Elevating your Lightworker brand
As I began preparing for the pilot of my Global Luminary Activation Experience (GLÆ) mastermind event and year-long programme earlier this year, I started feeling the call to explain the journey ahead for our next intake of Global Luminaries.
Even though in recent years I have fully embraced my spiritual, woo woo side, I will never stop being a nerd! My left-brained love of science, medicine and logic are awesome tools to have in business. So a part of my work at Make Your Mark Global is to bring structure and logic to the business journeys of my Lightworker mentees.
It’s all too common for those of us starting out in business to feel lost. The trouble is, with Lightwork, there isn’t so much of a ‘tried and tested over generations’ Lightworker business model for us to follow. We are going first!
In truth, our generation are the trailblazers, running businesses and supporting our families from our natural born talents. This pathway is rather different to following our parents into their family business of something more traditional.
Clearly, it’s a structured pathway that our up and coming Lightworkers need, in order to build a sustainable business from their services.
When I first entered the Entrepreneurial world, after the structure of my medical and TV careers, I too found that lack of a map or blueprint confusing. I found myself bouncing from courses to books and back to courses, learning little bits about business and branding here and there. It took a long while to piece my new skills all together in a way that I could apply to my business.
What I’ve observed from so many others is this process of bouncing from course to course, trying to get off the ground, depletes their budget (and sometimes energy too) before they get a chance to begin earning a good income. So of course, many Lightworker solopreneurs get stuck at this early point and never reach their full potential.
This is something I really want to put a stop to, before more Lightworker businesses are affected. The world needs your skills!
So today I want to share with you the 5 steps that my clients go through on their journey to becoming a Global Luminary, A.K.A. an unstoppably bright light in the world who’s ideal clients find them. When your messaging is right, and your intentions are clear, this can happen for you too. But it’s about more than branding…
Stage 1 – The Call
This is where it all begins. Have you ever had an itch you couldn’t scratch? This is how the call feels for many people. It’s a firm nudge from the universe that you can’t ignore for long, asking you to use your skills more than you currently are.
You may start thinking about turning your skills and passion into a business in order to do it full time, only to find a negative little voice in your head talking you out of it. You might find a whole long list of reasons why your business ideas aren’t ‘practical’, yet you can’t stop thinking about it.
Stage 1 can be quite uncomfortable for this reason. You feel a fire has been lit under you, but you aren’t sure which direction to move in.
Typically how my team and I help somebody at this stage involves a fairly even split of the practical and the emotional. The practical work includes defining the business idea, your ideal client, and your core, authentic message. Whereas the emotional side of the work includes unsticking you from the messy, fear-based ‘stuckness’ that stops you from seeing your potential clearly.
Stage 2 – Position
This is where the building work begins. Beginning to position yourself involves creating the platform from which you will grow – it’s really like putting down foundations.
When entering this stage, there are typically a lot of ideas that need to be whittled down to the core of the work that you will end up presenting to the world. Many people at this stage haven’t yet set about building a website or doing any branding, as they haven’t yet honed their message or really identified the focus of their work.
There are two main objectives this stage. The first is to get that message, and the associated business offerings, streamlined and crystal clear. The second is to start building your online presence using that clear, streamlined idea.
As a side note – something I notice often is people going for stage 2 and without going through stage 1. In other words, I see a lot of people launching a web presence without having their message or even their business offerings clear. They have a good, general idea and know what they are passionate about, but it needs some refining before it is a concept that others (i.e. your future clients) will truly understand and embrace.
We’ve all heard, “If you build it, they will come.” The thing is, if you build something but it isn’t clear who it’s for – then the right people won’t come!
So don’t rush this stage, the foundations are essential.
Stage 3 – Present
In the present stage, your brand identity really starts to take shape. This is when you will start to add more of yourself to your online presence by sharing your own personal story, explaining your credibility in your chosen field of work.
This stage is the ideal time to start speaking publicly and presenting your method or approach to your new, growing audience.
Now if the idea of public speaking makes you nervous, then allow me to reassure you that everyone feels nerves – and not just the first time! Learning to work with those nerves, not against them, by channeling that energy and brining your authentic self (nerves, mistakes and all) will make you a warm and relatable speaker that people remember.
Stage 4 – Promote
Now is the time on your journey to start promoting yourself to a wider audience. Again, I’ve seen many people get this step in the wrong order – for example, paying for Facebook Ads or doing PR work before having stages 1 to 3 in order.
But if you’ve journeyed here taking those previous stages in the right order, then now is the time to shout your message from the rooftops.
This is also a great time to work smarter rather than harder.
Whether you prefer the human touch of a virtual assistant or social media manager, or the budget-friendly scheduling apps to keep up your social media presence – there are plenty or little tricks to keep promoting your message regularly without it taking all of your time.
Stage 5 – Expand
Now is the time to really shine as brightly as you’ve dreamed of. The last stage of becoming a Global Luminary is really focused on the Global part.
Here you might be sharing your methodology in an eCourse, publishing your work in other languages, or flying to other countries to give keynote speeches – just as a few examples!
Of course, this doesn’t mean you are at the end of the road. In many ways your growth never ends – this is a journey, not a destination. But this is the time to focus on scalable work. At this stage you may have an assistant or even a small team, and some software that takes care of the smaller tasks for you.
The goal of scaling is to free up your time so that you can do more of what you love, more of what makes you feel alive. The world needs you to keep your energy high and always have that desire to help and heal others – this is your gift to the world as a Lightworker.
I hope this overview of the 5 steps to becoming a Global Luminary helps you to identify where you are and what your next step will be.
If you are thinking of joining us at our Global Luminary Activation Experience this year, and coming on the year-long programme to develop your business, then we will be helping you to decide where you are on the pathway currently. It’s actually a part of the GLÆ application process.
We will ask you questions about your current blocks and concerns around your business, as well as how well formed you feel your mission and message are when you apply. This is to make sure the teaching team meet you where you are at, and also so you can be matched with an accountability buddy who is totally on your level, to grow alongside and share your journey.
You can register here to be notified when applications open in the spring for next September’s event.