 Hey guys Ken Ross here, and I'm a business consultant that specializes in reducing costs for businesses By looking at their essential expenses and today boy Do I have something real for you today? And that's I'm going to tell you a little bit about being authentic and why being authentic is still really important in today's culture today's culture really thrives on social media on reviews on things like that and Given that the digital age is here and that the metaverse is even coming, right? It's kind of hard Just to know what's real and what isn't right? There's a blurry line between what's online and what is actually real And so what I want to try to do is I want to try to inspire you on two different fronts as far as being authentic And that's being authentic to your customers and being authentic to yourself in your business as you operate your business And what I'd like to be able to do is give you five tips in each one of those areas I also want to provide you some resources. So go ahead and check the description below I have a couple of resources there to kind of help further inspire you and further this discussion So why don't we get right into it? First thing I'd like to tell you about is five tips to being authentic to your customers, right? The first thing you want to really be is you want to be real right now I know that sounds pretty cheeky, right or pretty like oh, well, that's obvious, right? How do you be authentic be real? What does that mean, right? You don't want to represent what it is you're doing in A different way than what is actually real like one of the things I can Tell you is there are definitely a lot of companies out there Or there are a lot of entities out there that are out to kind of blur the lines between what it is They're trying to offer you because they want to offer you something that either is Stuff that they already know you already know like hey I'm gonna provide you these information of these tips to better your business and really the tips just come from The Wall Street Journal or from a great business book that you could read, right? That's that's not really being authentic You want to really clarify what it is that you're doing have a mission have a vision statement Have your passions as a business owner put those things on display and given that we're in a digital world It's really easy to inspire others by showing that in a video form or in a podcast form in some form That is documented that people can see it and actually interact with it So second thing I'd like to tell you is back up what you say, right? If you say you're going to give out a free pair of socks for every sock pair of socks that you that you that a customer buys make sure you actually follow through on that and Highlight that as part of your business. I know there are you know different companies out there. I believe it's bomba I'm thinking about here that inspires people because their mission is to help people who don't have The money to afford socks so they always advertise every pair of socks that you buy We're giving pairs of socks away. So and they show that right that's part of their brand That's that's the realness the authenticity of what they're offering The next thing I want you to think about is Consistency you want to be consistent your message your brand whatever it is that you're portraying Has to be consistent has to come from what I was stating before your authentic self What it is that your mission and your passions are you don't want to muddle the message? Especially given you know the access to social media people have a Google search Or two will give them all they really need to know about whether or not you're actually being authentic Whether your brand is on point or not, right? That's something you want to do the next thing is be responsive Now I know this sounds pretty easy, right? We live at a digital age You can be responsive you can interact with your your customer base on Twitter or on Facebook Or or through a comment section, but responsiveness Spends just beyond beyond just the online presence. You want to be responsive to your customer needs You want to listen to what it is that they're asking for and respond accordingly It's part of being authentic like if you really have a passion for doing something and you're wanting to offer something to people Let's say you offer ice cream flavors or something like Baskin Robbins, and you and you you had a contest or you took Suggestions on what the next ice cream flavors are make it very Apparent that I listen to my customers and I responded to them by doing what it is that they asked me to do That is something I think a lot of businesses. They definitely want to be about but they don't spend enough time Highlighting themselves about doing it like hey, I listen to customer complaints I've listened to this that or the other and this is what I've done really shows that you're authentic really shows that Hey, you're listening really shows that you're very passionate about what you're doing And finally this is the last tip in this section. You have to know your limits You can't over extend yourself as a business and think I can do everything for everybody Stick to what you're passionate about know where your lane is don't don't over complicate things Right a good example. I can definitely come up with that actually spans on both sides of that I and I pick on them a lot on this channel is Apple right when Apple first got started They were very passionate about their community They invested in the people that mattered the most to them and they delivered a product for that audience The minute they branched out the minute Steve Jobs was out if you know anything about the history of Apple They started branching out into these areas of hey, we're gonna let other manufacturers produce our product We're going to try to open up a business line and sell PCs to businesses that may not necessarily need what we offer them But we have to offer them because if we expand our reach and we're so so good at doing this for education or for The the nerd circle the people that are really passionate about programming. Why can't we do it for businesses? They weren't able to do that and that really put Apple in a bad spot and what happened as a result of that Steve Jobs in his infinite wisdom and great creativity Started another company called next and next computer was doing what Apple computer wasn't doing and Apple saw that and they said It's time to bring Steve back. So what happened? They bought next computer and put Apple back in the right standing with What it is they were passionate about because they had the person who helped create the company in the first place and Everybody knows what happened after that the iPhone the iMacs all these things the iPads all these things were brainchilds of Sticking to what it is that you're passionate about and knowing your limits and at the time that You have the ability to expand or the time you can open up your reach You know when that is and you start doing that. So that's something you really need to understand and be able to measure Right, what is my limit? Where can I go with this? Okay, next up are the five tips for being authentic with your team I know I talked about with business to customers and you would think that if I'm authentic with my customers Wouldn't it just naturally be something that happens inside the team right a fostered a culture of being authentic and being real to my customers? That's me that may not actually be the case And so let me give you a couple of tips and the reasons why I think these tips are a little bit different than your customer tips The first thing I want to talk about is being yourself now, of course This is very close to the first tip in the other area being real right you want to be yourself as a business owner Right, you don't want people to not necessarily know who you are as far as your team Right, you need to portray the things that you're passionate about you need to make sure people understand and know them and have a Better connection with you because that would be authentic that makes you a real person and not somebody who's just Operating a business and like hey all he really cares about is profits Or all he really cares about is making his friends happy or all he really cares about is This or that thing politically right because as a CEO of a big company, right when I saw big companies or big corporations Release messages from CEOs That's that's the rhetoric that other people would have like he doesn't really care about us He doesn't really care about this company only cares about his bottom line right that he can make more money for himself The next thing I want to talk about is mistakes now most business owners don't want to spend a lot of times dwelling dwelling on past mistakes or They don't want to make mistakes right they want to be perfect. You are not a perfect person This is not a perfect company. You don't want to portray perfection. You want to strive for perfection But you want to make sure that mistakes are known and that they're okay, right? Because otherwise you're going to have or you're going to foster a very scared Group of people right they're going to be afraid to make a mistake and think oh, it's my job if I do it wrong and and They're going to want to hide mistakes. You don't want mistakes being hidden You want mistakes to be up front so that you can make solutions creative ones to fix them and strive for perfection The next thing you need to do to be authentic is encourage good positive communication now this may seem Kind of out of place when it comes to authenticity in some sense, but good communication is key to fostering authentication authentic relationships because I don't want to be in a business that That everybody thinks they're perfect and knows exactly what they need to do in their job or that Me as the CEO since I make mistakes right or me as the owner of the business can make mistakes And I'm going to know them. I'm going to know the answers to everything. I'm not Perfect kind of goes back to the first thing and I don't know everything and I don't have access to everything So if I foster open positive communication what that will foster is ideas For different solutions from different people's perspectives because not every person has experienced the same thing That's that's a shocker right now. No, it's obvious, right? so with that being being said right if you foster open communication those types of things will happen and that Authenticate that often authenticity of who people are will come out in spades Okay, the next thing about authenticity has to do with the authenticity of your teammates Getting to know every person on there on your team who who knows what what they're passionate about Understanding those passions and sharing in those passions. For example, let's say you have a team member who's really creative Right and knows how to make amazing artwork What if you could Leverage their ability to do that in in their job or in what it is there they're providing example Let's say you're you're giving a presentation right to executives or to a Customer a potential customer wouldn't it be great to leverage some of the skills of other team members and say hey look I'm doing this really important thing. I need your help because I know you're you're creative at these things I know you've been able to share that with us in some facet Can you help help the business out and do these things right fostering good? Relationships in understanding people's strengths and weaknesses and what it is they're passionate about Can only help your business and in the case of authenticity only makes for the the realness in some sense of your business and The team that that is operating that business even more so right is they can't no one can say well I don't really My my my business really doesn't care about me or I really don't care about the people that I work with you're gonna You're gonna foster a good attitude of authenticity here by doing this And your employees will respond very well to that so it won't be the kind of thing that they will say well I don't really matter. I do matter because I Contributed things that I was passionate about and that those things that I was passionate about Actually helps the company Okay, the last tip is something I know is Kind of a little bit more difficult in some sense or harder to on harder to understand But you need to create authentic moments in your workplace You need to almost set it up in some sense and a good example. I can give you here is Understanding and knowing once you've done the first four things or you've you've applied some of the four tips that I've talked about Before you'll have a better understanding of the kind of culture you have and the type of makeup of people that you have in Your group, but could you foster a club of sorts March madness was a pretty big event For some people some people really love March madness wouldn't it be great if if your your company or or you sponsored A March madness tournament bracket and had a prize, right? That would really help people understand and foster this idea. Hey, we can actually have fun here They we can share in passions that we're all passionate about things that we we all do share Alikeness in and and have fun as a company also have a team building event those types of things really do foster authenticity in our businesses because business owners don't have time to really understand everybody's needs as a as a person or What it is that they're passionate about and if you have team building events Which you'll find out or what you'll come to find out is that as you're going through some of these events You'll see different traits of different people come out that you may have never seen For instance, let's say you had a team building event where you went to an escape room, right? And I know they're pretty popular these days you get to the escape room and it's about a certain topic and you find out that Janice knows a lot about a certain topic like say it's music or something, right and you find out this Because you did this team building event and you get into a conversation about what other types of music or types of things She's interested in when it comes to music that then leads to you know, hey, we're gonna have maybe a party a reception at The office or something like that have Janice pick out some nice songs for the reception that are appropriate that you know She thinks other people would like these types of things can happen because If you foster authentic things that People are interested in Right, and that they'll attend you'll get to see other sides of them and you'll be able to then leverage those things Like I said in the previous tips to make your business even better than it is now So with that that's what I have today. I don't know I've spent a lot of time Researching this you could tell I'm kind of in my head a little bit here on this video But but I wanted to bring these things to you. I really do feel like The tips here are very important for your business and authenticity is something that I know in 2022 or and beyond Will always be valued. I don't see authenticity is something that could just go away being fake portraying an image of perfection those types of things are They have tried they get traction, but I think in the end People really aspire to want real things and a real company with real employees that are really investing in each other Shows through better than anything. That's fake So with that would love to hear your comments below in the comments section We'll love it if you're not subscribed to this channel to subscribe to this channel Share with your friends like this video and visit my website. I'm Ken Ross calm until I see you next time I'll see you around