You’re actually doing everything backwards. Flip this and change everything.
On today’s episode Russell talks about positioning yourself in the market in a place where you can be vulnerable and relate-able and be able to make mistakes.
Here are some super helpful tips you should listen for in this episode:
So listen below to find out how you can position yourself as someone who can make mistakes so people can love you for it.
---Transcript---
Hey everyone, this is Russell and I want to welcome you guys to Marketing In Your Car. I’m really excited, it’s been a while since I’ve done one and that’s because we’ve been trying to get a new intro for forever. This episode’s not going live until the new intro’s live. We tried to hire a company, we tried to hire another company, we tried another company. Nobody can do it, I just want to…..you guys’ that we’re hiring are professional-podcast-intro-maker people, you’d think they’d be good at making an intro. Anyway, we’re coming back to the drawing board and we’re going to do our own. So I’m going to do it this morning and my brother will get this one and he will get the intro, he’s going to make it, because he’s magic. And when this goes live we’ll have the intro. So hopefully you guys just heard the new intro and hopefully it’s cool. Did you like it? I don’t even know what it is yet, but I’m guessing it was amazing or else we wouldn’t have pushed it live. So I cross my fingers that it was amazing.
With that said, I’ve been missing you guys. It’s been a while. I’ve been driving to the office wishing I could talk but I was like, I’m waiting for the new intro, waiting for the new intro. So I’ve been hanging out again, so I apologize for slacker-ness. But the good news is because of my slacker-ness, Stu Mclarin told me he started listening to some past, back archive issues and got some good nuggets, so maybe you guys should all just start at the very beginning. Anyway, we have the new pre-loaded MP3 player coming soon. Just waiting on China. Apparently China takes week long holidays, the whole country. So they’re in the middle of a holiday. They were supposed to ship it all before the holiday, but they didn’t. So now we’re hoping they ship it soon. So that’ll be coming very soon.
Anyway, today I want to talk to you guys about something that’s very, very important. And it’s all about positioning. Now this is not the kind of positioning that normally we talk about which about how to find your positioning, how to put yourself in the right spot and elevate, blah, blah, blah. But what I’m talking about is the opposite, the negative side of positioning. Recently, and I’m not going to name names but some people I’ve been working with who have been insanely concerned about their positioning on everything and annoying so. And because of that, they have become completely irrelevant. They are, I’m trying to make sure I say this without alienating or anyone thinking they know who I’m talking about, it could be anyone. But this person, we’ll just say this person, is so concerned about positioning that they won’t do anything awesome anymore, because they are afraid that if they do something awesome and it fails it will lower their what? Their positioning, their status. So they’ve positioned themselves in this spot and they’ve drunk their own Kool-aid. They think they are the most amazing person on Earth and because of that, and because they’re so concerned about positioning, they won’t take risks or gamble or anything and they’d become completely irrelevant because of that.
This whole business, it’s hard to stay relevant. Especially when you’re an expert or a guru or whatever you want to call yourself. And you’re out there and you’re trying to keep on top of mind in market sharing. Keep people aware. So it’s been interesting. It’s made me think a lot about my positioning and making sure that I don’t position myself in a way where I become irrelevant because of how…..I could tell you guys stories about the stories, because it would make even more sense. It’s more so kind of a warning because I’ve seen it happen in the last week, multiple times, which is just interesting. It’s kind of all been on the top of my mind this week because I’ve seen it happen a couple times in the last week or so.
So for you guys, I want you to think about, and this comes back to the whole attractive character and how you position yourself and things like that, but I would definitely pick a positioning standpoint that allows you to risk, where if you fail, it doesn’t lower your status. For me, I’ve kind of put myself in a cool situation, where I tell you guys everything. When I failed, I’m like “Hey, I failed again.” And it doesn’t lower my status because I haven’t positioned myself as an infallible person who never screws up, I’ve positioned myself as someone who screws up all the time. But because of that, because of all the failures and the mistakes and issues and the problems, that’s how I’ve learned and how I grow and I share with you guys the pros and cons and ups and down. That’s what Marketing In Your Car initially was. Let me give you guys a glimpse at what we’re doing. And I’m not going to just sugar coat it and show you guys all the ups. I’ve had many episodes where I’ve talked up the downs. I’ve had episodes where I’ve been in depression and I’ve told you. I mean my depression usually lasts for a couple of hours, but I share those things with you guys because it’s real and it’s not fake and it’s what’s actually going to serve you the best. Whereas if I position myself as this infallible being who never screws up, man I’d be scared to try anything or test anything or risk anything, or be in the public spotlight because of that. And very, very quickly I’d become irrelevant and that’s what’s happened to the person or persons. Plural or singular, it’s up to you to think. That’s happened to them though, because they don’t want to screw things up and because of that they’ve become irrelevant. In their mind they don’t they have become irrelevant. But if you were to survey the market and ask people who should care who tey are, I believe that they’re kind of gone.]
So I just wanted to warn you guys about that. So not be so, and we’ve talked about this in the Dotcom Secrets book a little bit when we talk about the attractive character. We talk about, without your character flaws people can’t relate to you. But because of our positioning or our status, we’re so scared to share our character flaws that we just freeze. We don’t share anything and then we’re scared to fail because people will see our character flaws, man it causes so many issues. Think about any comic book character, what makes them interesting? It’s the character flaws. Superman is super boring until kryptonite is introduced now it’s like, sweet now he can die. Imagine if it was Batman vs Superman , the whole movie is this big climax and then Batman and superman step out there and Superman does his superman flying punch and batman is dead in 5 seconds. You’re like, “Huh, well that was boring.” If it wasn’t for Kryptonite, that whole movie was super boring, uninteresting. I mean, Superman as a character would be uninteresting if it wasn’t for Kryptonite. Batman’s the same way. What makes Batman interesting. It’s the fact that, he’s got family, he’s go these other people he loves who could be injured.
We watched Spiderman with the kids for the first time. Spiderman is this amazing being who can do everything, but if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s got MJ and his uncle and aunt, if it wasn’t for them and that character, not character faults, but the weaknesses. They’re not interesting characters. So understand that, you guys. By positioning yourself as an infallible person, not only does it make you way less money and be way less interesting to people, it also is gonna make you very irrelevant very, very quickly.
Have fun with yourself. Have fun with what you share with people. Let people know that you’re messed up because you are, I am, we all are. That’s the whole point of this human experience. We come down here and we come into these world and all of us have different upbringings, but what happens is some of us have a mom and a dad, some of us just have a mom or just a dad, we all come in different weird situations. And then we got through this life and we have all sorts of weird things, some things are messed up, some of us get screwed up early in our life. I’ve had friends who by the time they are 5 years old, things happen to them that would mess you up for the rest of your life. I don’t know how they’ve survived and how they’ve thrived through those. It doesn’t make sense to me. But for all of us to come out and act like, positioning yourself as this person who doesn’t ever fail. Man, it makes you un-relatable. The people I know who are doing the best today, and today is more important than ever before. Because it wasn’t so important even 5 or 6 years ago. But with the advent of social media and all these things….I was telling someone the other day. When I’m doing a webinar I see people Googling my name and Facebooking me, and when I share testimonials, people are private messaging my testimonials to see if I’m legit. People are fact checking you as you go, and you try to be all perfect and annoying and stuff like that, or you can just tell the truth. Just be you, who cares? It drives me crazy. Why won’t people just be themselves. You are good enough as you are. People will love you as you are. Just be yourself and just share the truth.
Ben Settle, he was making fun of life coaches that teach people how to be authentic, that’s a big theme right now. Teaching people how to be authentic. And he was making fun of them, “Why would you pay someone $10,000 to teach you how to be authentic. Just be yourself.” And it’s so true. But for some reason we’re so screwed, we’re so afraid of people seeing past our shell that we put up all these barriers. That’s what……it’s causing the problem that you’re trying to solve. I was watching two nights ago, I was watching The Profit, it was the episode where the cleaning lady, and the cleaning lady is putting on this false facade and that was her…..she was trying to do that so people wouldn’t judge her so she could be successful, but because she did that, she was not successful and therefore people were judging her. It’s like the walls that we put up so we can get what we want are the things that are keeping us from getting what we want. It’s ridiculous. So if we would just all…..I was going to say grow up, but it’s the opposite. Go back to being kids where you are vulnerable and you don’t care about what people think. Go back to that time, that state and holy crap, guess what happens? The things you’re trying to get to happen right now. It’s really, really weird. The shells you’re putting up, this posturing, this stature, whatever you want to call it, that is what’s keeping you from your dreams.
Don’t do what Ben Settle was suggesting, don’t go pay $10,000 to have someone teach you how to be authentic, just be authentic. Put yourself….it’s scary. “Hey Russell, you totally screwed up again.” That’s scary to put out there, but guess what? I do, and guess what happens the next day? Nothing. I wake up and everything’s still good. Some people think I’m annoying and they walk away and I’m grateful for that. And some people relate to me and they get benefit and value because of that and they walk towards me and that’s the key, you guys. So there you go. Fix your positioning and posturing, be authentic. Whatever you want to say, quit putting up those walls. I dare you guys, tell a story, however you publish stuff, if it’s through writing or blogging or posting, even if you don’t have a way to publish it yet, go find somebody you love and you care about and just be vulnerable. Tell them the truth about how you feel. And if you’re pissed, tell them you’re pissed. If you’re sad, tell them you’re sad. If you’re angry tell them you’re angry. Just let the walls come down and just try it. It’s so scary at first, but guess what’s going to happen? Only good stuff. Alright, I’m at the office. I’m going to go have some fun, you guys. Appreciate you all, I hope you enjoyed this Marketing In Your Car and I’ll talk to you guys all again soon.