“Be yourself. Nobody can do it better!”
I’ll warn you right now… we are in the middle of a blizzard, the roads are horrid with traffic discouraged AND I just finished compiling the info for my taxes. That means I’m a little stir crazy!
But honestly, I could not pass this up… it’s one of the best examples of utilizing the Subject Matter Expert skill EVER.
I discovered this post when I woke up at 3:10 to the “beep beep beep” of the plow trucks in my driveway. So what do you do when you can’t sleep… yes, open up Facebook. I noticed a post from a girl I used to teach baton twirling to… she’s now married. She was writing her sister…
The topic was a re-post by a baker. The baker is also from the Twin Cities and due to the blizzard she decided to share the many comments she received two months ago on a post of a cake she created. The photo was a designer cake. It looked pretty, it was pink — it used rock candy and it was designed to look like a Geode. All shades of pink. Very cool.
Yeah… that’s not how my former student took it… she wrote to her sister, “LOOK a Vagina” I’m like WTF?
So I looked at the cake again, and burst out laughing.
This brought me down the rabbit’s hole of Facebook creeping… to which I quickly realized… I was not going to fall back to sleep anytime soon. It got more hilarious with each customer comment. I actually came to an article on Epbot.com that I had to screen shot and share.
And thus, the best example of Subject Matter Expert status to humble yourself to adoring fans. And you know, from the comments this baker is amazing. As an artist, she was willing to “expose” her talent through the cake. And as a human, she’s a super hero. Imagine how you would feel after spending hours on your “labor” of love to have strangers compare the result to… well… a vagina? But it happened to her and she handled it beautifully!
Here’s what she did… in a single reply, she mentioned that she won Cupcake Wars once and the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship – then went on to have some of the best comebacks you’ve ever read. Look up her Instagram feed at NadiaCakesCupcakes and her Facebook at Nadia Cakes – they are through the roof entertaining AND an example of how to relate to customers on social media. I’ll guarantee this has become much bigger than she planned. She has since trademarked the name “Vageode” and celebrated International Women’s Day with even more of her delicate cakes. Her ability to share her true personality, and in this case, not to take herself too seriously, especially when things journeyed NO WHERE she planned has skyrocketed her success.
This is why you need to position yourself as a Subject Matter Expert. When you become the leader of your industry it gives you the opportunity to relate to your customers, share expertise, and weather the storm!
All I have to say is…. thank goodness this is not episode #369… so close! Whew!
Big Money Small Change Success
Character + Content/Consistency + Goals/Motivation + Customers =
Infinity Marketing Machine
PS: thanks for reading! I really appreciate you being here. Make sure to “like” this post… and follow me! (and please do me a favor… if you want more great ideas like the one in this post, just fill out this form and I’ll send them to you… start here
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Action Steps
1- Position yourself as a Subject Matter Expert… just decide to do it. And send warm thoughts this way… the snow is ridiculous!
2- Install my free app! (SmallBusinessClubApp.com)
Podcast:
Listen to Episode #368 of the Two Minute Commute audio blog Podcast
Infinity Marketing Machine Daily Topics:
Monday – Character (Subject Matter Expert)
Tuesday – Content & Consistency
Wednesday – Midweek Motivation
Thursday – Infinity Customers
Friday – Big Money
Saturday – Try This!