Supertight Brand: 5 Steps to Specialization for Therapists

The “Shrink Wrap” System

Hey Y’all.  In honor of my upcoming second session with the Denver Therapists’ Network, we’re going to hyperfocus (Ah, the Gifts of Un-medicated ADD!) on an extremely vital and potentially tricky process:  the therapist of today choosing (and articulating) a highly specialized brand that speaks powerfully in the marketplace.

We’re going to be focusing on therapists today, because the law of specialization says you get more traction for any specific offer the more specific you are about who it is for.  However, these principles and steps are valid and valuable for all my visionary, mission-minded entrepreneurs out there, so don’t be shy to test ‘em out and put in practice.

After all, as all you consciousness professionals know, there is no better teacher than our own experience.

Let’s get started with a quick review of the basics.

What is a Brand?  What is the Difference Between Branding and Marketing?

On the deepest level, your brand is your essence, your presence, the particular offer of service you are to this life.  On a more practical level, however, your brand is your reputation.  It’s how you are known; it’s what you’re known for.  On this level (the level of money and the marketplace) it is not a “brand” unless others can notice and recognize it.

If a brand fell in the forest and no one was there to hear it, would it make a sound? No, no it would not.  You can get as theoretical as you want about this, but according to what’s going to help you in your actual life and business, the answer is No.

It is an AWESOME idea to get clear about the distinction between your branding and your marketing.  Brand, as says international branding expert Al Ries, is a concept you own in someone else’s mind.  I would say it’s the story you own in his/her mind.  It’s the purpose, the passion, the focus of your business. 

If brand is a story, marketing is all the myriad of ways you tell that story.  It’s your website, your content, your collateral, your social media, your presentations, etc.  If your brand is compelling, powerful, and “sexy,” then your marketing doesn’t have to do so much heavy lifting.  If your brand is not on point and on target, then despite your 10,000 followers on Twitter, likely all you are accomplishing is boring or confusing or annoying 10,000 people.  Sorry folks. 

So.  How do you smart and sophisticated therapists get that Big Gorgeous Powerful Sexy Brand?   

2 Rules and 5 Steps.

2 Rules:  Keep it Light and Get it Tight!

Actually, if you can just get these two things, like Stephen Stills sings, you aint gonna need any more advice.  However, since our culture (overall) actually pulls in the opposite direction of both, it takes some practice to master the Light and Tight Principles.

KEEP IT LIGHT.  EVEN LIGHTER THAN THAT.  

This is hugely, vitally important for therapists—and for anyone that has big, weighty work on the planet, the work of mission, the work of healing, the work of transformation.  It is absolutely flabbergasting how many passionate pioneers of this planet set out to release more joy and freedom and wind up with incredibly grinding, overly full, yet strangely empty lives.  This is NOT the fault of the pioneer, but it’s pretty hard to argue with the results.  Kinda like gravity. 

I am not arguing that this is true for any of you, but I bet you know some hugely talented healers and teachers of which this could be said.  So, my basic rule is, the bigger, broader, and “weightier” your current mission (and your daily responsibilities) the more airtime you’re going to have to surrender to joyful, playful, restful, energizing activities.  Stuff that lets you feel the Light That You Are. 

We’ll talk more about this in our session on Friday, April 10, and I’ll share my personal techniques and “Lightsaber Secrets” with you.  For those of you participating online, I know we’d all love it if you shared any tools or questions you have about keeping your huge mission light.

GET IT TIGHT.  EVENT TIGHTER THAN THAT.

As my evil merciless pilates instructor Mari Windsor says, “this is going to challenge the strength of your powerhouse.”  Now that you’re all light and bright, it’s time to get all rigorous and focused here, which (since there’s plenty of room for “error”) can potentially get you heavy and grim all over again.  You can get as serious as you want about this, but do try to avoid the grim.

It’s not easy—specialization brings out the agitated deer in the headlights for most of us.  You therapists can probably guess why. We’ll talk more about this later, but for now, just keep in mind the serious intensity of children building a very important project in a sandbox.  We’re going to try some shit out, but we can always keep shoveling and molding, try out some different flags and Lego figures, etc.

Here’s the most essential formula for a supertight brand:  we are looking for a specific person, with a particular breakdown, for which we will provide a remarkable solution.  And what we’re about to do is use the five steps to fill in that formula so we can blow their sweet little minds with power of our brand clarity.

Step One:  Find Your Peeps.

You may be used to thinking of your ideal or target audience as a demographic, but I agree with the brand experts who recommend you get real, real personal.  Create a list of several (8-12) individual characters you’d love to serve.  Base them on real clients you’ve had that you liked, base them on real (or famous) people you admire, and throw in a couple you’re not so crazy about just for clarity of contrast.  These characters have names, ages, genders, or they are not individual characters.  They have sources of income, or they are not good characters for you to target.

Now.  For each one of these people.  What is the thing that is sucking the joy right out of this incredible person’s life?  What would be an amazing breakthrough for him or her?  How could your particular, remarkable offer of therapy (based on both your training and life experience) help facilitate this breakthrough?  Choose your top two or three people and look for a “container.”  We’ll discuss in session.

Step Two:  Look and Love Your Competition.

I know this is crazy, but your potential ideal client has a LOT of therapeutic choices, especially here in a nice crowded market like Denver.  So, you’ve figured out that you really like those highly creative artistic people who are blocked in their art, or you’ve got something to say to those fortune-500 CEO’s who are up all night with their porn addiction, or those parents who are struggling to manage their blended families.  Congratulations!  This is a Supertight Focus!

Now, what if you look and someone else is already doing this, or something close to this?  The good news is this is good news!  We’ll talk about why, and how to position so this person becomes a great referral instead of client-stealing bastard who just happened to get to your sweet spot first.

Step Three:  What’s Your Flava?

This happens to be the name of one of my all-time favorite songs by British hip-hop singer Craig David, but just in case you totally don’t care, “Flavor” is a great way to think about the perfect combination of your brand’s values and your brand’s personality traits—both are well-worth thinking about because they make you money. 

Create your list of Top Five/Six Brand Values and Personality Traits—don’t do more or you’ll have a hard time using them “like a sword,” as I am going to teach on Friday.  For example, I have values of both Mastery and Fun, which means I don’t like “Quick Easy Fix to Make Everything Perfect!” Nonsense, and I don’t work with projects or people who are not (in some way) really fun for me.  As a personality trait, you may have noticed that I am both practical and irreverent.  Sometimes use borderline bad language.  You may not like it, but my people love the crap outta it.

Step Four:  Don’t Be Stingy.  Be 80/20 Generous.

Do you want to get off the “X Hours = X Dollars” treadmill and start making money in a bigger way? Or are you perfectly happy to get on that treadmill just so long as it means your practice is full of great people? Depending on where you are in your career, either can be a darn fine thing.

The good news/bad news here is one of the greatest resources for either scenario is develop and share, share, share original content.  Share 80% for free and then charge for 20%.   No matter what your current story about social media and today’s communication channels, I encourage you (as a therapist who presumably likes people) to think in terms of creating, sharing, conversing, and community.

Does your original content have to be totally original?  If the answer is yes, then I’m in big trouble, because everything I’ve told you here is based on the work of so many others before me.  No, your content just has to be yours—your spin on things, your voice, your way of sharing.  It’s your blog, if you like writing, or its your vlog, if you hate writing, or its your online course, if you hate both writing and being on camera. Then, get some help with your structures, your platform, and GO.  Do not wait for perfection to start your conversation.  Begin by saying Hello.

Now.  This is a big, dense, and potentially heavy topic, so what questions do you have in order to travel light and keep it tight?

Step Five:  Damn it, Ellen, This isn’t Working.

Oh, man, I know.  I hate this step too. 

No, but seriously.  If you are focusing on your Keep it Light and Get it Tight principles, it IS working; it is in the process of working.  Unfortunately, you might be at the stage where you went to the store and got all your ingredients and now you’re mad that you don’t yet have a cake.  Once you choose a Supertight Focus, it’s going to take a while to alert the marketplace that you are that focus, and then a bit longer to get them agitated enough to care.  Play a long game and don’t get fussed.

Share more, speak more, be powerful, keep moving to get in front of your people.  Also, as you know, you don’t necessarily have to be superchirpy extrovert to be a great therapist, and you don’t have to be that way to be a great supertight brand either (you could be an introvert standing for introvert power, as has been proven).  One of my favorite therapists is a more reserved, quiet person, who kinda wants to throw up in her mouth at the thought of speaking, blogging, vlogging, etc.  So we figured out a way for her to get in through the back door to speak directly to her people.  Questions about that, contact me.

Lastly, to all those of you brave enough to help ‘ologize the psyche, I salute you.

The Difference Between Law of Attraction and Wishful Thinking (Part Three)

A Case Study in Career Success and Suicide Starring Justin Bieber.

Part Three

Oh my gosh, you guys.  I am a spazmonster.  I thought I posted this two weeks ago, but I did not.  My only excuse is that I have been in a craptacular Cat Allergy fugue due to a recent feline addition to my home.  My furry orange friend, alas, has now had to be removed, but his memory lives in on in my scarred lung tissue.

However! Let us return to the matter at hand.

This is the third in a series of posts about the difference between Law of Attraction and Wishful Thinking in creating a powerful career. We have been looking at the rise and fall of Justin Bieber as an example of how to use positive energy (and its opposite) to attract fans to your brand.

These tips will be easier to follow if you read Part One and Part Two of this series.

"You" Are Not as Important as The Work.

 If you are in the growth phase of a new brand, or re-inventing your career or business, do so from an Early-Bieber place of love, heart, and excellent, distinctive work.  Let this work (product, service, performance) speak for you. 

When you have shitty days (and you will) notice how the bog of Ego tends to suck you down, and conversely, how the joy of great work lifts you up, to a strong and impersonal place, and I mean impersonal in a good way 

I’m always telling people that I don’t need a parade to acknowledge how great I am, but the truth is, I would probably enjoy one.  A short parade would be fine.

Sadly, I am still waiting, and some days, I don’t feel understood, appreciated, or properly valued.  It's just too bad that I am the only person in the world who has ever felt like this.

Nothing gets me out of this nonsense faster than getting back to the work itself—my raison d’etre, my reason for being.  Also, what really helps me is to take my work as seriously as possible while not taking “myself” too seriously at all.

If You Build It, They Will Come.

Spend time getting really, really good at what you do, and then give your best and most loving attention to your ideal client, customer, or audience.  

Don’t half-ass this. Check your ego frequently and check in with your ideal audience to see if their honest response aligns with your glorious visions of the future. 

Many new entrepreneurs (and I am talking about otherwise smart, sophisticated people) make the initial Wishful Thinking mistake that their offer will be instantly popular, and then, when it isn’t, they bounce to the other side of “This is never going to work,” and start ignoring all kinds of opportunities.

If initial response isn’t all you dreamed, Congratulations.  You have now entered the world of Reality.  

But the Good News?  Reality is very malleable, and it will respond to the good energy of healthy re-invention. Remember that once-innocent Justin Bieber wasn’t an overnight success either.  After all, he spent over half of his life as a performer (the years from eight to 14) being a nobody. 

Get a Team and Treat ‘Em Like Gold.

Craft your offer of help with care and specificity, and make sure you’ve got a good team to help you showcase and share it.  It’s okay if your “team” starts out with or is composed of one other devoted person.  

Like Justin’s mom (his original “Belieber”) it helps if your team is genuinely enthusiastic about your gift.  Love your team back and praise them publicly, generously, and extravagantly.

I work with lots of insanely talented brilliant introverts who aren’t that crazy about other people, a feeling which I sometimes share, especially when I haven’t had enough alone time.  

So I get it, but keep in mind; most successful people have teams—and by teams I mean teams of competent, consistent individuals.  You want to look for people who compliment your skill set and share your standards of professionalism, whatever those may be.

Wishful thinking says, “It’s easier to just do it myself.” Yes, in the short term, sometimes it seems that way, because you don’t have to figure out how to co-ordinate action.  But there’s a reason that almost all talent (cooks, creators, athletes, inventors, performers, geniuses, visionaries, etc) have managers and agents.

Get Off Your Computer and Out into Life.

Go to your people, wherever they hang out.  Social media is great, but don’t forget to meet your peeps in person as well.  

Remember how poor fourteen-year-old Justin was scorned because nobody wanted to hear a kid on the radio (Question:  did radio execs not remember Michael Jackson or Stevie Wonder?  Hmmmm. Maybe they just thought no one wanted to hear a white kid on the radio.)

Anyway, do your own version of Justin’s 2010 mall and radio station tour, even if you do have mixed feelings about business or networking groups.  Many people do. 

Nevertheless.  Go. Talk to people. Talk to your people.  Listen.  Ask questions.  See what happens in the world as it actually is, rather than the world of your head where (on certain days) everybody loves or hates or ignores you.

Energy wise, there is something incredibly invigorating about direct contact with your people—or the people who may become your people.  

Good Law of Attraction determines that many of your interactions (but not all) are profitable and enjoyable, while Wishful Thinking will keep you at home in front of your computer and not, in fact, building an international internet empire.

Do Not Throw Eggs.

If you are already successful, or in the process of becoming so, avoid Mid-Bieber arrogance at all costs.  Don’t throw eggs at people’s houses, or at people, anywhere.  

While you are unlikely to throw literal eggs in the manner of our immature Canadian friend, you may not be so careful about your talk trash. 

Don’t trash talk about anybody you work with.  To anyone.  If I hear you talking like that about someone else you transact with, I will assume it’s only a matter of time before you get to me. 

(As I am writing this post, some lovely videos from Justin Bieber's past have surfaced, full of n-word humor.  Dude.  Are you aware that you were discovered by Usher??? I am really tempted to Never Say Never.)

Okay, so you (unlike Justin) don't throw eggs and don't say nasty stuff about other people.  But what about your self trash talk?

Wishful thinking says that you can get away with lots of internal whining, blaming, or complaining (especially if it’s self-directed) and still be superstar successful.  

Guess what? No.  Good Law of Attraction says your path is smoothest if you train yourself to pay MORE attention to what you and other people are doing that is AWESOME.  And most important, to take "yourself" as lightly, playfully, and joyfully as you can.

Yes, both you and other people occasionally do asinine stuff as well—some of us more than others.  You can and will notice these moments, but do not dwell, unless your purpose is to find a pathway for improvement.  That, too, must be internal before you see big changes in the external.

Get Picky But Be Picky With Yourself, Too.

As you get busier and more in demand, yes, you can get a lot pickier about who and when and how you work.  

But don’t forget to maintain those same high standards when it comes to your own work.  

And I mean, HIGH.  

Unless you are the very first at something (you happen to have invented a Fountain of Youth that actually works, for example), you have a lot of competition and a lot of other people who are happy to provide a similar service/product.  Goodbye Biebs, Hello One Direction.

The final word in Law of Attraction, remember, is that we attract more and more and more of What or Who We Are.  Since What and Who We Are is defined by our habits (of thinking, feeling, acting, and speaking), there is nothing so vital (if we want different results) as that we make small but consistent shifts in our everyday Ways of Being.

The final word in Wishful Thinking is to expect to attract something significantly different without making any significant changes in our Being.  And if we pay attention to how we feel, we really do know the difference. 

The Difference Between Law of Attraction and Wishful Thinking (Part Two)

  A Case Study in Career Success and Suicide Starring Justin Bieber.  

Part Two:

As promised, today we will examine the difference between powerful Law of Attraction and weak Wishful Thinking in the arena of Success and Career, using a well-known youngster from up north as our example.

If you're willing, it may help to go back and read the post that precedes this one, "The Difference Between Law of Attraction and Wishful Thinking," Part One.

Consider your friend and mine, adolescent Canadian pop star Justin Bieber.

 It seems like so very long ago that we lived in a Bieberless world, but really, it was just a mere five years past that “Baby” and Bieber’s bangs burst on the scene (yes, I know that was a lot of alliteration, but I just couldn’t resist). 

And now, flash forward to 2014, and not only is Justin Bieber the notorious inspiration for the most popular petition ever since the White House launched this public service (273,000 Americans signed to get him deported), but during the Winter Olympics he was the subject of much-admired Chicago billboard that was touting a match between America and Canada in ice hockey:  “Loser Keeps Bieber.”

Our erstwhile friend (whose more recent hairstyles make him look like an adorable lesbian in diaper pants) is also in the middle of several civil and criminal investigations, involving alleged drunk-driving, house-egging, LA paparrazo stomach-kicking, and other dubious activities, all of which added up, indicate that he has, in fact, grown up to be kind of a douche.

It’s not surprising, of course, that many adult Americans would hate a multi-million dollar tween dream—consider our history with Britney, Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block, Sean Cassidy, Davy Jones, etc.  Nor is it surprising that a 20-year-old kid with 40 million twitter followers would show a lack of taste, sensitivity, and maturity in his choice of leisure activities. 

No, what IS interesting, from a Law of Attraction/Wishful Thinking perspective, is just how quickly Justin Bieber manifested both his fame and his infamy.

 By contrast, it took the other Justin, Justin Timberlake, quite a bit longer to do both. But then, he was saddled for the first several years of his career with the rest of  "N Sync.  Oh, Lance Bass.  The less said about you, the better. (By the way, Justin Timberlake is the only boy-band escapee in history to launch a serious career as an adult artist, so major props to him for that.  If you don’t believe me, look it up).

So, Back to the Justin currently under investigation.  How did Justin Bieber manifest his millions like a Law of Attraction superstar, and why is it Wishful Thinking on his team’s part to assume that one more Top 40 hit is all we need to fall in love with him all over again? 

Baby, baby, baby, Noooooo!

Apparently, so the story goes, we have Usher and Youtube to thank for the original advent of Bieber’s fame.  Bieber’s mom put up a bunch of home videos of Justin singing in talent contests, which were stumbled upon by an American talent manager named Scooter Braun, who then passed him on to another gifted singer-dancer named Usher Raymond, who then got him a contract with music mogul L.A. Reid.

But.  Before that.

Again, according to the official story, Justin managed most of his early musical development by himself.  He is self-taught on piano, drums, guitar, and trumpet, and if you’ve ever seen any of his concert footage, you know the kid is a ridiculously good dancer.   Like, Michael Jackson during the non-shameful years good.

So, whatever else we might say of Justin, we can see that he was definitely doing more than most kids—and most adults—in terms of developing his innate talent and creating his future desired reality in terms of career.  He was not, in fact, just sitting around watching reality shows on MTV and dreaming his own private dream.

By the time he was fourteen, he was entering local talent contests and winning.  And the video footage was enough to impress a very shrewd talent manager who came across the Youtube clips “by accident.”  (Here, we see the hand of what the Vikings called “fate,” and most of us call “luck,” and metaphysicians call “The Law of Attraction.”)

Even after Justin was picked up by Scooter, Usher, and L.A. Reid, the story goes that radio stations didn’t want to play his songs. Apparently they felt there was no market for a fourteen-year-old boy on the radio.  So, just like an 80’s teen star named Tiffany did two decades before him, Justin took to the road, visiting radio stations and malls to expand his brand in the marketplace.

Which meant that he was already “acting as if.”

And you know what?  People, especially twelve-year-old girl people, were all over that shit.  They said, “why yes, I WOULD like the chance to go crazy over my generation’s beguiling moppet-haired, big-eyed, sweet-voiced media darling.”

(This is the part that amuses me: that anyone savvy in media history would find Justin’s rise at all unexpected.  We can go all the way back to 1964 and blame the Beatles, but there’s so many more recent examples to prove that tween and teenage girls are not to be denied when it comes to their perpetual desire to cover themselves in glitter and scream themselves hoarse.)

Again, by all accounts, the young Justin was fairly open-hearted and minded.  He loved singing and dancing, he worked hard to get really good at both, and he wanted to show that off in front of a whole lot of people. 

And because he apparently didn’t have a lot of internal crap, or crap from his family, about why this would be a bad thing to do, he got on with it, and was duly rewarded for his mostly positive energy with a great career.  Good Law of Attraction in action.

Then, Justin proceeded to trash this career by being an idiot, long before he had earned the respect of anyone but twelve-year old girls, some of who, like the fickle beasts they are, have since grown up or defected to One Direction. 

The bad-boy thing is cool if you’re Tommy Lee and you’ve got Pam Anderson to play it out with, but $10,000 of egging-damage to a house when you’re almost 20 years old? Just not in the same league.

And now, his name is Mud, and he probably doesn’t feel that great about it, no matter how much money or power he has. 

It can’t feel that good to know that over a quarter MILLION Americans put their name on a petition to get rid of you.  Or that the United States and Canada are fake-fighting about who has to keep you.

As supporting evidence for my last statement, I offer up the name of Justin’s latest song (released on Twitter), appropriately titled, “Hard 2 Face Reality.”

The problem with Law of Attraction is that it works both ways, for good and for ill. No matter what you are, you just keep attracting more of that.

Now that Justin’s got a sad international bad-joke vibe set in place, I predict that it’s going to be pure wishful thinking on his part to imagine himself magically re-invented as a respected artist and seeing this come to pass. 

No, I think the only hope for Justin is to spend some serious Brenee-Brown-Ted-Talk time and get in touch with his vulnerability, and then share some of that with us, and then maybe we’ll let him move onwards and upwards. 

It would also help if he stopped wearing diaper pants in public.

And now, for the rest of us.  What can we learn about our own consciousness and career from the Cautionary Tale of the Biebs?

I will address some of the highlights in my next post, and in upcoming posts about how to create, communicate, and grow a visionary brand as an Awakened Entrepreneur or Intrapreneur.