Let’s delve into the ABC of You, helping you to be authentic, believe in yourself and be consistent in your business. 

The ABC of you focusses on authenticity, belief and consistency.

I speak a lot about showing up authentically in your business. In fact, it’s one of the core reasons why I started The Unbusiness Club - so that you have all the tools and confidence you need to be yourself in your business! For me being authentic means just being yourself, no act, no pretence, no fakeness. But more importantly it means not trying to be like someone else - you don’t want to be a carbon copy of someone. YOU are what sets you apart from everyone else who may be selling a similar offer to you. 

Let’s look at the more formal definition of authenticity as defined in existentialist philosophy as “relating to or denoting an emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive, and responsible mode of human life.” Wow, now that’s a mouthful! Let’s break it down.

What does emotionally appropriate even mean? I had to ponder this one or a while. For me I think it ties into emotional intelligence which is to be aware of and in control of your emotions, allowing you to be empathic. Which to me is to be able to read the situation and adapt your behaviour and response accordingly. Whether you’re in business meeting or whether you’re posting on social media, gosh even the language and tone you have on your website, you should always consider what you’re saying or writing with your audience and ideal client in mind. You want to show that you understand them and their problem or need. And this is where you have be genuine, authentic, because

a) people will see through you eventually,

b) you won’t truly be able to tap into their wants and desires, and,

c) it’ll be pretty hard to keep it up all the time. If you are being you and showing up as you then you don’t need to think about it. It all flows easily for you.

Which takes us to appropriate and purposive. If you don’t truly understand your audience or ideal clients’ wants and desires or pain points, then your messaging is going to be off and won’t engage them. Bringing in significant, you want to speak to the real core of their being. People will always ensure they have what they need, so you need to ensure that what they want is something that you are offering and that you are the obvious choice.

The last element in that definition of authenticity is responsible. You want to ensure that whatever you do you are acting responsibly. People will be investing their time, money and energy into whatever it is you’re offering and you want to ensure that you are offering value and not leaving them any worse off than when they started working with you.

Wow, I’ve surprised even myself there delving deeper into what authenticity actually means! In most posts I’ve seen on social media they just tell you to ‘be authentic’ and even I never really appreciated just exactly what that meant until now.

But being authentic and showing up as yourself can be hard unless you have belief in yourself and what you have to offer. You need to truly believe that you and what you have to offer is going to make a difference to your ideal client. If you don’t have that belief, then how you present your offer is going to feel, well quite frankly, a little lack lustre. There will not be any energy and enthusiasm shining through. Secondly, when it comes to actually getting people to buy your offer, if you don’t have confidence and belief in the difference you can make in their lives, they’re not going to be convinced either. And lastly, if that belief and confidence isn’t there after they’ve bought from you, when you’re actually working with them, you’re always going to be coming from a place of feeling inadequate. You need to really believe in your offer and what you bring that is different to the rest. Plus, when you believe in yourself you can charge what you are worth. 

So, we understand how to be authentic and the importance of believing in yourself, but all of that is pointless unless you show up consistently. And this is in every area of business. But let’s take social media for example, since this is probably where most people consume information and make connections with businesses these days. But consistency on social media can be broken down into even smaller chunks:

Whether you post several times a day or only once a week, you want to be consistent with it. Don’t post three times on one day then not show up for another week. Secondly, you want to engage consistently with your audience, both when they respond to your posts, but also on their posts and others that you follow. Another area to be consistent in is to consider your messaging and how that flows throughout your posts.

And I found a great quote by Simon Sinek that ties in so well with this blog: “Authenticity is when you say and do the things you actually believe.”

So there you have the ABC of You! Applying these principles will help you to become more confident in yourself, your business and what you have to offer. Which one of these areas are you currently struggling with? I’d love to help you with it some more – so please reach out to me.