The Secret to Getting Prospects to Chase You (Instead of the Other Way Around) – in Just 7 Minutes with Marc Ensign

Related Links and Resources:

We have a program that we started giving out called "Chosen Personal Brand". We have a price tag of $997 on the program, but we took it off and started giving it away for free, it’s www.chosenpersonalbrand.com/chosen-free

Summary:

Marc Ensign’s story began when he was a kid who wanted to change the world. Upon realizing that it might take a little longer than anticipated, he got sidetracked and found himself playing bass on Broadway with the Tony Award-winning show Rent. He was completely unqualified (his words) but had a gift for marketing himself, and the rest is Broadway history.

Fast-forward a bunch of years, and Marc is now “The Big Cheese” at Loud Mouse, a branding agency specializing in making some of the world’s most inspiring people and companies impossible to ignore. Visit MarcEnsign.com or LoudMouse.com to see what else he’s up to.

Here are the highlights of this episode:

1:37 Marc’s ideal Client: In Loud Mouse we work with people who are seen as the face of their company; that can be entrepreneurs, CEOs, athletes, entertainers, that really depends on the business that you're running. But it's the person that steps out or that is seen as the forefront of your company.

2:09 Problem Marc helps solve: We help those people build authority in order to position themselves as a leader within their industry with the idea of scaling their business. People like doing business with people that they know, like, and trust. We help build that authority and that expert status in their space. The people who wanted to do business with that person, ultimately which means coming to that company. 

2:48 Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Marc: It usually is one of two things I think is our biggest thorn in the paw that we intend to pull out. They're either chasing leads or they're competing on price. Because when you're chasing leads and competing on price, the prospective client is not really interested in you, they're interested in a service. Once you're removed in that equation, then it really doesn't matter who I work with. When you find that you're having a hard time closing deals, or people are trying to reduce the cost of your proposal, or they're thinking about it, or your time to close is taking too long. Those are a lot of those things that were people don't see you as a true expert. Because at the end of the day, if Elon Musk were to say today "hey, I'm thinking to start a business, anybody interested being partners with me?" people will be jumping over themselves to come on board and to work with him because he's an expert in his space.

4:33 What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Marc and his solution: They get caught up 'on the doing and not the being'; when you're an expert on that space, it's so important that you show up a certain way. When all of a sudden you turn that off so you can create content, post on Facebook, and do all those stuff that you heard on the webinar that you should be doing. You're just chasing tactics instead of running your business, that's where the wheels fall out the bus. Because when you're chasing those tactics, first of all, this is not what you do so chances are you'll going to make a ton of mistakes, you're going to miss something, or you're not going to be consistent, or it's not going to cross as authentic, all these other stuffs that people are looking for. As a result, not only are you going to create some problems on the marketing and the branding side, but now you're taking your eyes off your business and that's really where I need you. If I'm working with somebody, I need that to be all-in on their business, really showing up, let me just observe, let me just take over, and I will be your voice. I get to know you so well that you and I are going to speak the same language, so I can put you out to the world without you having to stop doing what it is that you do best.

6:06 Marc’s Valuable Free Action (VFA). I think the first step that I will do and this one of the first things that I do with somebody, is really kind of get to what people think of you as a leader or as an industry expert. Self-awareness is so important, and sometimes we're on our own little bubble that we really don't know what other people think. Not that you should run your life or your business on what other people think but when we talk about branding. Branding is so much more than logo design, pretty colors, shapes, and fonts. Branding is what people think about you when you're not around. And so, if you come across as very crass, very rude, very short or disinterested, these are the things that you need to know because that’s not the brand that people are going to fall in love with. We need to fix that, clean that up. And so, the first part of this whole thing is really understanding by posting on Facebook and asking people to take a survey of what your strengths and weaknesses are, what they think about you. We always do this and I do this anonymously in order to get honest results. Because then we can take a lot at it and when you see certain things that comes up over and over again, you know there's something that you need to fix.

7:36 Marc’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): We have a program that we started giving out called "Chosen Personal Brand". We started giving that out right around the time when Covid just started, and we felt that there's so many people that were losing their job or that they're in a rough spot, and we want to be able to give back to the community, help people get back on their feet. We have a price tag of $997 on the program, but we took it off and started giving it away for free. That to me is the best way to start, because all of the foundational elements of building your brand and building your personal brand. Start going to that program, there are examples of the survey that I talked about. There are examples of how to get clear of your identity, what your value is, how you're supposed to be showing up, and then what to do about it next and how to get it in front of people.

8:48 How does guy go from Broadway, studio musician, to a personal branding expert? The really interesting thing about that whole process was, I started back in 1996 when I started working on Broadway. Before there's no such thing as personal branding, we have CDs, all the old-school internet stuff. But I was so good in branding myself, I was not the best that there was, and I say that just on my bio. It's true, I wasn't the best in New York, I wasn't the most well connected, I wasn't very well-known, I was the youngest guy that worked on Broadway at that time. I have no right being there, but I was so good in positioning myself, so good getting in front of the right people, and so good telling a story about who I was. I'm positioning myself as an expert, nobody would talk to me so I got a job writing for a magazine that everybody wanted to be interviewed in. And so all of sudden everybody became my best friend. All these little tactics and tricks helps me get this gig where it is the most competitive environment that you can ever imagine. Now it just become my playground. I don't care what you do, it's not going to be as competitive as working on Broadway, and I can get you there. My career and what I do now is kind of born back in those days as a hungry musician.