{"id":533,"date":"2009-09-20T23:04:55","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T04:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=533"},"modified":"2009-09-21T00:39:14","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T05:39:14","slug":"the-essentials-of-credibility-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=533","title":{"rendered":"The Essentials of Credibility Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was first published on The TurnKey Publishing Blog<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

===<\/p>\n

Despite what you might have heard, credibility marketing<\/strong> is about marketing your brand, company, mission, and yourself. Credibility marketing is not<\/strong> about directly promoting your products and services.\u00a0 And it is certainly not about the hard and quick sell.\u00a0 Credibility marketing<\/strong> is about investing and reinvesting in your company brand, message, and mission.<\/p>\n

Credibility marketing<\/strong> is about developing and enhancing your presence, stature, authenticity, and respectability so that when you (or your company) has something to say, potential customers and clients will not only listen, they will believe you with minimal skepticism.<\/p>\n

Often, this is about sharing information about your mission and what values you stand for.\u00a0 You are also measured by the authenticity<\/strong> (believability\/honesty) of the message you convey and portray.\u00a0 Authenticity<\/strong> can sometimes be hard to determine but listeners look to their gut to determine if someone is authentic.\u00a0 However, it is true that good acting can deceive others into thinking that you are authentic when you are not.<\/p>\n

Closely aligned with authenticity is congruency<\/strong>.\u00a0 You will also be measured by your congruency.\u00a0 Congruency<\/strong> is the measure and appearance of how you (and your company) behave, act, and respond as it relates to your public message.\u00a0 Are you company actions and responses always consistent with your company”s mission, brand, and messaging?\u00a0 If not, how often are you inconsistent?\u00a0 If your congruency factor is low (less than 70%), your company may be perceived as inconsistent or, even worse, hypocritical.\u00a0 The polar opposite of congruency is hypocrisy.\u00a0 Many have a high distaste for hypocrisy.\u00a0 It is the fastest away to kill credibility marketing efforts.<\/p>\n

I believe a powerful way of enhancing and building credibility is the willingness to acknowledge imperfect aspects<\/strong> of yourself and your company.\u00a0 A willingness to express humility, self-deprecation, and imperfections can greatly enhance your credibility. It humanizes your company in the face of other marketing campaigns that say they are “perfect, flawless, the best, the greatest, etc.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I am not subscribing to openly sharing your critical weaknesses and Achilles Heel so that competitors and others can take advantage of you but showing that you have an ongoing philosophy to self-improve can be an asset to building credibility.<\/p>\n

Another powerful way of building your credibility is through education<\/strong>.\u00a0 Educating others<\/strong> is about sharing expertise, knowledge, wisdom, and empowering others with valuable information so they can make an informed decision even if that decision means not buying your company product or services.\u00a0 Short-term, you may lose a sale but in the long-term, you will create goodwill and be remembered favorably for the next buying opportunity.<\/p>\n

People who educate place themselves as an authority and expert figure when they teach, train, and instruct others. As a teacher, trainer, instructor, and expert figure, your credibility is almost automatically enhanced.\u00a0 People are listening and learning from you.\u00a0 They are opening their minds to you.\u00a0 They are more receptive to you.<\/p>\n

One reason I am a huge proponent of publishing books and audio programs<\/strong> is that authors are often considered experts and teachers in what they write and speak about.\u00a0 Of course, that is not true in every case and every person.\u00a0 But in the professional and business world, authors are still much fewer in number than college graduates.\u00a0 In fact, for most “average\u00e2\u20ac\u009d people, their chances of personally knowing someone who is an author (even an unknown one) is much lower than they knowing someone who is a college graduate.<\/p>\n

Becoming an author<\/strong> is one of the best ways to build, enhance, and even jump-start your credibility.\u00a0 Holding a book you authored and published in your hands is a powerful symbol that shows your expertise in a subject matter or field.<\/p>\n

As I often say, writing and publishing a book is like getting a GED for the college degree<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Depending on the subject and quality of your book, it may be like you getting a Bachelor”s, Master”s or even a PhD degree.\u00a0 The difference is that it takes far less time, money, and effort to write a book than to earn an academic degree. Becoming an author is a worthwhile investment for any high-achieving business professional, entrepreneur, consultant, and CEO.<\/p>\n

In closing, I am a huge advocate of Credibility Marketing.\u00a0 Large or small business, if you don”t have credibility, people will not believe what you have to say or sell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was first published on The TurnKey Publishing Blog. === Despite what you might have heard, credibility marketing is about marketing your brand, company, mission, and yourself. Credibility marketing is not about directly promoting your products and services.\u00a0 And it is certainly not about the hard and quick sell.\u00a0 Credibility marketing is about investing and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,19,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-affairs","category-motivation-inspiration","category-publishing","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p927L-8B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":530,"url":"https:\/\/matthewchan.com\/?p=530","url_meta":{"origin":533,"position":0},"title":"The Emergence of CEO Publishing","author":"Matthew Chan","date":"August 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This was first posted on The TurnKey Publishing Blog. === With the recent and tremendous growth of independent publishers, a newly emerging niche of independent publishing is CEO Publishing. CEO Publishing, as the name implies, is a specialized form of business publishing that is focused on CEOs. 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