We all want to be different from others, and we all wish to be seen as noteworthy. In today’s episode, it’s time to learn how to differentiate and be memorable. Join Darren CdeBaca as he discusses being memorable to others. Darren talks about how to differentiate yourself, how to become a more memorable person, and how to create relationships, both personal and professional, using these elements. Learn to become a more memorable version of yourself and make use of the advantages with this episode.
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Differentiate & Be Memorable
I can't thank you enough for tuning in. If you're not taking notes, don't be afraid to come back and reread this. It could be about a twenty-minute episode to get those meaningful thoughts, phrases, suggestions, format, formula back into your day or vision as you see fit. I understand you may be taking a leisurely walk, driving the car, or chilling out on the couch. That's fine. That's one reason we have the ability to come back to this blog and reread it so you can take some of those memorable notes. Speaking of being memorable, that's a little bit about the topic. This episode is titled, Differentiate and Be Memorable.
The Best In Average, Have Nothing In Common
Before I start, like I always do in all my episodes, I want to remind our audience what the heartbeat of DCB Strategies work is all about. It all comes from a center point defined by a phrase which is the following, “Being the best and average have nothing in common.” That's right. That captures the result of individuals achieving bold goals with their own plan of accountability and their purpose. When you see the best in their space versus the average, you know there's something unique. The uniqueness about it is they've taken a deliberate side of their brain to take time to grow, to provide time for themselves with a mindset that's insatiable for growth. I'd ask you to start the process by repeating that phrase to yourself.
Being Memorable
When you say that to yourself, your brain intuitively draws a line in the sand and says, "What side am I on now?" This is no time for judgment, by all means, but there are elements and attributes that you are working to become better, thus grow and become the best of yourself. I commend you for taking that time, being brave enough to say that phrase to yourself, and see what side of the line you're on. I think you're on the best side and the intention is to grow even bigger and stronger. Thanks for that moment of clarity on the introduction. Let me set this how up. Think of somebody you remember the most that you just met. What was a memory that set in your brain that allowed you to recall that person? What did they do differently? How do they sound? How do they dress? What did they educate you on? How do they play their sport? There was something out there that you had a significant memory of an individual. Think about it for a moment why, again, that person was memorable.
The benefit of differentiating and being memorable is that there's an automatic affinity created and the odds of you creating a stronger or more lucrative relationship can be much higher if you have an ability to differentiate and be memorable. I call this an advantage. The individuals I've had the privilege of working with over my career in the years, I've seen elite teams in the financial industry and in the sports arena, and so forth. They had a complete advantage when they were memorable. People recognize, “That that's the person.” There's always something locked in. You have a chance when you're memorable, a chance to be heard, seen, felt and trusted. This advantage is huge.
Differentiate Yourself From The Pack
To have this advantage as a salesperson, leader of a team, business person, sole proprietor, etc., you need to take time to focus what we will call new actions for yourself or a habit set on developing what I call the connection model, which is how you will differentiate and become more memorable. We are going to set the stage to share with you action steps that you can integrate into your day that requires you to develop new habits and that's okay. If you're excited, there are no barriers. If you're mindful and you have a purpose of becoming more memorable, there are no barriers. There are no distractions. We're not going to bite off more than we can chew for sure in terms of some of these ideas. We're going to give you a list of differentiators that allow you to grow into that memorable model that you deserve and you will learn.
If you differentiate yourself from the pack, in the way you're connecting, you literally are setting yourself up to become that person. The advantage you have is knowing that what I call the average group around you or the average human brain finds comfort in comparing everyone else to you subconsciously. If the rest of the rest that you're being compared to what I call, “The herds doing the same thing every day.” They're doing some of the average stuff. It's not going to take much for you to integrate a few of these best practices into your daily connection model to be among the best when it relates to becoming memorable.
Let me define what the word differentiate means because you already know what memory is. Differentiate simply means to become distinct or different in character. We're going to differentiate and be memorable. Let me give you an example of the courage it takes to differentiate. When you differentiate yourself, you're putting yourself out there and you are separating yourself from the rest. It takes courage. I had a mentor who always said to me and thankfully, that person did say that more than once. He said, “Don't be concerned about what others think of you but always give them something to think about.” That was the key. That was it. That person told me to differentiate. I did. I learned how to do that by observing the best in my business and the best around me in different industry areas. I wanted to incorporate some of those elements.
Let me share with you some of the things that were so fun to incorporate. The list that I'm going to give you of differentiators is a broad list and it does define a connection model. It doesn't mean if you put all these pieces together, you have the perfect model. As you will see, you can choose to dedicate and elevate into any one of these as you see fit. You may only need 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of these initially, these differentiators but it's important to work diligently on at least one and experience the immediate success which will undoubtedly compel you to integrate more attributes of differentiating, thus becoming memorable.
Setting The Mindset
When I asked you as a colleague of the interest of growing and incorporating different action steps, we need to take a quick commercial to revisit, decide and commit to becoming a platform. If you're deciding to grow and become memorable, you have a mindset that's excited. This is number one in your charts. You're going to work hard to do it. Number two, you have a purpose of doing this and number three, have a present focus. “I am differentiating myself. I am doing this. I am doing that.” That I will, that I'm going to get to, that's the decision part. That's the mindset
Number two is the commitment part. You want to commit to this. You have a strategy that you're going to accomplish differentiation and become memorable over a period of time. You have action steps that will require you to integrate into your daily habits. You're going to have persistence. You're going to have a word, a phrase, or something to remind you how important it is to develop that habit set. Go from a strong mindset of decide and from commit, you develop a great habit set. Then you become memorable, thus become your result. Experience the result set to become fulfilled of your success and you become contagious. This fits right into the platform of decide, commit, become. It's a heartbeat of action steps of growth. Here we go.
Write down your favorite one or come back and write it down later. The one that you remember the most. You can start incorporating these action steps, these new habits to become a differentiator thus memorable. When you meet some people or person, always find a way to compliment them on something. I have a family friend of mine who always compliments me when she sees me. "That's a nice shirt you're wearing. Those are cool shoes. Did you just get new glasses?" You know where I'm going with. They always have something to say that's complimenting. It's enjoyable and memorable.
Number two, be natural. Smile. Be relaxed. It's always fun to hang around. Folks are comfortable creating a new relationship. With that natural smile, relax, talk with confidence with a good cadence. A good and strong cadence exudes confidence. Number three, what's your style in terms of how you dress? If you're out meeting people, or how you're seeing on Zoom meetings, what's your style? What are you known for? For example, when I was in the financial industry, I wore a bow tie for my last fifteen years. It was a wonderful way to differentiate myself, put me on a platform of proving that I was there to be memorable but I had to fill in the blanks with intellectual uplifts to deliver to my clients accordingly.
I took pride in that day I put that first bow tie on. It started a differentiating factor. Your style could be a bow tie, could be a specific lapel that you have, something like that, or metal that you always wear on your lapel, whether you have your shoes always polished, you show respect for the audience by having a nice style about you within their confines. Number four is eye contact. Eye contact is key. So many folks who have strong eye contact, it's a conduit of trust, ability, and confidence. Number five has humor. Be relaxed. Don't take too much too seriously. Be self-humbling at times. It's okay. You're giving them something to think about. This person doesn't take themselves personally too seriously but he takes a relationship very seriously.
Being Professionally Memorable
Number six is to ask questions of your client, prospect, audience, open-ended questions. They're phenomenally powerful. When I would talk with financial advisor teams, I had the privilege of talking to the best in the country and always ask them, "What are you most passionate about in the global capital markets in the next 6 to 12 months?" That was an opening question that my partner's, thus other people call competitors never asked. They were able to share that with me. We have a tremendous dialogue centering on where we can go as a financial solution that may be the best fit for their clients.
Ask an open-end question about their family. Tell me more. That's interesting. I didn't know that your children did that. I'm very interested in that topic, or their family business, or the recreation interests. Again, open-ended questions, it's going to lead you to know that there's something you may be able to help them with, to find more information about that can help them in their situation. Always ask them. If you find an opportunity to help them, "Can I throw something up? May I help you?” Number seven, take notes during the meeting. Now with your head down, not looking at your person, but take notes. Ask them, "Can I take some notes while we talk? I find everything that we're about to say is going to be of great interest" "Sure." Nobody takes notes. Number eight is signature. Leave a signature of yourself. I give an example. I have a colleague of mine who is a great golfer. When he meets with clients and meet up with them on their desk, he'd leave a golf tee.
At the end of the meeting, he would say, "Darren, it was wonderful to meet with you." He had put this golf tee down and spin it nice and slowly on the person's desk, spin in a circle three or four times and end up in a specific direction, whatever direction. He always said, "No matter what direction this points right now, I think you have the right information for your clients." That's a signature but they always had something to remember him by. Number nine is to follow up promptly with a personal touch, whether it's an email with a personal touch or interest in what you talked about.
I have a real estate agent in the neighborhood known for years. They purchased an exclusive right to a ghost-written magazine. It's a ghost-written magazine for clients or prospects that this real estate agent puts his face on. It's his magazine. It's ghost-written and approved by the industry and by his firm. It looks so personable. That's his signature, phenomenal. It's a small expense, or it could be somewhat of a solid expense, but it's in the proportion of the return on investment. Number eleven is the power of your voice. This is important. When taught about speaking in a public manner, my original teacher always said, "Get to the voice of ten when you're making presentations." It's uncomfortable from 1 to 10, 10 being the loudest. It was almost screaming. To the audience, it didn't seem like I was screaming. It seemed like a very confident, cadence voice. Lift up the volume. Get into your zone. Don't be afraid. You always have something to say that a lot of people want to hear.
Making An Impression
Number twelve is, what's your tagline? Do you have a tagline that you always say to folks? They know, "Yep. I know what you're going to say. Stay healthy. Stay passionate." That was my tagline. That doesn't mean that you should be yours. No matter what direction this points to, you now have the right information. That was that tagline or it’s on the tagline of your emails. It always ends up the same. Voicemail or presentations at the bottom, what do you say all the time? What are you known for in your tagline?
Number thirteen is to have a solid opinion on your topic. I was always taught and it was so true. The clients I wanted to have were the clients that had the four corners of the offices. The four corners of the office usually were those that had the most money, managing the most client's money. I wanted to have them as my clients. The reason why is because they always had an opinion. They were passionate. They couldn't wait to tell everybody from A to Z. They had an opinion they could not wait to tell everybody A to Z in their books. Have an opinion. Tell everybody to make sure it's well thought out in his professional.
Number fourteen is don't compare yourself to the competition. If you think of them as competition, that’s what the average does. Think of them as partners. Think of them as partners and talk about them in these partners. For example, this is our product. Our partners in this industry have this kind of product, but it's made this way. What does it do? It gives your client or prospect a different way of digesting how professional you are. We're all understanding each other's competitive nature but to line them up as a partner, is wonderful. It's classic when you say, in the investment industry per se, “Of the partners that you work within this space, which ones are you not as happy with? I can then tell you a little bit more about what we do relative to them.” Again, a different way of looking, different way of dialoguing, makes such a world of difference. Don't compare yourself to the competition. Relate to your partners.
Here's another one. I have to give credit to my friend, Dr. Kevin Elko. You can visit him at DrElko.com. He is a phenomenal motivational speaker in the sports world. NFL, NCA college, you'll see his credentials are incredible. He's a great friend of ours. He always said and I never forgot this. The first time I met him years ago. He said, "Be interested in people versus interesting." This means, you know who's doing the talking, be interested in people versus being interesting. That's a huge difference and being memorable. Another way to be memorable is to set up a client experience model versus a client service model.
Big difference. Individuals want to work with people that share their emotions and that connect with them on an emotional level. Trust is traded there. When they're a service protocol, there's not a lot of emotions there. When there's a client experience model or protocol, emotions start to bubble to the top. Things happen that probably wouldn't have happened in the service model for sure. You become memorable with a client experience model. Something as simple as social settings, be the first to say hello like you're the host. It's a great way of doing it. Be memorable on this one.
Getting People To Remember You
Meetings, if you're in meetings and you know the person wants facts, then play along and give that person facts. If the person is talking about feelings, play along and start talking about feelings. Be a listener to what their dialogues about. Mirror that with the way you accentuate your proposition, your value proposition. It'll be memorable. I saw a great one the other day. It's always using a PS in your email. If you have an email, you always have something memorable at the bottom, it's a PS. It's an engagement proposition or value-add. Some are like your tagline. The people always read PS. “I'm grateful for everything and entitled to nothing.”
Be memorable in your branding, your social media, using some of these elements. Here's one good way to end up. Be memorable in your resumes. If you're interested in looking around, you don't see too many pictures of a person on a resume. Put your picture on your resume. You verbally are sharing with everybody how proud you are about your experience. Show me your wonderful self. Show me your proud self. Show them the person you stand for. It'll stand out in the stack of resumes they may be, thus comparing you to. Those are some examples of being memorable.
There you have it. You don't need to master all of this 25 plus that I went through, these 25 differentiators plus to become memorable. Start now on 1, 2, 3, then expand as you feel comfortable. Your status of being memorable will grow exponentially and you will begin to feel as though you are contagious. People want to be around you because they have built-in this emotional memorability about your ability to connect. Thus, the connection model is real. I’ll share with you and I want to remind you the best pay attention to this connection model, best ways to differentiate in their experience of connection. I thank you for your time. There's no better growth goal in the book than mastering how memorable you will truly be. That's why we're here. If you want to learn more about the applications of this topic, please visit my website at DCBStrategies.com or send me an email at Podcast@DCBStrategies.com. I appreciate your time. Every time I have the ability to say hello to folks and say goodbye to folks, stay healthy, stay passionate and make this a great day. Thank you.
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