Be authentically Yourself, and connect with those who show up.
Channel: George Kao
Date: 13/10/2017

The 3 Step Process for Authentic Business

In your business, should you:

Do what you love?
or
Offer what the market wants?

The answer is not that easy... because the two options are often not aligned, but to stay in business and actually enjoy it, it's got to be somewhere in between the two.

Here's an ideal process:

STEP 1 -- BE YOURSELF.

Do what you love in your business. 

Talk about you passion, something you would love to create a business with.  Since it's your passion, you are naturally energized to talk about it. 

Online, that’s called “creating content.” It can be your writing, your videos, your images, your audio, and also, the links and content you curate (gather and share) from other sources.

As you share your passion with others, you’ll find kindred spirits to connect and talk about your passion. You’ll also be educating the general public so that more people can discover the thing you’re passionate about. 

The larger of a platform you use (e.g. Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Reddit, Medium), the more truly YOU you can be, and yet, there will still be *lots* of people interested in who you authentically are. 

The smaller the platform -- for example, a tiny local village -- the more you have to try to please everyone unless you want to become isolated. This is the beauty of the internet -- it is an enormous, almost unlimited, collection of many villages of every style and belief. You can be authentically yourself, gather kindred spirits, and create your own village.

STEP 2 -- CONNECT WITH WHO SHOWS UP.

As you share your passionate content online, eventually you’ll gather some loyal readers or viewers. These are people who consistently follow your content, your fans, and may also be commenting/engaging on your stuff, and perhaps even sharing it forward.

Notice the ones who are engaging with your content the most -- the ones who are consistently liking, commenting, or sharing it forward.

These are naturally your tribe. You’ve gathered them not by some clever marketing tactics, but simply by being yourself… by being the “most” you that you can be. They like who you authentically are.

Connect personally with as many of your tribe members as possible. Start a discussion with each one. 

You can do this simply via Facebook messaging (don’t do a group message, just individually message each person). You can have the discussion over a private message thread. Or, you might prefer to talk with them over a Zoom private video, or via phone.

Find out what problems they’re facing, in the area of your passion. And what goals would they love to be able to reach, within your area of passion?

Very importantly, get curious about what they have spent money on, in the area of your passion or in a related area. What kinds of products and services did they try already? How about programs, events, or memberships? What did they like about these things they bought? What didn’t they like? 

What kind of product, service, or program do they wish existed instead?

STEP 3 -- OFFER WHAT THEY WANT.  

You could either create the product, service, program, event, or membership that they are wishing for...

Or, you could find someone who has already created it, and partner with them to bring that product/service to your audience, and earn a commission as a result. This is sometimes called a JV (joint venture), affiliate marketing, or a strategic partnership. Your partner company/person takes care of all the logistics. You simply take care of continuing to build your tribe based on your passion and getting to know them better.

**

Read the rest of the article here:
https://plus.google.com/+GeorgeKaoCommunity/posts/Jcrh8s7vvWo