the end of their statements.

I’ve had to really work on this habit and I still am not perfect at it, but working on it.

I tended to have a bit more of an apologetic way of speaking that I’ve had to really work on and train myself out of it.

One way to do this is to read yourself books, such as children’s storybooks and practice coming down or practice going across in your statements.

Newsreaders are brilliant at this. So if you do want to practice this, if you do find yourself going up a lot, then you might want to pay attention to newsreaders because they’re actually trained to go across and down.

Unless you’re asking a question or unless you’re trying to build rapport, and going up is a way of softening what you’re saying. So if you’re saying something harsh or direct, you can add that little flick up at the end, if you just kind of want to soften it a little bit and not come across quite so forceful or direct.

You’ve got to know who you’re speaking to, what they’re going to respond with.

And remember, it all comes down to outcome, what outcome do you want? If you’re going to show certainty and have people respect you and listen to you, you do not want that ‘questioning’ inflection, unless you’re asking questions.

3. Lower your pitch

People who speak with a deeper voice are typically seen as having higher status. A new study in Social Psychological and Personality Science suggests lowering your pitch also increases how you perceive yourself and makes you feel more powerful.

The study showed that students who spoke in a deep voice were perceived as more powerful by both themselves and their peers.

The implications are summed up by the researchers simply:

” This would add a simple and generally available instrument to your strategic arsenal: your own voice. The lowering of your own voice could then be used not only to influence others but also to influence yourself.”

I used to have a higher voice, and I trained myself to speak lower. Now a lower, a lower pitch is again a byproduct of becoming confident. So my voice actually got lower.

Just practice it, and you will no doubt come across as more confident. S

If you have a high pitched voice, like a higher note on the musical scale, straight away your positioning, authority and expertise often lowers in the mind of the listener. It usually happens at an unconscious level.

If you think about it, often mums who have quiet, soft or high pitched voices, often get the Dad to step in. And often that masculine can bring a feeling of safety and trust.

I remember when I was a kid the blinds caught on fire. I distinctly remember wanting my Dad to come home and hearing his voice as he came in, it was like I felt safe with that lower, deeper voice.

I’m not saying be overly masculine, but just by having that slightly lower pitch, you likely will find that you’ll get more respect and will come across as more confident.

So those are three ways you can have come across more confident by using your tonality.

1. Speak with more volume

2. Take your intonation across, or down

3. Lower your pitch

Give it a go. I’d love to hear what you think.

Remember to be real. there’s a side of you that’s confident turn up that side.

Don’t be fake. Don’t be inauthentic. Don’t come across super weird.

Just adjust those ‘knobs’ on your tonality and bring the bring the volume up, bring the intonation across and bring the pitch down and you will definitely find that people perceive you differently.

Test it out and let me know how you go.

I wish you all the success in coming across as more confident!

Kat xo

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