How To Use Strategic Vulnerability To Grow Your Business

You’ve been working on your blog, product, or service for weeks now, getting ready for the launch. So far, you’ve done all the “right” things.

• You’ve taken a course or two and have read up on a subject that you’re really passionate about.
• You’ve positioned yourself as an “expert” in your niche.
• You’ve even reached out to your business idols and some of their followers on social media promoting yourself as a fellow thought leader in your industry.

But still, something just doesn’t feel right.

When you look at what other people in your niche are doing you think, “How can I compete with that? My stuff isn’t nearly as good.”

Deep down you feel like a fraud. You’re scared, confused, frustrated, and mentally exhausted. Before long, you’re as sure your business idea won’t work as you were it would work just weeks, days, or even hours ago. So, back to the drawing board. But, what do you change?

You need help, but, who do you turn to?

Certainly not your non-entrepreneurial friends and family expecting you to fail or salivating at the mouth for a chance to wrap you up in the warm embrace of “I told you so”. And you’ve kind of painted yourself in a corner by calling yourself “an expert” to now be looking for help to figure out your next move.

So what do you do?

The answer is simple… be vulnerable!

Initially, it may be a bit difficult to accept vulnerability as a viable option to grow your biz, because many think of it as being naked on stage with the whole world watching you. But done right, it’s hardly that dramatic. So, before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a moment to make sure we’re on the same page on what being vulnerable really means.

Definition of Vulnerability

According to Google, the definition of vulnerable is “susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm.” It also uses words like “helpless, powerless, weak” as synonyms, and who’d want to be described as that? After all, you want to known as an expert, right?

Well, maybe not.

Types of vulnerability

In the context of business and how it affects you as an entrepreneur, there are two types of vulnerability.

• Frontend – which includes your subscribers, customers, and the public at large.
• Backend – including your friends, family and anyone you would include in your support system.

This guide focuses on how to use strategic vulnerability at any stage of your business to connect more authentically with your tribe and better understand their needs so you’ll know exactly what to offer as a solution.

Why Be Vulnerable?

Before we get into “how” to use vulnerability, let’s first chat about “why” you should even consider it. As I just mentioned, the purpose is to “connect more authentically with your tribe and better understand their needs so you’ll know exactly what to offer as a solution”, but of all things, why use vulnerability as a means to do it?

The scene of business has changed over the years. It use to be that bigger than life people and companies ruled the world. Not anymore! There’s no longer a need for you to “fake it till you make it” or seem bigger than you are so you can compete with the big boys. Everyone and every company is trying to connect with their supporters on a more personal level. Let’s look at an example. Nike.

The multi-billion dollar company has been going out of it’s way of late to connect with it’s customers on a more intimate level as demonstrated by the amount of Twitter handles it manages. About 200. Broken down in some cases to:

Nike goes out of it’s way to connect with it’s customers on Twitter as demonstrated by some of it’s 200 handles.

• Country
• State
• City
• Sport
• Product
• Sex
• (a combination of all the above)

… There’s even a Nike Twitter account for customer service, all in an effort to be seen as less of a corporation and more of a person.

Your clear advantage is you don’t have to pretend to be a person because you are. The easiest way show that you are is to let your guard down and let the very people you’re trying to serve into your

That transparency is what makes you vulnerable. You lower yourself from the protection of your “I’m the expert” pedestal and put yourself eye level with your audience so they can see you for what you really know and who you really are, whatever and who ever that is.

Yes, it leaves you open and “vulnerable” to criticism, but it also make you more relatable. When your tribe can see your faults, your insecurities, and even your life away from business (when appropriate) you ultimately give them a chance to see themselves in you. When they do… instant connection. And it’s that connection that will open the door to building the trust you need to serve them well.

The Methods

Below are four methods with varying degrees of vulnerability that work without you being an “expert”. Each one makes you more vulnerable than the previous (I’ll be rating them by a Vulnerability Factor on a scale of 1–10. 10 being most vulnerable). The hope is that you find a new way to approach building your business that takes away some of the stress of entrepreneurship while building trust and a real relationship with your audience by letting them in on the fact that you’re human. This is about being more human.

We’ll be exploring:

1. The Not An Expert Method

2. The Lean StartUp Method

3. The Direct Method (aka The Derek Halpern “What are you struggling with” Method)

4. The Transparent Method (aka The Pat Flynn Method)

Let’s get started.

Notice the difference in how Amy describes herself. From “Expert” to “Strategist”

1. The Not An Expert Method

Purpose of this method: To subtly hint that you don’t have all the answers and make room for potential mistakes while preserving the respect your followers have for you as an ambassador of your niche.

Early on, my friend Amy Porterfield referred to herself as an “Expert” but has since embraced the terms “social media strategist” and “social media strategy consultant.” She isn’t any less of an expert than she was before, but it’s the impression that it gives tells a different story.

Experts are judged harshly. They aren’t allowed to make mistakes. Even though we know nobody’s perfect, we still somehow expect our experts to be.

But by being a “strategist”, she values the knowledge and expertise that she has, but by the very nature of the word she’s acknowledging an unspoken margin of error. Social media platforms can change their algorithms and how they conduct business without notice. Meaning some of her content isn’t evergreen and she’ll need to make updates and amendments to her content often, which she does.

Also what works today, may not work tomorrow. Like with all techniques and strategies, the more they are used, the less effective they become.

Example of an update Amy has made to explain changes of a social media platform

By calling yourself a strategist (or even a consultant) you’re saying you know this area well and don’t you have all of the answers… without actually saying it. Strategies sometimes fail; and when they do, you’ll have to go back to the drawing board to develop a better, more effective one. This gives you an out without the embarrassment of being exposed as less than the expert you claim to be.

The other added benefit to using this method is you can get loads more engagement from your readers. You can ask them to try your suggestions and report back to you to let you know how effective they are for a case study you’re working on about the subject. This also opens the door for you to ask your audience for their tips and best strategies. People love sharing what they know, especially if you promise to give them credit for it.

That added feedback helps you to refine your offerings which raises the overall quality of everything you put out; and that increases it’s shareability… Making you an “expert” without ever having to say it.

How to Use The Not An Expert Method In Your Business

1. This is the easiest of the four methods to employ. Simply remove “expert” from your title and/or description and replace it with a word like: strategist, tactician, planner, or consultant.

2. Ask for feedback on your suggested strategies when you right on a subject. (Not every time you write, but enough so your frequent readers know you’re always searching for answers to their problems)

3. Ask for your audiences best tips and strategies on the subject.

A word of caution: if you choose to use this method, beware of words like: specialist, pro, professional, authority, or guru as they can carry the same weight as the word expert.

This method has a vulnerability factor of 3

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2. The Lean Startup Method

Purpose of this method:

To use feedback from early adopters of your product or service to improve its quality over time by having them tell you what features to add next.

You may have heard the acronym MVP which stands for Minimum Viable Product, a term made popular by Eric Ries of The Lean Startup. Start up Companies are notorious for starting with an idea for a product or service they think people would want; spend months or years and sometimes millions of dollars building it without ever speaking to their prospective customers; only to find that no one is interested.

An MVP is a way to invest the least amount of time and money in bringing a product to market by only developing basic functionality and improving on it later based on user feedback.

If you’ve ever downloaded an app for your smartphone you may have noticed when a new app comes out, it a great idea but there are usually a lot of glitches and few features; but in time those are fixed and new features are added in what are called “updates.”

This is a perfect method for entrepreneurs that feel like they “should know” what their tribe wants and not want to ask them directly. I recently had an entreprenuer tell me she was uncomfortable asking her audience what they wanted because they see her as the expert and were looking to her for the answers. This is the method I recommended. If you have a pretty good idea of what your followers want but are unclear on the details this a great way to getting the feedback you need to know the next move to make.

You may be wondering:

How do I do that without asking?

And, how do I make money while I’m figuring this all out?

Enter, Ramit Sethi, New York Times Bestselling author of “I Will Make You Rich.” (who has a blog with the same name). He recommends beta testing; but not just any kind of beta testing; PAID Beta Testing, where you actually get your customers to pay you to test your product or service and help you make it better before it’s ready for the masses.

Will people really pay to use an incomplete product or service and help make it better? Surprisingly, yes.

Think of it this way, you’re giving your supporters a behind the scenes sneak-peek with a chance to be an early adopter. Lots of people like to be the first to have or do something, this gives them an opportunity to get in early on something and someone they believe in and take pride in knowing they’ve helped you.

These will also be the same people that will spread the word about your “thing” when it’s ready for the public. They now have a vested interest in seeing it succeed so they do their best to let everyone know about it. Having allies in this critical stage is always welcome. This is an excellent way to get them.

How to Use The Lean Startup Method In Your Business

1. Assuming that you have an idea worth developing, focus on the key purpose and key features of your product or service. When it’s ready, reach out to a small percentage of your tribe, usually your most engaged and active readers or clients and offer them a chance to be an early adopter or beta tester.
2. Be clear that the lower price at this stage is only because it’s not full featured and that the price will be raising as more features are added so it would be best to get on board now.
3. To thank them for their early support, you may also want to offer to grandfather them in at the same price they’re paying now for life, regardless of how many features are added or what the price is in the future. This works especially well if you have a monthly membership based business.
4. Once launched, stay in close contact with your customers asking for lots of detailed feedback on things like features, ease of use, and any other changes that may need to be made.

This method has a vulnerability factor of 5

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3. The Direct Method (A.K.A The Derek Halpern “What are you struggling with” Method)

Purpose of this method:

To use direct communication to understand the needs of your audience.

This one ranks pretty high on the vulnerability scale because of it’s directness. It’s so direct, the word “direct” is in the name. I personally know entrepreneurs just starting out to those with 7-figure businesses that are using this method with success.

Derek Halpern of Social Triggers suggest letting your guard down and simply asking your followers what they need. The strategy gets right to the point very early in the relationship you’re building with your potential customer, usually within the first few emails in your autoresponder series.

You are making it clear that you don’t know what they want, and that can be very uncomfortable for some. Therein lays the vulnerability.

This is clearly not a strategy for everyone. If you need your prospects to believe you have all of the answers, or don’t like the thought of being so direct; you’d do better with one of the other methods in this guide. But if you fancy yourself a shoot from the hip kind of gal, this may the key you’ve been searching for to get into your prospects heads.

How to Use The Direct Method In Your Business

1. Craft an email that invites a conversation. Write a welcome email for your auto-responder (for those of you new to online business, a “welcome email” is email marketing lingo for an email your subscriber gets after she signs up to receive your newsletter via email.) in your voice; the same way you would a friend. After telling them what to expect in your newsletter, simply ask them to reply to this email and tell you what they are struggling with.
2. Include that email in your auto-responder (more email marketing lingo: an auto-responder is a programmable software application that allows you to pre-write and automatically send emails in a desired sequence so you don’t have to send them manually. Here at The Founding Moms, we use Mad Mimi, an excellent choice for non-techie people). Derek recommends making this the first email they receive in the sequence.
3. Interact with those that respond. Not everyone will, so it’s important that you connect with those that do. Important: this initial interaction is about connecting not selling. Don’t try to sell them something yet, even if you feel your product or service would be perfect for them. Your focus should be developing a relationship and understanding their needs, nothing else.
4. Find the common thread. You’re looking for patterns. When you see the problems they have in common, you now know the problems you need to create products and services to solve.

It really is that simple.

But if you’d like more detail on the methodology of this strategy or you’d like to see the exact email Derek uses in his lead generation sequence, click here.

This method has a vulnerability factor of 8

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4. The Transparency Method (A.K.A The Pat Flynn Method)

Purpose of this method: To quickly gain trust from your audience with little to no damage to your public image by experimenting with different ideas and concepts and letting your audience come along for the ride. You transparently share your wins and failures revealing what you did step-by-step so your followers learn both from your mistakes and successes.

The last method we’ll talk about today is less in-your-face than the previous, but still ranks higher on the vulnerability scale. Why? Because it gives your audience a birds-eye view of your business, strategies, and techniques.

Meet Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com. He’s a guy that embodies transparency unlike anyone else you’ll ever meet online. His story takes you from him losing his job as an architect in 2008 ,to him starting his first niche site (a site about passing the LEED Exam [Architecture] GreenExamAcademy.com) to where he is today and everything in between; and he takes us along for the ride weaving in personal snapshots into his life as a husband and father on the way.

He calls himself the Crash Test Dummy of online business on the front page of his site. He makes few promises other than to reveal everything that he does and what he’s learned along the way.

He speaks openly about his failures writing about it on his blog.

He publishes detailed guides outlining and explaining how to implement software and strategies to grow your business.

He publishes step-by-step video tutorials to help take the fear out of trying something new. He is a huge advocate of podcasting and has created a free How to Start a Podcast video tutorial to get you started.

He posts monthly income reports detailing his income and expenses while running his business. Although talking specific about money make some uncomfortable, he doesn’t do it to show off, he wants to continue to be transparent, show what can come from diversifying your efforts and expanding your income streams, and most of all, show that if someone like him can do it, you can too.

How to Use The Trasparency Method In Your Business

1. Decide the level of transparency you’re comfortable with. Keep in mind your industry and the needs of your audience, that comes first. This isn’t a therapy session for you… well, unless it is and that’s what you’re blogging about.

1. Start small. This isn’t the early days of Twitter where you told everything… “hey, I’m eating Cap’n Crunch now”or “hey, I’m on the toilet… Taco Bell is EVIL!”. But if you do decide to include personal tidbits like pics of family, test it first. See how people respond to it. If they ask for more, you know you’re on the right track.
2. If you feel overexposed, pull back, share less. Remember that you are in control, it’s your site.

The level of transparency, authenticity, or honesty is entirely up to you. Done correctly, you’ll develop a great relationship with your audience and have loyal supporters of your mission.

Key Point: This method works best in the Social Media/Internet Marketing space, but can be adjusted to fit just about any business. Proof of that is that many of the guests on his podcast the Smart Passive Income Podcast, are successful because of using varying degrees of this very method. Listen to a few episodes to get some examples.

This method has a vulnerability factor of 10

Bonus Method

Okay, one more! Well, this one isn’t really “a method” as much as it is a mindset, but since all of the others had the M-word attached to them, I didn’t want to leave this one out. Let’s call it the “Start Where You Are And Improve When You Can Method” where you do exactly that, start where you are and improve when you can.

We all want to put our best foot forward and be seen in the best light possible. We don’t want our lack of a polished presentation to turn people off or take away from our message. But indefinitely delaying your launch “till it’s perfect” isn’t helping anyone; not you and certainly not your potential supporters.

Marie Forleo, one of my first mentors, is about as polished as it gets when it comes to doing business online. Her reach is truly worldwide. A woman from

From couch to brick wall to polished production, Marie Forleo’s presentation has improved over time, but quality content has alway been at it’s core.

Holland said to me “I love her! Everything she does is so classy and high quality!” But the truth is, that wasn’t always the case. Her early videos were far from what we see today. They were on her couch, with bad lighting and a webcam.

What did stand out though, was her content. It was quality, it was helpful, but most importantly, it was out there. She made adjustments with time. She didn’t wait till it was perfect. That allowed her to grow and her audience to grow along with her.

Spoiler Alert… (It’s not really that secret, I’m just being dramatic) All that perfection you see from Marie, is done by a team. “Team Forleo” to be exact. I don’t know how many there are, but I’ve personally communicated with six of them, and I know there’s more!

So, if you’re a soloprenuer trying to figure it all out as you go or you have a friend helping you out on the weekend, but you’re comparing your offerings to hers; you’re fighting an unfair and ultimately a losing battle.

If you can’t afford a fancy camera, use what you have. Don’t have a camera? Use your webcam or your cellphone if you have to. Still a little nervous? Here are some tips from friend and former Today Show & NBC Nightly News Correspondent Diana Alvear. This was a video she made for the members of a private Facebook group we’re part of, so shhh, don’t tell her I’m showing you this… Just kidding, she gave me the okay to share it.

How to Use The Start Where You Are And Improve When You Can Method In Your Business

1. Start from exactly where you are… and soon!
2. Remember that everyone you look up to and admire today didn’t always have it together. They stared from somewhere, most likely from the same place you are now.
3. Realized the the biggest and the best almost always have help
4. Remember your why. The goal of your business is to help people not have your ego stroked, so put their best interests before your own and give them a chance to get your help now and help you grow into the force of nature we both know you will be.

Being an expert is not a prerequisite to being in business. We’ve looked at four alternatives that thousands of entrepreneurs world over are using to grow their email lists, build their first product, make passive income, live the lives of their dreams, and most importantly serve their communities and make the world a better place.

So while you may have been afraid to be vulnerable thinking it could be bad for business, NOT being vulnerable could potentially be even worse. It could hold you back from even having a business!

You are a woman

You’re a lover

A friend

A mom

And among other things, an entrepreneur…

And you don’t have to be an “expert” to be great at either.

Like my bud Dave Conrey from FreshRag says “Be good today, and be better tomorrow.”

Written by: C. Taylor

Original art by:@SarahSteenland

Originally published at foundingmoms.com on October 23, 2014.