The Real Reason Personal Brand Content Is Taking Over & What Subconscious Marketing Has To Do With It [ep. #284]
Personal stories are converting clients right now like nothing else and educational content is no longer trending. There's a specific subconscious reason why that is happening and I'm going to share it with you.
Today, I'm talking about subconscious marketing and showing you what's happening in your ideal client's subconscious mind when she reads your story versus the boring " 5 tips" carousel. Using storytelling in sales is doing something very specific in your ideal client's mind and it's the missing piece that makes her say yes to working with you.
This is the conversation that will shift how you show up online.
Topics covered on Subconscious Marketing:
Why personal brand content is converting right now
What AI has done to educational content and the one thing it can't replicate when you sell on social media
The gatekeeper in your ideal client's mind that decides if your message lands or get ignored
Why your story doesn't need to match your ideal client's for subconscious marketing to work
The visibility subconscious blocks that are keeping you hiding behind polished posts
Connect with Rebecca Haydon:
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Related episodes you may enjoy:
Quote:
"The only thing that cannot be replicated, no matter how much you put your brand voice into AI, is your story." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] Stories are converting at the moment. Personal content is converting. And the woman who shows up and says, "Hey, here's what's happening to me, here's what I went through, here's what I know now," she's the one signing the clients. I want to talk about it. I want to talk about it from a subconscious marketing perspective, of course, from a neuroscience perspective, and also from the work that I do within NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, which actually has a lot of tools and techniques that I use on social media.
[00:00:39] Welcome back to The Subconscious Expert. It's going to be a juicy one. I'm your host, Rebecca Hayden, and I cannot wait for this episode. I have been watching something, and I know we're all aware of it. Things are changing in the online space all day, every day, but particularly recently they have been changing.
[00:01:03] A few people are noticing, and a lot of people are jumping on it. These yapping videos, these story videos, this "I'm going to reach X amount of followers and then my boyfriend's going to take me here." All of these story-led, personal-led personal brands are everywhere.
[00:01:22] Everyone is talking about building a personal brand, and it is a trend at the moment, as everything is. If we look back to 2020, the trend at the time was just doing 1,000 mini trainings on your stories. Does anyone remember those days? But right now, leading with your story and the personality of you and the personal-ness of things is really landing.
The Trust Recession and Why People Buy From the Person Behind the Expertise
[00:01:52] I know other people will go against it and say, "Don't share anything personal," and, "Don't share your personal life in your stories." There are so many narratives in the online space, and you have to take everything with a pinch of salt and do it how you want to do it.
[00:02:09] But I wanted to look at what actually is happening when we tell stories and when we lead from this personal content, because something is happening in the brain of the woman reading your content, the woman consuming your content, listening to your podcast, reading your posts, all of these things.
[00:02:36] From an NLP perspective, stories actually bypass the part of the mind that resists. A lot of the time, your ideal client's subconscious is receiving your personal content in a completely different way to your educational content. In today's podcast episode, I want to look at what we do internally as the creator at the subconscious level to use this, but also strategically what's happening on the other side. This is where subconscious marketing really comes alive.
[00:03:08] Knowing the strategy and following the trend is one thing, but actually being the woman who can deliver it from that place, from a place that converts, is something else entirely. So let's jump in. Why are personal stories and personal brand content popping off right now? Why is this happening now?
[00:03:30] It's probably a question of, "Why is personal brand content suddenly the thing that is working?" For years and years, we have been told to lead with authority, to lead with expertise, to lead with three steps, to have educational content. I think a few things are happening at the same time.
[00:03:54] The first thing that I feel I have to talk about, even though I don't massively lean into this nor believe it, is this whole narrative around the trust recession. Everyone's talking about the trust recession all the time. The reason it has become a trend to talk about is because right now there is so much content online.
[00:04:20] There is so much expertise. There are so many coaches with the same framework, the same systems, and the same methods, and a lot of people have been burnt. I have so many clients come to me where we have to do subconscious work on how they feel about investing and being with a coach even before we begin.
[00:04:43] I know so many of you have invested in courses that might not have delivered or hired someone who didn't give you what you thought you were going to get. I know that has happened. At the moment, standing out as being the expert was really working, but now people are really buying the person behind the expertise. Quite frankly, I think that has been the case since day dot.
[00:05:09] That has literally led my business from when I began. People buy into me as a human, as a crazy sunshine energy, all of these things. It's really important to show that, and this is something to think about as you sell on social media. Granted, I also fell foul to just being in the expertise and not sharing my stories. Quite a few of my clients recently have said things to me like, "I felt really like your best friend at that point," or, "Knowing more about your story about how you and Jack got together was really helpful."
[00:06:00] So we know that people are buying the person behind the expertise, because quite frankly, when you look at it, everyone is teaching more or less the same thing, and you can find all the information everywhere nowadays. AI has made it so available everywhere. So what is the difference?
[00:06:25] People right now want to know who you are. They do want to know what you know, and obviously that is a really important part of the sales process, which is something I teach in NLP qualification. We have a full understanding of the strategies of how people buy. But people want to know who you are. They want a taste of that. They want to be behind the scenes.
[00:07:06] So that's the first thing. The trust recession has had a big impact on what social media is looking like right now. Subconscious marketing is becoming the way through it.
How AI Killed Educational Content and Made Your Personal Stories More Valuable
[00:07:06] The second thing, and I have kind of already said this, is AI. It has made generic content completely worthless. Anyone can generate five tips for X, Y, Z. Anyone can produce three steps to consistent income. It's very easy to shove it into AI, and sometimes when I'm scrolling Reels looking for a trend in audio, it's just like, how many times are we going to say the same thing? Anyone can do that.
[00:07:50] The only thing that cannot be replicated is your story. Funnily enough, around this time last year, one of my clients asked if I would look into creating an AI version of me, a Becky AI bot or something to help coach in. I said, "No. Absolutely not." Because AI cannot get the depth and understanding that I can from a human perspective.
[00:08:14] No matter how much you put your brand voice into AI, the only thing that is completely and entirely yours is your story. It's your specific experience, the specific moments that you've been through, the things that have happened to you that nobody else has lived in quite the same way. I think that's magic.
[00:08:53] There's something magic about that, and that is why I will guarantee if you go and have a look at your social media right now, the posts where you've talked about your story and led into education from that place, because we still want to educate, we still want to give value, have done so much better than just a standard educational post. This is why storytelling in sales is having such a moment, and it's a core piece of how I sell on social media every single week.
[00:09:00] Thirdly, and this is where it gets really interesting from a subconscious perspective, the human brain has been wired for story since before language existed. If you just think, the very first thing that you do with your newborn is share stories. Stories are a massive part of our life. This is ancient, ancient, ancient. Stories are how we have always transferred meaning. We've built trust. We've decided who is safe to follow.
How Storytelling in Sales Bypasses Your Ideal Client's Mental Gatekeeper
[00:09:39] If we look from an algorithm perspective, it has started to reflect this. I know obviously I am well in the algorithm of personal stories, so your algorithm might not be at the moment. But I really do think that times and tides are turning on social media, and storytelling in sales is what's actually landing.
[00:10:03] From the perspective of what's actually happening in the brain of the woman reading your content, in the subconscious world, we talk about something called the critical factor, the gatekeeper. You might have heard it as the gatekeeper or the analytical mind. Think of the critical factor as the gatekeeper that sits between your conscious and your subconscious mind.
[00:10:29] The gatekeeper's job is to analyse, and evaluate, and filter everything that comes in. I always literally imagine a little gatekeeper. I don't know why, but in my head, I see the guy from The Wizard of Oz when they're trying to get in to see the Wizard. Anyway, side note. The gatekeeper's job is to decide, "Is this true? Does this match what I already believe? Is this safe?"
[00:11:08] When you put out educational content and just lead from that, the tips, the framework, the expertise training, the critical factor, your gatekeeper, is fully engaged. It's reading it, assessing it, comparing it. It's thinking, "Does this match what I've heard before? Do I already know this? Is this relevant to me?" It's very analytical. Because it's evaluating, a lot of the time there will be more resistance there because the subconscious mind is actually deciding whether to let the information in.
[00:12:00] What happens with a story is that the story bypasses the gatekeeper entirely. Stories are so powerful, so magical. Metaphors, stories. The last two podcast episodes I did were quite heavily led by stories. If you haven't listened to those, I'll pop them in the show notes. I really led from both of my stories there.
[00:12:40] When you tell a story, it sounds like, "I remember sitting in my car. It was September, and I'd just got off a call, and I was crying because I thought this was never going to work." The critical factor doesn't engage in the same way, because I'm not asking you to evaluate any information. I'm inviting you into an experience that I've had. The subconscious, which processes experience, emotion, imagery and narrative, receives it directly.
The Milton Model and Why Vague, Story-Led Language Converts
[00:13:06] Without going too far into it, but I think it's important for you to know, this is what we call in NLP the Milton model. It's named after a very powerful, incredible man called Milton Erickson. He was a psychiatrist and a hypnotherapist. The reason it's named after him is because he discovered that the most powerful way to create change was through this artfully vague, permissive language that allowed the subconscious to fill the gaps in with its own meaning.
[00:13:48] He noticed that when you tell someone exactly what to think, which a lot of people do on social media, where you're speaking at your ideal clients rather than to them, "Here's the answer, here's the truth, here's what you need to do," that gatekeeper engages and boom, resistance is there.
[00:14:09] But when you use language that's slightly open, slightly suggestive, slightly indirect, the gatekeeper relaxes, and the subconscious mind almost leans in to fill the space. Telling a story is the most natural Milton model tool there is. This is storytelling in sales at its most powerful, and it's at the core of every piece of subconscious marketing I create.
[00:14:35] Let me think of an example. When I say, "I remember the moment that I truly, truly realised the problem was never the strategy. I was sitting at my desk. I had floor-to-ceiling windows. I was looking out, and I thought, oh my God, it's me. I'm getting in my own way." Even when I'm telling that story and giving you an example, what I would imagine has just happened for you is that your subconscious immediately starts searching for its own version of that moment.
[00:15:07] Your own realisation. Maybe you've had that realisation, and you go back to exactly where you were, or its own equivalent experience. Not once did I tell you what to think. I didn't say, "Your problem is not the strategy. It's you." What I said is, "I remember the moment that I really realised that the problem was never the strategy. I was getting in my own way. I feel that pit in my stomach where I just sat at my computer, and I thought, it's me. It's me that's getting in my own way."
[00:15:30] Boom, I have opened a door, and your subconscious has walked through it and found something that's completely personal to you. That's literally the Milton model in action, and there's a lot more to it, but we won't go into it during this podcast episode. If you do want to learn, I would come be an NLP practitioner within the Subconscious Institute. It will blow your mind.
Your Story Does Not Need to Match Your Client's Experience Exactly
[00:15:55] This is why your story does not have to be perfectly matched to your ideal client's experience. I do get a lot of my clients ask, "Can I tell this story, because it kind of doesn't connect, and they're not really going through it?"
[00:16:17] What happens is that the story just has to open the right door. Her subconscious will do the rest. I'm sure there are many podcasts, books, TV programmes and films that you've watched where you fill your own story into what you're watching. This is why your ideal client's subconscious is receiving your personal content in a completely different way to your educational content.
[00:16:48] The teaching post has to go through the gatekeeper, and the story walks straight past it and leaves an effect.
Your Personal Stories Sign Clients and Your Tips Get Saved
[00:17:10] Why this matters so much for actually converting clients is because when your ideal client reads your educational post, her conscious mind is deciding whether this information is useful. When she reads your story, her subconscious is actually deciding whether you are her person.
[00:17:34] The conscious mind reads the post and thinks it's interesting and saves it, but the subconscious reads the story. It feels something shift. That's what sends the DM. That's the difference between content that gets bookmarked and content that helps you sell on social media every single day.
[00:17:34] A lot of the time, the story is what connects people. Throughout my business, I've had different stories that I lead with.
Real Examples of Stories That Have Converted Clients in My Business
[00:17:34] Back in the day, when I first started my business, my biggest story was how I'd gone to Australia with £1,000 and one suitcase. If anyone was in my audience back then, and I know there are a few of you that have been with me since then, you will be able to relay that story back to me. I know you will.
[00:18:00] At that time, I had so many people come to work with me, and they would actually say that it was that story alone that made them jump into working with me. There are so many times where a personal story you tell has this effect. For example, podcast 100, where I tell my story of what actually happened in a breakup I was going through, is one of the most listened to podcast episodes across the entire podcast.
[00:18:47] I've been doing this podcast since 2020, so we're now 6 years in, and it's still the most listened to. These stories are really what's leading people to know you, yes, and it's important, but they also lead the client to understand, "Wow, she was where I am now. She was feeling the way I am now. And look at her. Okay." That's what makes people move. That's what storytelling in sales does, and it's the engine behind smart subconscious marketing.
[00:19:14] Now you've got the concept, and maybe you're starting to think of a few stories that are coming up for you that you could tell, which would have quite a big impact on how you could lead in. This isn't me saying stop educational content. You can educate through stories all the time. You can.
The Oxytocin Effect and Why Resonance Beats Expertise
[00:19:31] When you understand what your ideal client's subconscious is actually doing when she reads your stories, that's what takes us another layer deeper. Your subconscious all the time is running a very sophisticated pattern-matching process.
[00:19:59] What the subconscious does, and you will now see yourself doing it now you know this, is comparing your story to her own experience. The stories that you tell your ideal clients are comparing her story to yours. It's looking, not in the way of falling down the comparison scroll hole. It's just going, "Where in my story can I feel or have I felt the same?"
[00:20:23] It's looking for resonance. It's looking for the feeling of, "Yeah, that's exactly it. She knows what this is like," which is why Podcast 100 goes down in history. Quite frankly, I've never really said this online, but I have a lot of people still to this day message me who are unhappy in their relationships or know that they may not be in the right relationships, asking for more of my story, for hope or for understanding what they should do.
[00:21:00] Not that I ever tell them what they should do, but it opens the door because they're like, "Oh my God, that is exactly where I am. That's what I'm going through. She knows what this is like." When people find that resonance, this is why we have these groups, something very specific happens.
[00:21:29] First of all, your ideal client's brain will release oxytocin, which is the trust hormone, the bonding hormone. It's literally the same hormone that is released when you hug someone you love or you feel truly understood by another person. This is why so many people message me and say, "Bec, your content, you see me, you hear me, you feel me, you get me."
[00:21:57] Your story is creating a neurochemical experience. I know we're getting a little bit scientific here, but it's creating trust in the body of the woman who is reading it. I will tell you, you cannot create that with a tip or a step-by-step framework. Again, I'm not saying that every single post that you do has to be a story, but you can create it by being so specific and so honest and so fully yourself in what you share, to an extent, and I will talk about that.
[00:22:32] When you're sharing it, her subconscious goes, "She knows. She's been here. She's not just teaching this from a textbook, she's actually lived this. She's a walking, talking version." When this happens, that oxytocin fires and she's open in a way that no amount of expertise could create.
[00:22:57] That's why the women who are creating in this way and converting right now might not be the most knowledgeable, but they are the ones whose subconscious people feel safe to be around. When their stories create the most resonance, and when that content makes our ideal client feel seen the most, or moved the most, or shifted the most, that's really powerful. That's why storytelling in sales beats expertise every time.
How to Feel Safe Being Fully Seen When You Share Your Story
[00:23:27] That's the perspective from the ideal client side. Obviously, I want to look at you in this situation, because sometimes telling your story or getting it out online can feel a little bit vulnerable, and a little bit different. Maybe different to what you've been doing.
[00:23:50] A lot of people will look and scroll and hear this and go, "Great, I need to tell more stories." They'll go and tell a personal story, but they'll tell it from the same internal subconscious place that they were creating the educational content from. What we need to look at is the subconscious underneath that.
[00:24:10] The stories that are converting, the way that it's working on social media, we have left the age of perfectly crafted content. So much so that I made a very conscious decision to not create carousels in the same way anymore. When you're telling your story, it needs to feel fully in your body when you tell it. You need to do enough subconscious work that being fully seen in your story does not feel dangerous. That's the work we want to do. That's the work I've been working on too, and I know I've spoken about this before.
[00:25:03] A lot of the time, there's this visibility block that sits directly in the way of that. Somewhere your subconscious has learnt, and it definitely did through mine, through years of experience, through years of the performing arts industry, through years of where I stood in rooms and I was judged, that being fully seen is dangerous.
[00:25:24] I held a lot of belief systems from the performing arts industry and the fact that I had to put on this show and be the performer. The more visible you become, the more exposed to rejection you are. A lot of my clients go through this.
[00:25:56] When you share your story, we can connect it in a different way. I want you to feel safe sharing your story to the extent that you want to tell it. Like I said, we don't have to share everything. We don't have to share exactly what we're going through at the moment, or you can. That is working also at the moment.
[00:26:14] A lot of people go, "Oof, that's going to hinder my expertise or my authority." I think if you do it in the right way, it absolutely doesn't. This is the heart of subconscious marketing that actually converts.
Build Subconscious Evidence That Telling Your Story Is Safe
[00:26:14] What I want you to look at is building subconscious evidence. I told one of my clients this the other day. Sometimes we have to post to build the evidence that we are safe. The more you can test these things out, and I do think social media is getting messy at the moment, it's trial and error, it's seeing what's working.
[00:26:52] Look at it from a data perspective, but actually from a subconscious perspective, the first thing I want you to do when you think about telling your story or showing up in a different way is to know that whatever you've been doing is going to feel really habitual. This was the biggest thing for me. I have been doing the same sort of style posts and the same sort of creation online for many years. Doing something different did feel a little bit unknown to me, and it did take more cognitive energy. However, it was way more enjoyable. So that's the first thing, just know going into this that habits run deep and we get to change that.
[00:27:37] Then I want you to look at what your subconscious currently believes about you being fully seen. You might not consciously see it. You might consciously be like, "I want to share more. I want to be more authentic." But what's actually going on underneath? Is it the judgement? Is it the rejection? Is it that the real you is too much or too specific to you? Because until that belief is updated, storytelling is almost just another strategy your subconscious is going to find a way to water down, and you won't end up telling your story.
[00:28:16] The second thing, kind of what I said, is this subconscious evidence. Every time you post something that feels like the real story, saying the thing that you want to say, showing up without the polished, going through it 100 times, and the world doesn't end and you don't die, let's collect the evidence around that. This is the RAS at work. You're teaching it new data, and over time, that new data overrides the old belief.
[00:28:40] That's what I really want you to do here, because it's so magical at the moment. Social media is full of magic at the moment. I really see that from this personal brand and personal perspective and taking people on the journey with you.
[00:28:55] Hopefully this has given you a whistle stop into the strategy behind what's happening in the trends. I might start doing this a little bit more. When I say strategy, I mean subconscious strategy. We can talk about actual strategy, but this Milton Model, the stories, the neuroscience, the reason your stories are converting better than your education, it ain't no mystery to me. We've got the evidence.
[00:29:20] I really want you to create trust, and resonate, and build the oxytocin in more ways than a step-by-step framework will ever do. As with everything that I teach, the strategy only works when the subconscious underneath it is on board, and that's the foundation of subconscious marketing that actually moves people. So when you're telling the story from the woman who is actually safe being seen, who's not watering it down, who is the fullest version of herself in every single word, and I can do a podcast episode on that if that's going to be helpful.
[00:30:00] I know it wasn't necessarily what I was talking about today, but if this landed, share it with the woman in your world who has been hiding behind her stories or needs to hear this. If you would like more episodes like this, let me know over on Instagram. If we don't follow each other, it's @rebeccahaydon. I love you lots, and I'll see you in the next episode.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!