Greetings once more fellow entrepreneur, this week I have something quite unique and extraordinary to share. Yesterday, I interviewed Shaune Clarke , and what began as a 45 minute interview spilled into nearly two hours as we took a free fall into the mind of one of the most uniquely gifted entrepreneurs I’ve encountered. Because Shaune shared such a wealth of information, I’ve had to edit the interview into several parts, so today we’re looking at the first part, in which Shaune shares with us his insights for entrepreneurs about creating your own game , the 1/2 step away market , unwarranted sales resistance , and the art of graceful persuasion as it relates to building trust through authenticity and our unique giftedness. Phew! And all this in under 20 minutes! You can just imagine what we covered in two hours! So, let us begin, come and join me at the edge to take a leap into the farthest reaches of the unique genius of Shaune Clarke Creating Your Own Game One of the comments that people consistently make about Shaune Clarke, is that he’s not like anyone else they’ve met in the business he’s starring in, whether it’s Speaking Training , Copywriting , Internet Marketing , Interviewing or Natural Health . Shaune explains that most people will often compare themselves to competitors and try to compete with them, when really, there’s no reason to do this. Shaune learned from his experience as an extremely successful copywriter, that having something different equates to having something valuable, providing there is a market for it. Shaune says that 95% of the time, there is a market, and there are already people in that market spending money. After Shaune had hired one of the top gun copywriters to write sales copy for him and it flopped, he thought, “You know what? I didn’t like that style of sales copy, I wouldn’t respond well to it, so there must be others who would feel the same.” So he invested time and money into learning about how others wrote sales copy, then set about writing in his own unique style that was more aligned with his own values and preferences. This turned out to be so successful, that within 6 months , he couldn’t keep up the demand for his work and he was asked to train other copywriters. Shaune realized two things through this experience. One was that bringing his unique gifts to his work was extremely valuable and lucrative , and training others to emulate his style would not work either. For his clients in his trainings, learning to find their own unique style and inner giftedness and bring that to their work was going to be far more valuable and lucrative to them as well. The Half A Step Away Market Shaune explains that the market is always changing and evolving, and doing so rapidly. The established players are often not able or willing to adapt or change to the market as it evolves, so when we come into the market with something new, there are clients already in the market who are going to resonate with what we’re offering. He also speaks about the 1/2 step away market , which is the people who are at the very edges of the market. These clients have a problem that needs solving, but there’s currently no one in the industry that has communicated to them in a way that resonates with them, and therefore draws them from the edges of the market into it. Everyday, someone who has not spent money in an industry will begin to invest their money in it. There are people both in your market and right at the edges who will resonate with your unique style and gifts that you bring to your business. Unwarranted Sales Resistance Shaune explains further that all clients will experience something he calls unwarranted sales resistance . This is because all of us have had an experience of spending money before on products and services and not getting our problem solved. This means someone’s previous bad experience is going to be projected onto us when they are considering buying from us. This is unwarranted sales resistance because it has nothing to do with us , it is related to a previous experience our client has had, and it is being projected onto the current situation. Our role as business people is to just be aware of this, and to maintain our certainty of the value and quality of our products and services and communicate this elegantly to our clients. It doesn’t involve pushing or comparing. It’s a matter of understanding that there is an element of risk involved in spending money, and the biggest thing is not to try to sell somebody on our products or services, but to build trust. The Art Of Graceful Persuasion Shaune goes on to say, “We don’t need a sales formula, we need a formula for imbuing authenticity into our work which inherently builds trust .” Shaune is acutely aware that his speaking training clients experience a far greater degree of competence, confidence and authenticity when their presentation is imbued with their own unique gifts. He says, “Speaker training should adapt to you, you should not have to adapt to speaking training.” The more our unique giftedness is allowed to be present on our work, the more authenticity there is to it, and the greater the level of certainty and trust we can build with our clients. “We’re all very good at persuasion when we’re self motivated, like persuading our partner to go to a particular restaurant or holiday location or getting the kids to do their homework,” Shaune explains. But when it comes to exchanging money for goods and services, we can get tangled in an uncomfortable and encumbered selling process, when it really doesn’t have to be like that. The art of graceful persuasion is being aware the combination of unique skills, insights and information that you bring to your business, and using these to bring authenticity to your work. This inherently builds trust with our clients so that they understand that we are going to give them quality goods and services, and they will have their problem solved. Shaune’s speaker training is really a method for gaining a greater depth of understanding and self awareness of your unique giftedness and learning how to communicate this to your clients. This builds trust and moves clients through unwarranted sales resistance gracefully and with understanding and empathy . When he was considering taking on the task of training others to speak, he told his partner, Clarinda, “the world does not need another speaker training, what the world needs is a training that shows people how to bring their authentic self to their work and demonstrate this value to others. ” Luckily for those clients like myself, who were seeking to bring more awareness to our unique combination of skills, insights and information and then learn how to communicate this value to our clients, Shaune has put together exactly this, and the art of graceful persuasion is no longer an enigma. There is, however, a lot more to learn from Shaune, but we’ll have to wait for another article to find out as this one is has reached critical mass for the quantity of insights I can fit into my head in one go! I would love to hear your comments at the end, thanks for watching or reading. Cheers, Neroli. 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