Do You Suffer from Milli-Vanilli-itis?

 

Do you remember Milli Vanilli back in the 80s? …”girl you know it is true”….

I think the Milli Vanilli story has a lot to teach us about business, especially in this social media era, where we are more connected and exposed to each other than ever…

As you may be very aware, Milli Vanilli was a huge success, they even won a Grammy award in the 90’s but one night during a show in front of thousands of people in Connecticut the track started skipping…and it was so bad that one of the guys ran out of stage. That was the beginning of the end for Milli Vanilli, eventually they got their Grammy revoked because they realized that they were not the ones singing their songs.

The reason I bring up this real-life example is because in today’s business environment there are countless gurus and experts telling us that we should focus on the areas of the business that we love to do, that we are good at it , that will make us money, that will positively impact our clients, and we should find a way to outsource the rest.  I stand by this position; I believe 99% in this philosophy.

If building websites is not the best use of your time or skills, you should outsource it.

If you are not passionate about graphic design, you should outsource it.

If you hate doing your books, you should outsource it.

I do believe there is ONE exception to this rule though.

If you are an entrepreneur, there is ONE area of your business that you should NEVER, EVER outsource, regardless, if you are good or not, if you are passionate or not

You must never outsource your thinking!

You do your own thinking! You believe in your own ideas! You communicate your own message!

Now, yes, you can

• Have someone to help you brainstorm and fine-tune your ideas. As a matter of fact, our clients pay us thousands of dollars to help them fine-tune their message and make it powerful and influential, but ultimately the core message comes from them.
• Have someone help you edit and write your blogs and articles
• Have someone edit your entire videos

That is actually a very great use of leverage, but ultimately:

 You Create, Believe and Communicate your message.

For years, entrepreneurs and salespeople have relied in the “done for you marketing”, from newsletters, to marketing brochures and for while these methods were effective.

But now, with the advancement of the social networks and internet transparency, authenticity and value are the name of the game. Your prospective clients can get to know you really well and figure out what you are all about even before you talk to them. If the message that you are broadcasting is not yours, it can backfire.

For example, last week I received a newsletter from a client talking about “Self Development”.  I said…this is cool..than..1 hour later, I received another email from another client in a different state, time zone, talking about what? You got it, self development….it was EXACTLY the same email….even the same title… For me, this is a “Milli Vanilli email”, and in my opinion it impacts your credibility negatively short and long term.

I still believe that sending someone’s work to your database is better than not sending anything at all, but that is for average performer, and I know if you are part of InfluenceOlogy community, you are not average, you are on the top, or getting there really fast.

At InfluenceOlogy we teach over 70 ways to create your own message, but I want to share one idea with you to create your own original, relevant and influential content.

Just follow these steps.

1) Interview some of your clients and prospective clients and ask them:

• What do they want to accomplish? What are their short and long term goals?
• What has to happen for them to accomplish these outcomes?
• What could possibly stop or prevent them from achieving these outcomes?

2) Solution

Develop couple of solutions to help the clients achieve these outcomes. You can either write or record your ideas. Once you have these solutions outlined, you can outsource and have someone to help you fine-tune your message, edit your text or video but the core idea comes from you.

3) Communicate

Passionately communicate your message using different mediums (email, print, social media, public speaking, video marketing, etc)

I understand you will have to allocate some time to create and communicate your ideas, but ultimately it will pay off big time.

I will leave you with this quote from Herman Melville  “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”