During my own elevation process, and through working with high-achieving women, it became very clear that building credibility is not just important when you’re actually offering your services for sale, but that it is even important well before then -- in the defining your niche process. Why is this? Because, if you are aiming for a luxury brand (a brand that caters to experience and exclusivity), the marketplace buyers need to know, like, and trust your solutions to the aforementioned problem that you are solving.
There are a few steps that I use and have my clients use when building credibility to potential clients, and the first one is: You must personify. In other words, you must utilize the +ONE Recipe. The +ONE Recipe answers this question “if I received an invitation to the event/affair/gala of my dreams, would I be really stoked and excited to have this person as my ‘+1’ on the RSVP?” I have found that if the answer is no, then there is a likelihood that you haven’t dug deep enough to connect with the core of what she is needing someone like you to know about her. An important thing to point out here is that this is not about whether your potential client is a +1 it’s about whether or not the way you describe her in your letter would make you feel like she could be your +1 (step 4 will make this more clear).
So, here’s the recipe:
Step 1: Get into a highly intimate and visually beautiful space.
Step 2: Take out a beautiful piece of paper and a pen that you love or pull out your favorite digi-writing tool.
Step 3: Think about who you’re trying to build credibility to (is it a potential client, a collaborator, the media, etc.) and put yourself in her place.
This should actually be fairly easily for many of you, because you will deeply relate to this girl for many reasons; one of them being the high-potentiality that you were her at one point in your life (or are that girl maybe even now).
Step 4: Write an intimate, heart-felt note or letter to yourself as THAT person. The letter that you wish someone would have written to you pouring their heart out about you and your desires and your challenges. A letter to show THAT person that you get her and that you understand her in a way that others do not and that you KNOW what it is that she is looking for and that she needs and that YOU are that person.
Step 5: Read the letter upon completion and note whether or not you feel deeply connected to it?
Did reading it make you want to cry? Did you get goosebumps? Were you nodding your head yes as you were reading it to yourself?
Step 6: When at least one of those answers is a yes, find an online home for this letter and then share it over and over and over again. No need to sell. No need to push. No need to even ask for anything. The power will come in the sharing of that story. The girl (or woman or man) who needs to hear it will immediately gravitate toward it and understand it.
That’s a powerful way to start going from best-kept secret to #1 pick for the powerhouse woman that you’re seeking to help and seeking to showcase yourself as the credible, knowledgeable, leader that you are in real life.
