What Your Business Can Learn From Kevin Bacon’s celebrity experiment

Many years ago, Hollywood celebrity Kevin Bacon wanted to know what it would be like to not be famous.

Kevin Bacon

He hires a Hollywood make-up artist to create a disguise that would make him unrecognizable to fans.

Then he went to, The Grove, an L.A. mall to try it out.

In an interview in the Telegraph, “People didn’t bother me, but they also ignored me. No one was nice to me—they looked right through me, and pushed in front of me…”

Bacon’s experiment reminds us of why it’s so imperative for you to become a celebrity in your industry.

With a celebrity status, you won’t be ignore. Events and people seek you out instead of by advertising which means clients come to you. And you don’t have to worry about less experience competitors with fewer credentials pushing you out!

Making yourself the face of your company and becoming a celebrity is quite simply, the most efficient, least expensive, most fulfilling, and fun way to differentiate yourself from everybody else.

This celebrity differentiation will help:

• People will recognize you in your niche, often making you their only choice.
• Give you authority where people will not only respect your advice, but pay you handsomely for it.
• Cause consumers to seek you out rather than you seeking them out.
• Make you more appealing so that people want to be around you and associate with you.

Here are four tips for making yourself into a celebrity that will help make your business the recognizable “go-to” source in your market.

1)      Be The Face of Your Company. What company do you think of when I say: Steve Jobs? Walt Disney? Bill Gates? Donald Trump? Personality makes you different from every other lawyer, restaurant owner, financial advisor,  doctor, etc.

Consumers enjoy getting to know, like and trust people. So when you become the face of your company people will associate your business with doing business with you, even if they are speaking to one of your employees, get it?

2)      Climb the ladder of expertise. Personal branding expert, Bert Martinez points out that every business person in your category is required to meet certain basic criteria to work in your field.

For example, a doctor must go to med school and pass the their exams. When you raise yourself up by going beyond the minimum requirements and do “celebrity-type-things” such as writing a book or serving on a high profile committee, you move yourself up another rung above everybody else who isn’t doing those things.

3)      Be A Specialist. Who would you choose to help you with solving an issue? Someone who specializes in the issue or someone who has general knowledge, but doesn’t necessarily deal with your particular issue all the time?

For example, if you have gum disease and need gum surgery, do you want your general practitioner dentist or a periodontist who specializes in gum surgery?

Not only will you stand out as the clear choice, but specialists get paid more than generalists.

4)      Promote Your Expertise. You can be the best at what you do. You can be the most qualified with the most credentials. But if you don’t let your market know, then you’ll look just the same as everybody else in your field.

You must let your market know about your expertise. Alert the media with newsworthy awards, honors or events often. Offer to  speak at events or to organizations where your target market is present in order to showcase your expertise and make yourself well-known in your niche. Display awards and credentials on websites.

Your market has to know who you are if you want them to seek you out. Making yourself a celebrity will help you accomplish this—and it’s much faster, fulfilling, and less expensive than other methods you could use. Plus because no one can be you, you can forever protect your company and avoid it falling into the me-too-sameness trap that is met with massive unresponsiveness.