Recently, a couple we are friends with was visiting us and staying with us for a few days. We had a wonderful time catching up and touring the area. Both of them are very business savvy and involved in powerful business missions. Truly, becoming successful depends on how clear is your message about you do.
Of course, our catching-up included talking about our businesses. We hadn’t seen each other in over two and a half years.
My (Feable) Attempts to Share About Brilliance Extraction™
I shared about Brilliance Extraction™ – a process that pulls your “brilliance” out of your brain and makes it into systems you can use for training that knowledge to others. With them, you can scale up with greater ease and consistency. You can delegate what you couldn’t delegate before. When you can delegate effectively, you gain the freedom to think of new things rather than having to run the things you already thought of. You make what is in your brain immortal.
I also said,
“Brilliance is the term I use for the unique combination of expertise, experience, and wisdom you have. And your key staff has it, too. It is about creating leverage from what you know. And: Protecting your brilliance for future use is important.“
I said you with this leverage you increase the impact of what you know, you enhance your freedom, and you can create a legacy.
To me, that was pretty CLEAR.
These friends are the kind of friends who love you AND challenge you. In fact, challenging you to think about how to make things better – or even better – is part of how they express their love.
They both said it still sounded confusing to them. What? How could that be??? I also had shown them my “Declaration of Brilliance.” How could it still not be clear?
A Challenge Almost Every Entrepreneur Faces
I know this is a challenge almost every entrepreneur faces. We think it is clear. Others often don’t think so. As I have confessed before, it is hard for me, too, for myself – helping others get this right is part of what I do professionally. It is all the more frustrating when I struggle to express my own mission clearly.
“The Lights Talk to the Plants!”
Then our friend shared a story. His son has created an amazing business around “intelligent lights for plants.” It means you program the growing lights to emit the packets of lights (frequencies) that the plants actually need. You avoid spending energy on light frequencies the plants don’t need. You can tweak the program for optimum plant growth. That’s quite important for urban farming.
As his son was seeking investors, he, too, had to explain his mission and what it is about. He, too, encountered confused looks. A confused mind doesn’t buy or invest.
Finally, he arrived at “The lights talk to the plants!”. Wow, that is powerful! It strips away the “how” (program the lights to emit the right frequencies). It invokes a picture a person can visualize.
The Insightful Experiment
Then we decided to do an experiment. My friend independently asked my husband and our 13-year old son what I do.
My son gave a swift anwer. “She is helping businesses grow.” That is true, although not very specific.
My husband’s answer was more in-depth. He talked about how I help businesses grow. His answer focused on work I have done with employee-owned companies, helping them see growth opportunities with fresh eyes, and helping them transition to being employee-owned. There is a mindset shift involved with that. He is correct. I have done that and I still love doing it. I have even written a book about this work “101 Quick Tips for ESOP Leaders.” He didn’t say a word about Brilliance Extraction.
Now, that was interesting. How could this be? In his “defense”, we have had a lot on our plate during the past three years. My father-in-law passed. We had our hands full with inventing a way to keep my mom-in-law safe, happy, and living as independently as possible (not an easy task with mounting dementia). We moved halfway across the U.S. We bought a house, sold a house, and did lots of renovations on both.
I have done Brilliance Extraction™ for years. But to make my Brilliance Extraction™ method into the leading message and build a new brand around it (The Brilliance Mine) – that happened more recently.
The Lessons We Can Learn From This
What are the lessons from all this? There are at least three:
- We have to continually test how well our message lands with others.
- We need to tailor the message to our audience.
- Don’t assume that even the people you are closest to fully understand your current focus.
Brilliance Extraction™ is About Creating Duplication Systems
Finally, it hit me. Both of my friends are quite familiar with network marketing. Network marketing is all about duplication. There are methods for talking about the products and the business opportunity. These methods are taught over and over again to the growing (scaling) network of distributors.
“Brilliance Extraction is about creating duplication systems,” I said at last. Someone (or a group of people) thought up the method. It became a system of videos, written materials, and teaching systems.
Finally, their heads were nodding. Finally, the message was clear. At least to them. That is because they are familiar with the concept of duplication systems.
By the way, franchises reply on duplication systems, too. Extract the brilliance and make it trainable. Furthermore, a growing number of companies realize that it is a great idea to document and make trainable everything they do. Those are duplication systems, too.
I’m Curious
What is your experience with expressing your mission? How clear is the “Brilliance Extraction is about creating duplication systems” to you? (I need your feedback, please!)
