Building an Influential Voice in marketing can be challenging. Especially if you want to have a Bad-Assery business! In my book, the Influence Factor  I believe copying is a critical mistake for your influential voice. Remember what Bad-Assery means:

See Bad-Assery, and having an influential voice in your marketing requires that you DO YOU. Copying is an epic fail on many levels!

So let’s talk about COPYING. Such a stinky word eh? Remember as a child being told how bad it was? And the Internet today has made it so easy…. We often don’t realize we are doing it. Interestingly we are TAUGHT to copy…and we only loose ourselves in the process. YES, we are taught:

• Play by the rules.
• Color inside the lines.
• Talk this way, look this way, act this way.
• Do what the people you want to be like do…

See my point?

Let me share with you a crazy story related to copying that impacted me for years. I was told that if I wanted to be seen as a professional in the speaking industry I needed to dress a certain way, and wear my hair a certain way….and… I fell for the okey-doke! I thought that in order to be successful as a speaker and coach that I better dress and act and talk and wear and BE like them.

Now if any of you have gotten to know me personally, you know that I have wild natural curly hair, that I like to wear brightly colored nail polish (royal blue and green), that a pair of kick butt heels with jeans rock, and if I can add some sparkle somewhere in my jacket or tank top I’m all over it! But for years I dressed the way I thought I should because that’s how others in my industry did. I copied them.

It wasn’t until years later at a conference while video recording myself and then meeting with now one of my best friends that I realized the trouble with this. I wasn’t authentic to me; to my influential voice. I immediately made these changes and embraced me-wowza, business flowed. I did lose a client who said I was inappropriate. Well, I found two more even better ones in their place! See, when you stop copying and do you, you create space for the RIGHT unlimited space and potential to show up.

But some of you are scared of that huh? Some of you are scared that if you stop copying everyone else, no-one will BUY YOU.

And some of you are thinking and that’s just silly. That changing what you wear will help to make more money. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. Your customers can see through your in-authenticity.

Some of you reading this are saying:  “But Ann I just sell soap what has this got to do with anything?”  See, people by experiences– they buy with their heart first, then their wallets. So no matter what you sell YOU create the experience. And when the experience is inauthentic to you, it isn’t YOUR influential voice- it is someone else’s.

Oh feeling frustrated? Come back next week and learn how to be your most influential voice in your marketing with three steps!

After you’re done reading this article, I want you to do TWO things:

#1. I want you to tell me a story about a time when you copied someone else and it just didn’t work for you long term. Tell me what you changed, and how it helped you. Leave a comment. Share anything you can that you think will benefit the Warrior-Preneur community.

#2. Do you have a friend who you think is stuck in “copy mode?” Someone like a life coach, a social media marketing expert, or anyone that offers products and services? Send them a link to this article.

Ann M. Evanston is a “Chief Breakthrough Officer” teaching other Business Warriors how to slow down, and find the most unique part of their business that makes them stand out among the crowd. She has been named one of the top marketing consultants by About.com, is a guest blogger for Showcasing Women and takes pride in moving you from “blah, blah, blah” to “BOOM, BOOM. BOOM!”