This week, I am exceptionally excited to have a guest blog post from Ali Moore. Ali is a qualified Psychotherapist and Coach. Using over 10 years experience in both professional and personal settings Ali has a wealth of knowledge in helping women to #FindYourRoar. Ali has built her own business into a well-known brand and I am delighted that she is writing for us on Authentic – Be True To You.
So, you have decided to set up your own business… you are skilled in your area of expertise and you have a good idea of who you are working to attract. Now comes the fun bit, right? – the brand, the logo and the overall feel of the business…. At least this is what I thought when I first started out… but the fun for some reason wasn’t feeling so fun … it wasn’t gelling, and it seemed to be affecting everything else in my world!
The ironic thing is that the very point of my business is to help others discover their true self – find their inner voice and be confident about being themselves. Yet when I look back to those early days of business my own brand was way off the mark in terms of being me … no wonder it all felt out of whack.
Marketing is not my area of expertise but what I do know is that unless you are able to identify with your brand you will feel at odds with it and this can have a massive impact on you overall.
Additionally, if people look for you based on what you portray and then they get something very different it can really put them off, plus you won’t get those customers you imagined working with you.
My very early ‘brand’ (if you can call it that) was firstly based on someone else’s programme – their colours and their ideals which didn’t sit well with me and secondly, I thought I needed to be taken seriously which meant a nice brown hair colour and a corporate look! How different things are now with my pink and blonde hair and giving that knowing smile when I get the regular comment ‘oh you don’t look like a psychotherapist!’
Here’s my top learnings and tips to being authentic to yourself and your business.
- Take time to think about your own values and beliefs. What is important to you? If you designed a mission statement for your business how would it reflect these values?
- Visualise a conversation with a client. What type of conversation are you having? What are you enjoying about it and bringing to the table? Capture this see how it relates to what you are offering.
- Really think about your intention and purpose. How do you want to add value to your client and does your brand reflect this?
- Write down everything about yourself that you like – behaviours, skills, traits and focus on why you like these and how you feel when you can focus on these.
- Once you have a clear idea of how you want to spend your time get some feedback! This can be scary but ask friends and business contacts to describe what they think of when they see you and meet you – then ask them to see if this comes across in how you advertise to potential clients – will what they expect be what they get?
All the above are exercises I take my clients through in the Reconnection Programme – sometimes business focused and sometimes focused on their personal life but when I started to go through this exercise myself, I was able to totally re-focus my business. I knew exactly who I wanted to work with and the work I wanted to do. I felt confident to embrace my personality and let it shine through … and the Bemoore brand was born😊
Although you are all in the VA business you are all unique. Embrace what makes you You! – that is what people will be attracted to. Not everyone will be right for you and that’s OK because you won’t be right for them.
Some people won’t want a psychotherapist who wears leopard print, whilst on occasion embraces her inner Dolly Parton – but for those that do – we both feel fabulous and the results speak for themselves.
You can discover all about Bemoore and the support available for women via the webpage http://www.bemoore.uk.
Publications
#ReconnectYourLife is published in January via Cavalcade Books
It takes all the concepts of my main programmes and creates a book designed to help you get reconnected with your true self and #FindYourRoar. In just 30 days you take a unique life audit of yourself and the world around you … and you come out the others side able to embrace who you are, be authentic and tackle life challenges head on!
Inspirational Fabulous and Over 40 is a collection of stories featuring women who have taken on life challenges after their 40th birthday and Ali is featured as a co-author. IF’’ Over 40 is available to pre order NOW via Ali direct [email protected] and will be available on Amazon and Kindle at the end of November.
About Ali…
Psychotherapist, Coach, Author and Celebrant dedicated to helping you to #FindYourRoar and #ReconnectYourLife.
Ali is the founder and director of Bemoore and Be Celebrational. In whatever role Ali takes on it is all about enabling her clients to feel fabulous!
Alongside her private practice, Ali is a highly experienced public speaker and trainer. She has 10 years’ experience leading global coaching programmes in one of the world’s most famous and successful companies. Ali is a regular speaker for large organisation as well as charities which support women achieving. She was chosen as headline speaker by Historical Royal Palaces for their celebration of 100 years of votes for women at The Tower of London.
She is founder of the successful #FindYourRoar confidence workshop – one of the country’s leading workshops for women. She also hosts her own Empowerment Days and live radio show. Additionally, she has her own YouTube channel – The Reconnection Space.
Recently Ali was voted National Finalist – Best Business Women Best Coach for the 2nd year running and is a Jacqueline Gold CBE #WOW winner – seen as women who run businesses that can scale and grow. Ali is the co-author of Inspirational, Fabulous and Over 40 – a collection of stories of inspirational women who have created change in their 40’s and her book #ReconnectYourLife is due for publication in 2019 New Year.
