Are We Getting the REAL You?

We live in a world of copycats. My husband calls them “sheeple.” You know, the followers. People that don’t come up with any of their own original ideas, but rather, blindly follow others.

This is rampant in the online marketing world. Websites, sales pages and signature programs that smell an awful lot like the next person. People, a program isn’t your signature unless YOU developed it.

A virtual assistant recently told me a story about one of her clients who sent her a sales page template and asked her to copy it – word for word. This VA made some suggestions about how she could tweak it to make it sound more like her client.

The client flatly refused. “This is a proven system,” she said, “it works. I don’t want to change anything.”

There are a handful of coaches selling costly programs inviting their followers to drink the Kool-Aid. You know them. They sell their “signature” systems filled with emails, checklists, charts and templates. Let me repeat: they are giving you templates that thousands of others are using as well. What’s authentic about that?

Where’s your originality, your uniqueness?

Sure, there is something to be learned from those who have gone before us. There is a tremendous amount of information to be culled from. But in today’s attention deficit society, you’re not going to get much notice if it’s already been done. Where’s the magic, the remarkability?

Years ago, Seth Godin called it a purple cow. Something that is so different that you have no choice but to notice it; to remark on it. Today, he calls it weirdness. You’ve got to let what’s different, and even a little odd about you, rise to the surface.

In his newest book, We Are All Weird, Seth writes, “Either you’ll want to spend your time and effort betting on mass and status quo – and trying to earn your spot in this crowded mob – or you’ll abandon that quest and realize that there are better opportunities and more growth if you market to and lead the weird.”

If you’re going to attract your raving fans, the people who you’re meant to work with and are meant to work with you, then you’ve got to be yourself. In order for these individuals to really resonate with you, YOU have to come through, not someone else’s version of you. And definitely not a templatized version of you.

© Liz Dennery Sanders 2011