You don’t need a new funnel, you need a positioning strategy that makes you impossible to ignore.
In today’s episode, Sean Douglas shares his insights on how to build undeniable authority in an oversaturated market. From creating unique categories to developing strategic content that speaks directly to the pain points of your ideal audience, Sean reveals what it takes to truly stand out.
Forget about competing for attention. It’s time to create a space where you’re the only option.
Whether you’re a coach, consultant, or entrepreneur, this conversation will give you the tools to create a unique position in your market that draws in clients without the hustle.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- Designing a unique space that only you can own (rather than trying to compete in a saturated field) (02:26)
- The 3-step approach that turns experts into category leaders (most people skip this entirely) (05:10)
- How your mindset could be sabotaging your strategy—and what to do before it burns you out (13:35)
- Posting consistently? Here’s why it might be doing more harm than good (15:51)
- The subtle shift that moves you from “just another offer” to trusted authorit (28:53)
WANT TO EXPLORE WHAT’S POSSIBLE FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
If you would like to brainstorm a plan to explore what’s possible for you, I invite you to book in for a Scale Session.
In this quick 15-minute call we’ll dive into…
• Reviewing your niche, offer, and pricing to map out your immediate growth potential…
• Evaluating your marketing, sales, and delivery systems to pinpoint what’s working and what’s not…
• Identifying the primary bottleneck that’s holding you back from growing and scaling…
• Build a 3-step growth and scale plan rooted in positioning, profit, and simplicity
Click Here to book your no-charge Scale Session
ABOUT SEAN DOUGLAS
Sean Douglas is retired U.S. Air Force, a 3x TEDx Speaker, Keynote Speaker on Resilience, Leadership, Team Building & Team Performance, and Business & Podcast Positioning, as well a 2x Bestselling Author. He’s the International Podcast Host of the Create Launch Monetize Podcast and From No Worth To Self-Worth Show. Sean’s “why” is that he overcame his own battle with stress, anxiety, and a suicide attempt, and is dedicated to empowering others to do the same. As the visionary behind The Success Corps, he works with Entrepreneurs, Speakers, and Podcasters to improve market positioning by creating a new market category, increasing profitability and reduce anxiety, ensuring their businesses thrive and reach their highest potential.
WHERE TO FIND SEAN DOUGLAS
TEDx talk video: https://youtu.be/CKudfG39Vs4
Facebook Page: www.Facebook.com/SeanDouglasSpeaks
LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/sean-douglas-a0890473
Instagram: www.instragram.com/thesuccesscorps
Website: https://thesuccesscorps.com
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
Instagram @thesamriley
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TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 0:08
Welcome to today’s episode. We’re going to be talking about building authority in a crowded market, and I’ve invited Sean Douglas to join us today. So welcome Sean. It’s great to have you here.
Sean Douglas 0:18
Thank you so much for having me. I am very, very honored to connect with you.
Samantha Riley 0:23
Well, thank you. I’m going to dive straight in today. We’re not going to beat around the bush here. I know that you help clients, leaders, thought leaders, experts stand out in saturated spaces. What’s the first thing that you look at when someone says to you, I feel invisible online.
Sean Douglas 0:46
I look at the category that they’re playing in. So we’re so fixated on brands and branding that we’ve that it kind of got diluted what a brand is. Or some coaches I hear, they’re like, well, send me your brand colors. I am. I am so far removed from brand colors. I couldn’t I just couldn’t care. What I care about is the actual brand. See, the category makes the brand, not the other way around. The brand doesn’t make a category. You make the category. The category makes the brand. And so if I told you, like, what’s the little Nike swoosh thing? And you know, you could recognize it. You know, if it was an Adidas symbol, if it was an Air Force symbol, you would know, if it was the globe and anchor from the Marine Corps, they would know, right? Those recognizable brands. It’s a brand. You automatically know the category because the category makes the brand. If you don’t know or don’t have a category that you play in, you’re being charged to play in someone else’s sandbox.
Samantha Riley 2:03
Tell us a little bit more, explain a little bit deeper what you mean by category and how that would obviously, it’s really easy to understand, like, you know, athleisure, breakfast cereal, super easy to understand. How does it relate to us as experts and can you explain that so that someone can understand what you mean?
Sean Douglas 2:26
Absolutely. Category design is a business discipline where you create and dominate a market category. Normally it’s the category that you design. So in 2017 I created a live online radio show called Life Transformation radio, and at the 476 episodes, I sold that radio show how I I didn’t say that I was a podcaster. I would say I have a radio show that is repurposed into a podcast. So somebody will go tell me about your show and tell me about your show. Is like, Hi, I’m a podcaster. My podcast is this, 10 people. The 11th me goes, Hi. My show is life transformation radio. It’s a live online radio show that’s re that’s repurposed into a podcast. And they go, Wow, I created a category, a radio show being repurposed into a podcast. It was the transformation experience, kind of like Joe Rogan experience. It was life transformation radio. It was a it was a live recording experience. Now, as a speaker, I could say, I’m a leadership speaker, I’m a motivational speaker. What I created was a conversational keynote experience. And so it’s not just a death by powerpoint presentation delivered to 1000 different audiences the same way. Every time a conversational keynote experience is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. And when I explain to event planners that you’re probably looking for someone engaging, interactive, fun, funny, and not death by PowerPoint, and someone who is very interactive and engaging with the audience, because you’re sick of the same old speakers coming in, delivering words on a page or on a slide deck and then leaving it’s just uninspired. And they’re like, Yeah, I’ve created the conversational keynote experience. And what that looks like is this, this, this, this, here’s what I can do for your audience. Or like we we love it. Oh my God. And so what I’ve done is I’ve created a new category of speaking called the conversational keynote experience. It’s different. It’s fresh, and it solves a problem that the event planners have, which is the biggest problem they have, is, I need a not boring or sucky speaker, right?
Samantha Riley 4:51
Right? Yeah, you’re speaking straight to their pain point. All right, let’s reverse engineer this. Where do people start in creating this category? And I think I’ve already given some of it away, right? Because I already can tell where you’re going with this.
Sean Douglas 5:10
It’s the problem they solve and the biggest pain point, that’s where you start. So here’s how you do it. Category design is in three phases, framing, naming and claiming. And if you want to know more about this, my buddy, Christopher Lochhead, who is the godfather of category design, has an amazing book called play bigger, how pirates, dreamers and innovators create and dominate markets. And so as a category designer, and he’s a mentor and a friend, and we’ve known each other for years, and he’s got so many cool things happening, but I always go back. I’m like, Hey, man, look at what got created. Hey, check this out. And we’re always kind of like sharing notes, right? And then it always starts with the problem. So you frame name and claim. So frame a problem in a way that only you can solve it. So you’re essentially creating the problem. You are creating a problem that only you can solve, and then you’re conditioning the market to receive that problem as their own. It would be so easy, though, look at my new shiny object and look at my thing. You gotta buy it. Oh my gosh, we’re not vacuum salesmen. There’s a reason why people don’t go door to door selling anymore. Now, unless you’re like, you know, satellite companies or, like, the the, what do you call it, the solar panels and stuff like, people go in like windows and like, we’ll fix your window. Like, those people still exist, and sometimes they’ll knock on your door or whatever. But there’s a reason why we don’t sell that way anymore, because there’s a lot of rejection. Speak exactly to the problem that you solve. Condition the market to receive that problem as their own, and then educate the market on why they have that problem, or get them to realize I didn’t realize that was my problem. Holy crap, like I’m glad you just realized it, because I got the solution for you. Market the problem, not the solution. People buy their way out of problems. They don’t buy into solutions unless they got shiny object syndrome and their ADHD, and they’re like, I must buy everything. All the coaching programs come my way, because I know a lot of people that do that, and they bought coaching programs five year five years ago, never opened them, never used them, never even had a meeting. They just paid 1000s of dollars for it. It just sits in their email, create a problem that only you can solve, and then condition the market to receive that problem and get them to want to need your solution. It’s like become CVS Pharmacy. Don’t become Walmart. Does that make sense?
Samantha Riley 8:04
Not to me, because we don’t know Walmart or CVS, but I’m getting the idea. I get the gist become
Sean Douglas 8:10
the pharmacy, not the general location. You go into a pharmacy to get a specific medication to solve some sort of problem, right? And everybody just wants to be a generalist, like, oh, I can do all these things. Be so like, you have general surgeons, but then you’ve got orthodontics, but then you’ve got ophthalmology, and you got X ray, and you got peds and you got, that’s why there’s a general surgeon, and then there are brain surgeons, or there are specific practices of of health, or whatever the certain specific practice that a doctor has and he doesn’t do anything else. That’s the specialty. Become the Doctor of a specialty, not just let me go to Walmart or Target or just a general store and just browse and look at everything
Samantha Riley 9:11
totally now you’re saying create a problem, but we’re not actually making up a problem. We’re not pulling a problem out of thin air. It’s a real problem that these people have. Where are we diving into that? Like, can you give us an idea of what is the problem that you want to dive into and what are you going to
Sean Douglas 9:31
leave behind? Well, it’s, it’s, it’s half that. So you’re not exactly creating a problem out of thin air, but you’re framing it in a new perspective. That’s the whole thing. When you become a category king or queen, you have taken a problem and you have reframed it into a different lens. For example, if I said that the number one problem that podcasters have is they’re not getting an. Downloads. But is that a symptom, or is that a problem? The problem I’m not getting enough downloads? Well, maybe your problem is actually that you’re not visible on social media because you actually don’t post on social media, or you haven’t used YouTube properly, or you haven’t marketed properly. So it’s not that you’re not get, like, downloads is like a result. So everybody’s like, yeah, I want to monetize my podcast. How do I monetize my podcast? How do I make money on my podcast? Okay, so let’s create the problem. So the problem is that I’m not making enough money. Okay, well, how much do you want to make? What do you want to make from the podcast? How do you want to make it? What are you going to sell? Where are you going to sell? Like, there’s a whole host of questions. Of questions. So then it becomes not a question of, how do I make the money, or how do I know what to sell? But it becomes like, Why do I want it to make money, and what am I going to do to fix it? And so you got to go really deep. So the problem isn’t my podcast isn’t making money. It’s mostly because they don’t know how and they’re not using the systems properly. So now the problem becomes, are you not making enough money on your podcast? It’s because you’re not utilizing the systems available to you properly with us, we, I don’t know, with us, we streamline your process. We get you making money in the first six months. We, you know all these things, right? And so you’ve essentially solved their problem, but you’ve solved it deeper than what they initially thought, because you can only rise to the level of consciousness that they have. It’s like saying you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s the thing. Some people think that you that you think small. But do I think small, or do I only think at the conscious level of where I am in my life. If I had a higher level of consciousness, if I had a higher level of thinking, if I had a higher level of knowledge, then I would think a little bit bigger. Now, now Samantha Riley might be at a super high level and I am not. Is she gonna think that I’m thinking small? Maybe because what, what her mind can conceive is way far out than what I’m able to conceive. But what you do so well, Samantha, is you bring people with you, and so you’re educating everybody, and you’re like, No, no, here’s here’s where we are. I’m gonna bring you along for the ride, and that’s what really makes you a great podcaster.
Samantha Riley 12:47
Let’s flip it just a moment. So we’ve talked about the symptoms, and I think I’m really glad that you mentioned that, because I think a lot of people you know, coaches, experts, we know our topic so deeply that we actually don’t realize how many steps we skip. And I’m sure you see it coaches go straight for the core problem and then like, that’s how they miss the conversation that’s happening in this prospects head, which is what you’re talking about, about here, what, let’s flip it. What are the biggest mistakes you see people make? So you’ve talked about what to do, like, I’d love you to, like, lift up the carpet and shine a light under there, so that people can really grasp this concept.
Sean Douglas 13:35
The biggest one would be to concentrate on the branding colors and the corporate structure, and it’s like mindset and strategy. You always have people that say the strategy is the best, the mindset is the best. Here’s the biggest mistake. If I have a mindset that is flawless and amazing and my strategy sucks, I can recover from the strategy. My mindset might go a little bit down my level. I’m like, Oh, this sucks, and I’m getting worn down, getting burned out, but I’ll always recover. Now, if your strategy is flawless and your mindset sucks, it might be that your strategy is what’s holding you up. And like, okay, it’s working. Oh my gosh. And then all of a sudden your mindset raises. So it’s gotta be an equal 5050, it can’t be 90 mindset, 10 strategy or 90 strategy. 10 minds. It has it’s gotta be kind of right in the middle. Because even though your strategy sucks, your mindsets got to be there to compensate, and vice versa. If your strategy is not great, your mindset is good. If your mindset is not great, but your strategy is good, right? They have to coexist. If it’s too lopsided, then you’re starting from the bottom. And so everybody focus. You gotta have a great mindset. Oh. Keep it if your strategy sucks, your mindsets not getting you paid. Strategy gets you paid, your mindset keeps you in the game. Think of it that way, your strategy is what gets you paid, your mindset keeps you in the game. So it’s gotta be even, and you’ve gotta raise them both at the same time. Don’t focus on just one.
Samantha Riley 15:25
Love that strategy is one of my most favorite topics. I love nerding out on strategy. Can you share what you see as the difference between consistent, if we’re talking about content and getting our message out there, and strategic. What’s the difference between consistent and strategic?
Sean Douglas 15:51
Wow, I don’t think there is, in my opinion. In my opinion you have to be consistent. It’s got to be part of the strategy. Your your consistency is part of the strategy. So it’s built into the process. When I talked about framing, naming and claiming, you’re framing a problem and creating a one that only you can solve, and they do all the marketing and all the things, right? Then, you name it. Hey, event planner, you hired a boring speaker, and somebody literally told me this not even a week ago. They were like, Oh my gosh, our speaker last year was a dud. Like we looked at all the videos, and we were like, that’s pretty good, you know, but they got on stage, and it was just slide, slide, slide. I mean, he just literally talked, talked from the slides. I’m like, Oh, that’s not good. Oh yeah, she goes. It was so bad. I’m like, yikes. Well, here I don’t even have slides unless it’s required. She goes, No, we’re not doing slides. I’m like, perfect. She goes, if you want them, great, but, like, we don’t really. I mean, the fact that you don’t have them is awesome. So and I told her, I said, what I’ve created is the conversational keynote experience, right? So then I gave her the name of the problem that I solved, which was that conversational keynote experience. And then you claim it. So frame name and claim frame the problem, name it and then claim it as this is the new thing. And so what I said was concentrate on the audience engagement and the audience interaction and the content that you’re delivering in a fun, energetic way. That is what we’re going to focus on, and that is what we do as professional speakers. So oh my gosh, I love that. Okay, perfect. And then, you know, I got the gig, and so I addressed the pain point right away, and I said, this is what we created, and this is what we’re going to deliver. And it was like, quick, quick, quick, and really good coaches know how to do that, right? They it. It’s less. It’s less about consistently performing poorly, and more about let’s figure out what’s not working, and let’s solve the not working part rather than tearing up the whole strategy and just rebuilding it.
Samantha Riley 18:25
Yes, see so many people throwing the baby out with the bath water, and it doesn’t need to happen. Oh my goodness, yeah, it’s just a it’s just a slight tweak. I talk about it the way that I talk about it is like, imagine that we’ve got a mixing desk, and, like, my backgrounds dance, so sound is a huge part of that. And you know, we’d have the massive mixing desk in the wings. And you know, you’d hear kids on stage, or, you know, this is what I do. You hear kids on stage and like, oh, that knee, you know, I’m not picking at the base, so you’re just moving that one a little bit, and then it’s like, oh, the treble. It’s like, peaking at the top. Let’s just move that down a bit, and that’s what you’re talking about. It’s just like doing some slight tweaks to get it to fall into place so that it’s received. Well, Mm,
Sean Douglas 19:14
hmm, yep. People will tear up their entire website. They’re ripping apart their social media strategy. It’s not working well. It’s only been like two weeks, like, give it a little moment, like, tweak this one topic and do that one tweak. That’s all you need. So most people, when they build a business, they create their corporate structure, they’ve got their corporate blueprint, they know kind of how it’s going to work. And then they’ve got their product or their service or program or whatever they’re going to they know what they sell. They know their corporate structure, pricing and other things, and that’s about it. They never pull that third lever of category design. So do I want to charge? Charge people to play in my sandbox, or should I go next door and play in theirs? I want to charge people to play in my sandbox, and I want to create the biggest and best sandbox. I’m not going to tear down everybody else’s. I’m going to create the best sandbox that I can and then I’m going to name it something completely different. It’s not even going to be a sandbox. It’s gonna be like something else, and then it becomes different. So being different is what’s gonna stand out amongst everybody else. Tony Robbins doesn’t even call himself a motivational speaker anymore. He hasn’t since the pandemic. He calls himself a master life strategist. He was in 2019 the number one motivational speaker. Maybe, besides Les Brown, maybe even besides, like, Jack Canfield and Brian, Tracy Gary Vaynerchuk, everybody’s like, Oh, he’s a motivational speaker. Gary’s like, I am not a motivational speaker. Yeah, exactly, absolutely, not, right? But people lump them in with that. And then he said, No, I’m not a motivational speaker. I am just a business strategist. I am a marketer. And he and he claim himself as, here’s my flag I’m planting it. Here’s what I’m called. And so do you want to be a motivational speaker? Do you want to be a podcaster? Or do you want to create something else? And I love the name of the podcast because by design, that’s how we’re going to stand out. We’ve designed what we do in the very beginning of how we’re going to stand out, how we’re going to create the impact, how we’re going to reach people. It’s already by design how we want it to happen. People that go in, like, I’m going to hit record, and people are just going to listen to me. Their their Field of Dreams has been the killer of dreams since day one. If you build it, they will come said one person and one person only, and that was Kevin Costner, nobody else. And I don’t care if you’re Joe Rogan in 2014 it doesn’t matter people who’ve been podcasting since 2012 2013 2014 I came in in 2017 and even they were struggling to get people to like, let’s go. And now Joe Rogan is the best, the biggest because he stayed with it. It was in his strategy. He does it his way, and everybody tries to copy that. That’s how you know you’re the category king or queens.
Samantha Riley 22:36
Love that last piece. I really love that last piece, because it’s very easy to say Joe Rogan’s killing it. Let’s do a show like Joe Rogan. But the thing is, that’s just for him. It’s working because it’s him, and it won’t work for anyone else in the same way, because we’re not Joe Rogan. Like success leaves clues, definitely, but I’m a big believer. And we take lots of little clues from all over the place. We don’t just completely lean in and just copy one person. Just doesn’t work,
Sean Douglas 23:12
right? We’re not going to have a show called between two bushes. You know what? I mean? Zach. Zach has already done the Between Two Ferns, he rips on people. I still don’t know if they actually know, like it’s coming or whatever, like, you can’t not know what’s gonna happen on the show time. Like, that’s what he created, and that’s his shtick on life transformation radio, I did a live online radio show, and it was broadcast through the internet, because I wanted a radio show feel to bridge between FM and AM radio and podcast. I wanted to bridge the two, so I decided to go with blog talk radio, which actually is no longer in service. Someone bought them, but we were using Skype to connect. That’s what they used. It would be great audio if you had an actual professional microphone setup. It sounded amazing. But people who, like, called in on their phones and stuff. It was so bad, like, the audio was really, really bad quality. There’s a lot of audio engineering that that played into it, but it was live. I didn’t have to edit anything. And I told the guests like it’s live, so if you mess up, everybody’s gonna hear it. I’m not editing a thing. I love the show because I would, I would hit record, let’s go. We’re on the show. We’re live. And I get a countdown my ear, 321, and then the music would play. And then as soon as that was done, I hit stop record, and it said, Please wait while uploading. Once it uploaded, it was done. It was on Libsyn. It was on everywhere it was within a day, it was everywhere. I didn’t have to do anything. It was the greatest love that what I designed,
Unknown Speaker 24:56
yeah,
Samantha Riley 24:58
need to understand. Understand what it is that you want so that you can design it totally.
Sean Douglas 25:02
I want to flip that’s the strategy. Love it.
Samantha Riley 25:07
I want to change lanes just a little bit. You coach people to speak on stages to land. TEDx talks to grow businesses. How important do you see speaking in building and marketing authority.
Sean Douglas 25:26
You have to be a master of communication. Whether you’re putting a message on social media and with AI tools like chat GPT, I can go, Hey, create me a social media post on selling my method. And great, but like, is it really going to land? Is it really going to connect? Is it really going to speak to the person’s pain point? And if you notice, if you ever do that with chat, GPT, like, create me a marketing message for Facebook for this. This is whatever. It looks like, a Click Funnels ad, it sounds like a Click Funnels ad, it sounds like a selling but it doesn’t sound human, and people pick up on that all the time, and you could just feel like that message, although on the flip side, you have the I sucked. I found the unlock. Now I don’t suck and it’s those horrible webinars, right? Yeah, either. So somewhere in the middle, we’ve got to figure out what our voice is. Part of being a category queen or king, is finding your brand’s voice, and when you design your category, you also divide design its voice, and once that brand voice comes through, now you’ve landed the marketing messages because you’re pinpointing the problem, you’re framing that problem and Only you can solve, then you’re not selling the solution or marketing the solutions and buy my stuff. Buy my stuff. You’re attracting people to buy your stuff. Because, oh my gosh, I have that problem too. Oh my god. I don’t know how many people that are like me too. Like, you figure this out. Because, like, I, like, I’ll speak at some events, and I’m like, Hey, I just booked this event. I found them here. Or, you know, they found me, or there’s some kind of story attached to it. You know, I’m speaking to this association, and here’s what they do, and the problem that they have is this. And I’m speaking on whatever leaders or resilience, or whatever it is, I’m speaking on this topic to this organization, because this is what they’re dealing with, and I can solve it for them. And you know, if you want to speak to associations, if you know that you can solve this associations problem, I’d love to connect with you and get you plugged in, and get you to learn it’s that type of stuff, because they’re like, I could have spoke there. Oh my gosh. So a lot of speakers don’t market correctly either, because they want to hide who they’re speaking for. So no one takes the lead, which is super weird, because you’ve already got the gig. So broadcast the name, or, you know, whatever, but always speak to the problem first. Always
Unknown Speaker 28:24
love that
Samantha Riley 28:26
you just talked a little about a little bit then about selling. You coming onto the stage, you’re talking about the problem and you sell. Are you talking? Because I know you talk a lot about serve before you sell. Is obviously, this is what you’re talking about. Is serve before yourself, just talking about the problem, like, can you dive a little bit deeper into what that serving actually looks like?
Sean Douglas 28:53
I hate it when people say selling is serving, or something along those lines, where it’s like, if you’re selling to people you’re serving, yeah, only if they pay service, in itself is selfless, and so essentially, you’re building relationships, not bank accounts. Money is the byproduct of the value that you deliver. Period the end, we can all go home now, money is the byproduct of the value that you deliver. If people think you’re valuable, then you will be rewarded. If you are a person of value and a person of success, you will be rewarded. And quickly, people will find out if you are a scammer or if it’s all NLP and marketing fluff, and you took them for 1000s that people talk they will find out you cannot hide, especially today, in this in the connected world that we live in. So with that said, how do we sell? We sell by solving the problem, and we solve. Serve them by solving that specific problem. Now, if you had a had engine trouble, you would go to a mechanic and he and he would say, Okay, here’s what’s going on with your car. Oh, also, by the way, I noticed that your tires are bald and your muffler is hanging off your car. You should probably get those things fixed. And we’re going to go ahead and fix those things too. They’re like, but I didn’t ask for you to fix. Didn’t ask for you to fix those things. I just need my engine fixed. I’ll take care of the tires. I’ll go to a tire shop, or I’ll go, Well, we do the tires here. No, no, I just, I just need the engine. You’re going to get some push back, or you’ll get, oh my gosh, thank you for finding that. I would love for you to fix those tires. Yeah, go ahead do that. So you’ve got two people that want just that one thing fixed, and they have coaches for everything else. But then you’ve got the person that’s like, oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize that. Well, thank you for finding that too. Please fix that as well, right? So that is serving where you’re like, Listen, I’m gonna fix that one problem, but I’ve noticed a couple other things too. Would you like those things addressed? If they say, No, it’s respecting their boundary, not hounding and hounding and hounding and hounding, right? And then there’s some coaches that string them along like we’re almost there, like we’re almost there, and they’re getting no results. Well, it just has to work like one more meeting and one more me, you gotta pay me for one more month, you gotta and they just string them along and make them keep paying them keep paying payments, but you’re not even getting results. So there’s, there’s, there’s all kinds of talk about coaching industry and the way it should be done. But bottom line is that when you become a person of value, money is the byproduct. It’s so abundant, it’s so clear you will never have a scarce mindset. If you become a person of value, you become a person of success, and you focus on serving the person’s problem rather than serving your own bank account. That’s the way I look at it, just in my
Unknown Speaker 31:59
love it so.
Samantha Riley 32:02
Before we before we wrap this episode up, can you just share a little bit about where people can find you and connect with you?
Sean Douglas 32:11
Absolutely. So my website is the success corps, like Marine Corps, spelled, C, O, R, P, S, the success core.com. I’m on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Instagram and LinkedIn, or Instagram and Tiktok are at the success core, that’s the handle, and mostly on Facebook, but a little bit on on LinkedIn as well. But would love to connect with you and check out our show. So we have create, launch, monetize, which is actually being rebranded into a new show. And then we have the from noteworth to self worth show. And would love for you to subscribe and listen to that. Make sure you subscribe to Samantha’s show as well. And would just absolutely love to connect with you. Love
Samantha Riley 32:58
So all the links for all of those places that Sean just mentioned will be in the show notes below wherever you’re listening, so you can just scroll down and click away and connect. But Sean, I want to finish off with someone that’s been listening to this episode. They feel like they’re doing all the right things, but they’re still not getting traction. What is the first place that you would have them audit first
Sean Douglas 33:23
positioning. It’s the positioning. Either you position yourself or the market will position you. Here’s how, you know, go onto social media, on every single one of your profiles, and just ask them, hey, everyone just wanted to check in with the network. Kind of check your pulse on how you’re feeling. I’m curious. I haven’t really connected with everybody here. What is it that you think that I do? Please tell me. This would be really helpful feedback. Please tell me what it is that you think that I do. Thank you so much, and please post below. Boom, done. Some people will be like, Yeah, you’re a coach, or you’re a business owner or what, and they really have and somebody’s like, I’m not really sure. That’s how you know the market will never lie. Ever. They will tell you the truth. And so if you’re a speaker, it should be all over your profiles. If you’re a podcaster, it should say on your profiles. If you’re a business coach, if you’re whatever coach, if you’re an entrepreneur, whatever you are, whatever your position does. So there’s a big difference by being a motivational speaker and a resilience speaker, or a leadership. Speaker, it’s very concise, so everybody has one. Put it this way, most people who start out in business will start punching one inch holes in their backyard, and they’re just trying to dig up something that they think is going to work. Pretty soon you have two. 12 one inch holes, it would have been easier and more efficient if you would have just made 112 inch hole instead of 12 one inch holes. So don’t punch holes all over the place. Just go straight down super deep and create your category that you are going to play in, and then you call it whether you’re a business positioning strategist, like I call myself or a resilience speaker, leadership, speaker, team building. Speaker, I don’t talk about AI. I’m not an AI. Speaker, I don’t talk about healthcare systems. I’m not a healthcare system. Speaker, I speak out of resilience, leadership, team building and business positioning strategies. That is all. That is all I will ever talk about.
Samantha Riley 35:48
Love it. I do have one. I just said that that’s where we’re going to wrap up. But this is, this is my toxic trait. I can’t wrap up. So I do want to find that on with a question, how do people build the one big hole when they haven’t quite figured out what those 12 one inch holes are? That makes sense.
Sean Douglas 36:16
That is an excellent question. That is an excellent question, and the answer is, positioning. Who do you want to be and what do you want to be known for? That’s how the positioning starts. That is the first step. I want to be positioned. Let’s say I want to be a speaker. So what do I speak? I don’t know. Let me dig up all this stuff. Well, hold on a second. If you want to be a speaker, a podcaster or a business owner, what do you want to be known for? What do you want to be known as another way to put it is, what are you selling? Now, we always start with the problem that we solve. But if you don’t know what problem you solve, what are you selling? Let’s say you’re selling antiques, or you’re selling, I don’t know, subscriptions, or you’re selling books or whatever you want to sell. So okay, well then why do you want to sell that? Why that? Out of everything you could possibly say, I want to remember, like five years ago was like, drop shipping. Everybody should be a drop shipper right now, I really don’t know anybody that’s doing drop shipping anymore, because everybody got into it, and it usually follows the crowd and it follows the trends. You know, we’re renting out websites for people. We’re creating your your own social medias, or we’re going to fix your YouTube. It’s always something that AI, I remember when AI, when chat GPT first came out, people started changing their social media profiles the chat GPT expert, or AI expert. I was like, literally, this thing has been out for three hours. This guy’s already got a guide. And he goes, Yeah, I prompted it. So the guy sends me the prompt. I’m like, okay, he goes, please create, what do you say? He said something like, I want to be a chat GPT expert or an AI expert. Please create a persona that that I can market so that I can become a chat GPT expert and create me a guide on becoming a chat GPT expert. Did it, and all of a sudden he’s like, selling it for like, 50 bucks. I was like, You got to be kidding me, that’s what happens. So you start by, what am I going to sell? What am I going to be known for, and how do I want to be positioned correctly in the marketplace. That’s the start.
Samantha Riley 38:45
There we go. Thanks, Sean, thanks for coming onto the show and sharing your frameworks and your your your zone of genius with us. It’s been great to chat.
Sean Douglas 38:55
Thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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