“I think when you are clear what your space is, when you’re clear on who you are and what you stand for, and who you’re speaking to, I think it’s much easier to build a voice that is authentic to you and that feels comfortable and is not like a poor facsimile of somebody else’s voice.” Eleanor Beaton
You are in for a treat today, friends. This week, we had a guest on the 4 AM Report who is SO special, we couldn’t wait until Thursday to share her with you!
Consider today your Magic Friday – because Eleanor Beaton is magic.
An award-winning journalist, speaker, executive coach and host of the Fierce Feminine Leadership podcast, she’s committed to unleashing the power of women’s voices through business coaching and leadership development.
And yes, we all unapologetically STAN her!
She built an entire company around empowering women entrepreneurs and business leaders, and has been a HUGE inspiration for us here at c+p digital. She firmly believes, as do we, that creating a podcast – really investing your time and energy into it – can evolve and grow into something quite extraordinary!
In this episode, we talk all things juicy (we really hope you click over and have a listen ) including:
· The conversation around systemic racism and the global BLM protests, and the *koff* influencers who are definitely NOT getting it right (we’re looking at YOU, Jessica!).
· The importance of knowing your values, and communicating same online without getting dragged (because you WILL be dragged!).
· And how entrepreneurs MUST build their authentic voice before they bulldoze their way through social media.
And rather than blathering on further about WHAT we talked about, today we want to allow Eleanor’s own words do the talking.
Here’s a *chef’s kiss* taste of what you’ll hear.
In Eleanor Beaton’s Words: Influencers and Crisis Communications
“Here’s what I have found to be so fascinating. Name it for what it is. We see the footage around the world of George Floyd’s murder. And we see that there was something about this man, this time, that ignited mass protests around the world, like a major anti-racism movement. And what’s so interesting is I have never seen broader, deeper conversations about systemic racism and white supremacy before – I haven’t seen it in my lifetime. So, this is happening around the world. And a lot of the conversation is happening on social media. And we start to see the social media influencers, people who by virtue of their ability to connect with their audience and have built up massive social media followings – I’m talking about the Jenna [Kutcher] creatures of the world. Marie Forleo, Jessica Mulroney, people like that. People who we know as leaders in their field, they built up these massive followings and have been called out either for what they have said, or for what they have failed to say. And I think it really opened our eyes to the hollowness of the world of the influencer.”
“[Imagine] not having a crisis communications plan?? Not recognizing that when you have created a community like they have that you are a leader, and you have a responsibility..?? For example, I can’t imagine for a second, Oprah Winfrey or Mary Barra or Bob Iger, not understanding that, ‘Wow, this is happening, I need to respond. I have a responsibility to my shareholders, to my consumers, to my audience, to have a voice on this matter.’ It’s really seeing the hollowness or that the leadership skills haven’t caught up to the marketing skills. And we’re marketers like, of marketing, right? But if your marketing outpaces your ability to lead, you’re really leaving yourself open for exactly the kind of takedowns that we’ve been seeing.”
Find Your Values, Use Your Voice, and Screw the Haters
“One of the things that I find, particularly for entrepreneurs, it’s not that they desire to be this massive influencer, but they understand the power of social platforms, and having a voice on these social platforms. So right now, especially in our space, how do they start to move onto social platforms? How do they start to build their voice online? Well, typically, you know, we begin looking at who out there have the big platforms, the influencers that have the largest platform, the loudest voice, and we start to look and listen to them. And one of the things that I have found to be so detrimental about that is that until you take the time to find your own voice, you’re sort of narrowing your focus in terms of who you serve. But, that provides a reference point for you to develop your own voice, how you sound, how you balance educating and thought leadership with marketing and selling, because we do need to do it all effectively.”
“I love this whole conversation, because I think values are so misunderstood. A lot of times people have way too many. If you can’t remember your own values, you’ve got a problem. If you are paying a consultant $30,000 to help you uncover your values, you don’t know yourself. Honestly, take the time and think through what’s important to you. What are your values? Choose three, so that you can actually remember them. And then I think it’s about communicating from that place. And that governs what you say, but I think also how you say it. [Then] one hundred percent screw the haters. It’s really about, like being on your own side and backing your own self up and being proud of yourself.”
Dear Influencers: Be Humble, and Hire the Right People
“A lot of these influencers we’re talking about are entrepreneurs, and as an entrepreneur, it can be really easy, when you ask yourself as an entrepreneur, ‘how am I doing?’ it’s really easy to take a look at what your revenue numbers say, or even profits as the only indicator of how you’re doing as an entrepreneur, how you’re doing as a business. So, if your numbers are really high, if you have a lot of followers, if you have a lot of revenue, then clearly you must be really good. I always say be humble, but not modest. The problem is when they are not humble, and not modest. Yes, I’ve been able to create all of this success. Yes, I’ve been able to build up my audience and connect with millions of people. But I need to stay open. I need to maintain my beginner’s mindset. I think that is huge. And again, in a regular company – like, think about again, Harpo, or the OWN network. You’ve got a spokesperson, Oprah Winfrey and the visionary CEO, but you also have all of these other departments. That leader is depending very often on other senior leaders. What I have found in our industry is that these influencers often under invest in the quality and level of strategic help they need, and the teams that they need to be able to handle stuff like this. They’re in an echo chamber, they’re in a bell jar, and they don’t have support to be able to talk things through.”
Don’t mind us. We’re just sitting over here stanning. LOL!
Seriously though, take the twenty minutes needed and have a listen to the episode – you can find us over on Apple Podcasts – it speaks to everything that’s going on today, and the learning and adjusting we ALL should be doing in this moment.
And if you’re losing sleep over a particular marketing/business related problem during this Covid-19 economic uncertainty, or if you have a guest idea on the topic, let us know. Drop us a line at c+p digital.
And as always, sweet dreams…well, hopefully!
