Don't Self-Promote, Idea-Promote: The Path to Getting Fully Booked in 2025
Insights from Branding Expert - Daniel Priestley
We all recognize the importance of building a brand, but here’s a question you might ask:
What if I don’t have a large following or I’m not naturally inclined toward self-promotion? Can I still create an impactful presence?
Just last week, I had a conversation with the CEO of a 20-year-old business. He acknowledged the growing significance of content creation but admitted, “It feels against my nature to show off to build a brand.”
Branding expert Daniel, who offers a different perspective that may help you change your mind:
“The goal of a Founder is NOT to self-promote—it’s to idea-promote.”
Unlike influencers showcasing lifestyles, founders or business owners can focus on sharing transformative ideas. For example:
“Let me show you something incredible: this was the way things were done before, and now look at how it’s evolving.”
By promoting ideas and sharing transformations, you can build a brand rooted in thought leadership, authenticity, and real value—without feeling like you’re boasting.
As we look ahead to 2025, the businesses that will thrive are those that can effectively communicate their ideas, solve problems, and create genuine value for their customers. Let's explore how you can position your business to be fully booked and in high demand by focusing on idea promotion and strategic growth.
Launch a Waiting List for Future Offerings
As we step into the new year, launching a waiting list for products or services planned for 2025 is one of the most impactful strategies you can use. This approach is effective for businesses across all industries, whether you're a life coach, software developer, or event organizer.
But a waiting list is more than just a collection of email addresses—it’s a chance to gather valuable insights from your potential customers. Use this opportunity to ask questions that reveal their expectations, frustrations, and desired outcomes. This feedback is invaluable for refining your offerings and setting the right price point.
For example, you might ask:
At what price would this product or service feel too expensive?
At what price would it feel so cheap that you wouldn’t trust its quality?
What specific problem are you trying to solve?
What have you tried in the past that didn’t work?
What outcome are you hoping to achieve?
These questions help you understand your audience’s price sensitivity, frustrations, and aspirations. Equipped with this knowledge, you can avoid common pitfalls like underpricing your offerings or misjudging your market’s needs.
For instance, when Daniel launched a book writing product, they assumed the price resistance point would be $29 or $39 per month. However, by directly asking the market, they uncovered insights that allowed them to price more effectively. Gathering this type of information early can be the key to successfully positioning your 2025 offerings and ensuring their appeal to your audience.
Educate Your Audience with Mini-Courses
Assume that your potential customers need some education before they're ready to buy.
Create short, focused mini-courses that provide value and showcase your expertise. These could be as simple as a 15-minute video or a series of blog posts on "How to Improve [Your Area of Expertise]."
By offering these educational resources, you position yourself as an authority in your field and warm up your audience to your paid offerings. People are more likely to buy from those they trust and perceive as knowledgeable.
And here’s our shameless plug! Our founding team - Angelina and Mehdi also runs an AI YouTube Channel - TwoSetAI, where we share the latest advancements in AI and tutorials on building with it. We’d love to hear what topics would interest and help you the most. Drop us a suggestion here!—we’re all ears!
Engage Through Online Assessments
“so people love taking online assessments so in the lead-up to buying something. People want to self assess how bad do I need this? Do I really need it? And an objective set of criteria where people can answer a few questions and then get a score.. people love that stuff.”
People love to gain insights about themselves. Tap into this by creating online assessments related to your product or service. These assessments can help potential customers self-diagnose their needs and understand how your offering could benefit them.
For example, if you're a fitness coach, you might create a "Fitness Readiness Assessment" that helps people understand their current fitness level and what steps they need to take to reach their goals.
This not only engages your audience but also naturally leads them towards your services. By providing this objective set of criteria, you enable them to see for themselves why they need what you offer—building trust and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
What can you do now?
Even if you don't have a large following yet, there are several strategies you can implement right now to start building your audience:
Launch a waiting list: Create anticipation for a future product or service by starting a waiting list. Use this opportunity to gather valuable insights about your audience's preferences and price sensitivity.
Create mini-courses: Develop short educational content that helps your audience solve a problem or improve a skill related to your offering.
Develop online assessments: People love self-assessments. Create a tool that helps your audience understand their needs or challenges related to your product or service.
Invest in Design and Visual Elements: Don't underestimate the power of great design. Once you've honed your offerings and processes, invest in making them visually appealing. High-quality photography, video, and graphic design can significantly boost the perceived value of your products or services.
Write a book to give away as lead magnet: Writing a book is one of the most effective tools to establish credibility, build trust, and deeply engage with your audience. As Daniel wisely puts it, “One of the reasons I write books is to give them away.” A book can serve as a lead magnet, drawing in potential clients and positioning you as an authority in your field.
While the idea of writing a book can feel overwhelming, you don’t have to do it alone. At Oscr AI, we specialize in helping users consolidate and organize information with the power of AI. Whether it’s pulling together past presentations, documents, manuscripts, or even audio and video content, we make the process seamless and manageable.
We’ve already supported many clients in turning their ideas into impactful books. Interested in writing yours? Email me at Angelina@oscr.tech—we’d love to help bring your vision to life!
Scale Through a Perfect Repeatable Week
Once you've found what works, the key to scaling is consistency. Develop a "perfect repeatable week" where you consistently execute the activities that drive results. This might include:
Posting a set number of content pieces (Of course, you can leverage Oscr 🤓)
Conducting regular introduction presentations
Running a consistent ad strategy
Remember, scaling often means doing the same things that work repeatedly. As Daniel puts it, "We get out of the fun phase, we get into the boring scale-up phase, and crank the handle, crank the handle, crank the handle."
The key is consistency. While it might feel repetitive to you, remember that for each new customer, it's a fresh and exciting experience.
Embrace the Digital Age's Opportunities
We're living in an unprecedented time where small teams can have a global impact. Traditional constraints of capital and labor are less relevant in the digital age. As Daniel notes, his small team of 25 people can serve thousands of customers across over 150 countries.
The future of business lies in leveraging intellectual property, media, software, data, and AI tools to solve problems on a global scale. By embracing these trends and focusing on creating genuine demand for your offerings, you can position yourself for long-term success in this new entrepreneurial landscape.
The secret sauce for staying in demand isn't about flashy marketing or constant reinvention. It's about understanding your customers, consistently delivering value, and building genuine connections with your audience. Start implementing these strategies today, and you'll be well on your way to creating a business that keeps customers coming back for more.
Again, at the end of today’s post, I’d like to shout out for Oscr:
Oscr is at your service!
We know that “authenticity” is king. And hence,
We specialize in the research phase of your content creation tasks.
We believe helping you digest, organize, and curate your source materials effortlessly and present you a good baseline will 10x and maybe 100x your throughput.
By streamlining this part of your workflow, you gain more time to focus on crafting compelling hooks, telling unique stories, and growing your business. If you’ve enjoyed Oscr so far, help us to share OSCR!
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P.S. Today’s post is generated with the help of Oscr. Thank you!🤓
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