The Dallas Examiner
For numerous aspiring businesswomen, starting a business may be intimidating – especially for those who aren’t sure where to start and how to make it profitable.
But what many of them don’t realize is that the answers they are looking for are already inside them, Nicole Roberts-Jones, business coach with Find Your Fierce, said at her Be The Answer event Nov. 4.
“Your gift has been in you your whole life,” she said. “Your gift is the very answer somebody needs, wants, and will pay for.”
During her two-day intensive event, Jones, a self proclaimed “Inner Catalyst,” and several other successful industry women gathered at the Intercontinental Dallas Hotel to help over 30 Black women entrepreneurs and 9-to-5’ers find their gifts and use their passion to create financial independence and increase their income.
“Women need tools to move ideas to implementation,” Jones said.
Jones introduced her “Fierce” formula to her audience to help them turn their dreams into reality.
“When Beyonce is on stage, she is Sasha Fierce,” she said, explaining the meaning behind the formula. “She is standing in the full power of her gift, so my goal for every other woman is that they stand in their own ‘fierce.’ They live in the highest and best form of the woman they want to be. That’s what fierce is.”
Her unapologetic method consists of three major key points to help create this ideal businesswoman and help her achieve success in her field: authority, visibility and platform.
Authority over your career
On the first day of the event, participants learned how to gain authority over their gifts and how to increase their visibility footprint.
Authority, in Jones’ AVP model, is based on your gift and expertise. She said an aspiring entrepreneur must be clear about their gift before jumping into the business realm.
“Clarity is key,” Jones said. “A confused mind won’t buy.”
Passion, proficiency and problem solving are the three things that define your gift, according to Jones, who suggested that business owners who are unsure of their gift should ask three people they know, whether it’s a family member or colleague, about what skills they are best at.
Once your expertise has been defined, it is easier to determine the target audience for your business. Defining your target audience is important to better determine the result your gift provides. Otherwise, your message may be too broad.
“When you speak to everybody, nobody is going to hear you.” Jones said.
Future business owners must have a laser focus on who they are targeting specifically and what problem their product or service solves in order to package their gift properly. Once that framework is set in place, entrepreneurs can effectively sell themselves.
To help attendees create the perfect sales pitch, Jones advised that they use her Fierce Accelerating Network model. She said potential clients are often more persuadable when it comes to what your service does than what your service actually is.
“People will pay you more for what you know than what you do,” Jones expressed. “You have to ask yourself W.I.I.F.M. – What’s In It For Me.”
Entrepreneurs should start all their pitches or introductions with who their target audience is and the result their business presents specifically to persuade future clients to say yes to everything they’re providing, she said.
Aside from the many models she presented, Jones reiterated the importance of being fearless during this process. The Fierce Lab speaker urged that all women make themselves visible in every way possible whether they are scared or not.
“Any negative emotion you feel is rooted in fear,” she said. “You have to do it afraid. God would never put something in your heart that wasn’t going to happen.”
Also, she strongly advised that aspiring entrepreneurs don’t quit their jobs abruptly without having an exit strategy. They should work on their business while working at their regular jobs so they can exit these jobs once their business is secure and generating revenue.
The morning session ended on a positive note with many of the attendees feeling joyous, rejuvenated and more focused on their passions.
Visibility creates awareness
It’s essential that people not only become aware of their gift but showcase it worldwide, which is where the “V” in the AVP model comes in.
“People only work with those they know, like and trust,” Jones said. “Being seen is one of the most necessary phases of growing your business, so others know you exist.”
The “V” in the AVP model represents how ideal clients are able to see your business online and in-person.
“You must allow your gift to be seen online and offline through multiple channels like social media, speaking on stages, traditional media appearances, and blogs,” she said.
During the afternoon session, the Fierce business coach had attendees manage their content and social networks using her digital footprint kit. The kit starts off with a digital footprint conversation flow plan that helped the businesswomen understand how to properly sell themselves online as well as organize what topics they should cover on their blog sites and social media profiles monthly or quarterly.
Once they arranged what they should cover based on their products’ results and ideal clients’ needs, audience members put those topics into action by listing their overall theme and goal for the month and creating a social media calendar. The calendar required that participants coordinate what they will post about on certain social media channels and on what week throughout the month.
Following the social media calendar, Jones had attendees fill out a blog content calendar that specified the title of their blog posts, the day of the week, the date of each post and the step that each blog fulfills in the FIERCE formula.
Visibility can then be moved into profitability once certain methods are properly planned and executed. Jones advised that all business owners follow these steps and commit to posting content on their websites and social media networks regularly at least once a week.
Profit – tools to expand your platform
On day two of the event, Jones brought her intensive coaching sessions to a close with the final element of her fierce AVP blueprint.
The “P” in her AVP model represents the platform you will use to generate more profit. During this session, she helped audience members understand the many different streams of revenue they could tap into to improve their income.
“There are other ways for you to make money that you don’t even know are out there,” she expressed.
Audience members were asked to write down six areas that will help build series of income in their business such as speaking events, books, audio books, webinars and personal coaching sessions.
Once attendees wrote down their ideas, they participated in various activities to help them prepare for future speaking gigs. Jones said that in order for entrepreneurs to book speaking events, they must position themselves, position the right opportunities and position their signature talk.
During the session, attendees partnered up with each other in an uplifting exercise in which each participant had to say something about who they are and what they want to achieve and speak about positive things they want to happen to their partner for five minutes each. The activity was a gateway to helping participants figure themselves out as well as network with other businesswomen.
The exercise ended with the audience members embracing each other and finding revelations.
“I came here, and I found out that I do have some of these things in place that I haven’t gave myself credit for,” said Nicole, a Be The Answer audience member.
Jones had the audience participate in a speaking exercise in which each person had to stand in front of the crowd and delivered their own signature talk presentation as if they were at their own event.
“Storytelling is when you show them where you are taking them in the course of the time you are going to teach,” Jones explained. “You start at the highest pinnacle of your life. Then, you take them to your dark place and how you came back up.”