The post covid start up boom reduced the barrier to entry for anyone wanting to start a business online to be stripped away, which created a whole new problem. Which is, how exactly does one stand out and build trust when so many are offering the same or similar offerings?
When everyone seemingly has an opinion about marketing, in this blog, we explore a common tension between content pillars or content topics specific to a founders area of expertise or interest versus founder led content for building trust that is backed with resonance.
Here are some of the main reasons why founder -led content drives trust
- Founders unique experiences, strengths and skills help amplify the message of WHY a company does what they do and not just WHAT they do. Services can be commoditized, but individual experiences and stories can’t.
- Founder led content builds resonance because ultimately, it’s easier to build trust human to human than it is human to company especially when the services are hard to differentiate.
- Founder led content can include high topicality about everyday life, beliefs and views. This helps bring an element of relatability which a faceless company isn’t able to do without significant brand investment over a period of time.
- Founder led content provides context, which is unique to each persons lived experiences, so leveraging founder led content for growing a company built on personal experience builds trust faster than content alone can.
Tune into the podcast episode that elaborates on the difference between founder led content and content creation.
Here are some of the practical ways you can get started without a big audience.
1. Share your face on video
Nothing builds trust faster than when you exchange your vibe and energy to showcase how you do what you do. When you show up on video with intentionality, your brand voice and with empathy for your audience’s questions and the problems they face is when you will start to start to attract people with your unique perspective.
2. Commit to building your brand by surrounding your audience
In the early days, try not to find short cuts (by using generic AI content or spending hours refining a workflow!) because you cannot outsource creativity you don’t understand. Pick more than one platform and this goes against advice given but you won’t know what your strength is if you are starting out. Run some hand raiser events, present online, share your expertise, write a post and surround your audience with your content to start building your brand from the ground up.
3. Share your thoughts on a platform like LinkedIn about areas you are passionate about.
You don’t always need a ton of likes and comments on your LinkedIn posts. There are always people silently observing. By just sharing my expertise and views about visibility for females, I was invited to speak within multiple groups just like this example below triggered invites to speak.
4. Share your story in groups with insights
This free story that I shared earned me $3,000 just by sharing my experience in a Facebook group. If you’d like to see the $3,000 story, I share that in the ‘How to share your story without oversharing guide‘.
5. Share your handraiser mini events
The best way to build momentum that turn into sales is hosting mini events. You may not get a ton of people joining in the beginning, but you will close some people as long as your experiences are transformational. My free mini hand raiser events have brought in 5 figures in just 3 days each time I have run them with minimal advertising spend and using a visibility ecosystem strategy of surrounding my audience with my content.
A case study: how I created five figure pay days from founder led content alone.
When I first got started, I was sharing using a content-led approach which was about using broader marketing strategies that did not align with my founder voice.
The result was minimal sales, burnout and feeling of misalignment like as though the shoe wasn’t quite the right fit.
The challenge: I uncovered was lower resonance with fewer people taking up my offering which was geared more towards having a large audience which I did not have. This meant my audience needed to be super warmed up and ready to buy which they weren’t using this approach alone.
The discovery: In going through this failed attempt, I uncovered my unique methodology which was to help others like me create a system to show up in a way that was unique to them and helped them stand out online and on video in their own brand voice.
The result: I closed a 5 figure deal with aligning with my founder led content tool, but to make sure it wasn’t just a fluke, I created this with clients and they too made sales using the founder led content voice strategy. I then implemented another 3 day hand raiser event using my true voice tool and got the same results as previously solidifying my approach that founder led content builds trust fast through one important tenet of transformation.
In conclusion
Founder Led Content is all the ways in which you can share your unique perspective in multiple formats and across multiple channels at various touch points to make yourself more relatable and personable to your ideal audience.
Founder led content will help you build trust fast as long as you have an element of a micro transformation within some of the touch points as part of the ecosystem you create.
Magnetism is a direct result of founder led content where what you create comes back to you as a result of high resonance in contrast to a content led approach which prioritizes high reach using broader marketing strategies that you can deploy as your business starts to mature beyond your personal brand.
