The Power of Positioning - Samantha Riley

[00:00:00] I'm Samantha Riley from Samantha riley.global, and today I'm a guest on the Inspiring Influencers Show. Welcome to the Inspiring Influencers Show, Paul and Jennifer Hansel host interviews with inspiring thought leaders, storytellers, entrepreneurs. And legacy builders just like you. Learn from experts about finding your voice, mastering your mindset, and creating movements with your message.

[00:00:26] Enjoy uplifting stories and powerful strategies. Get ready to transcend to new levels of success, happiness, and joy.

[00:00:36] Welcome everyone. Jennifer Hensel here from the Inspiring Influencer Show. I'm so thrilled to introduce. Today, her name is Samantha Riley. She's gonna be talking to us about the power of positioning using your diamond factor to be positioned as the unapologetic leader in your industry. Samantha Riley is an authority, positioning strategist, bestselling author, speaker, host of [00:01:00] Influenced by Design podcast, and she has built multiple businesses over the past 28 years and grew her first seven figure business from the ground up before she was.

[00:01:11] Samantha now works with experts and change makers to become the unapologetic leader in their industry and build their elegant empire. Thank you so much for being here, Samantha. It is such a thrill to meet with you face to face. I know. Finally, after all this time. It's so cool to be here. Oh, I'm just so thrilled to have you on the show today.

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[00:01:35] So I just did your bio and let everybody know what you're about, but I want to hear your story. Do you know, I don't even know your full story. I know a little snippet of it, but if you could share your story of how you got started, because I know you've had so much success and you've done, you've created so many businesses, and I'd love for you to share your journey with our audience.

[00:01:55] Yeah, well, I'll share just a little snippet so that we don't put everyone to sleep. . [00:02:00] I've been in business since the early nineties. I know I don't look old enough, but , but I've been around for quite a while and my very first business was a dance studio. And the reason that I went into that industry is because I danced all my life.

[00:02:16] I had two little. They were like one and one and two at the time, and I was working in a corporate government position and I absolutely hated it. And I di and I wasn't seeing my children enough and I wasn't happy. And I was just like, No, this has gotta stop. So the first thought that went through my mind is what business could I start?

[00:02:37] Now, this is not the way that I recommend anyone start a business, but that was, you know, this is a big learning for me and I just went, Hmm, I've danced all my life. I'll open a dance studio. The reason it wasn't the right question to ask is because I went into business to spend more time with my children and ended up working the most ridiculous amount of hours because you teach dancing when there's no [00:03:00] school.

[00:03:00] So I would be at the dance studio till 10 o'clock every night and all weekend. But anyway, I did do that for 20 years. Very early in the piece of having my dance studio. I also. Discovered there wasn't any dance wear stores, uh, locally to my studio. So it made it very difficult for my, uh, students' parents to go and get their, dance, their uniforms.

[00:03:24] So we opened up a dance wear store that turned into two that turned into. Three. This obviously all happened over a 20 year period, so that was, So being in the dance wear industry is what I did for such a long time. And then back in 2010, I separated from my husband at the time who was my business partner.

[00:03:43] And we seperated, we split the businesses apart. I sold the dance studio. I didn't want to work after hours anymore. And uh, in there I'd also been in the health and wellness. I do a lot of stuff. I get bored very easily if you can't tell . [00:04:00] And, what was happening around that time, over that 2010 11, period was I would run retreats now, health and wellness retreats over, you know, two and a half days to help people really live a life they love and, you know, healthy wellness.

[00:04:17] There was mindset and nutrition and, meditation, relationship. Just so that that, you know, they came out feeling great and getting back into their lives. One of the big parts or one of the, the topics that we used to cover was career. Because career is something that so many people, don't enjoy about their life and that bleeds into all these other areas of their life.

[00:04:43] And what keep coming up, retreat, after retreat, after retreat was saying, That's really great. I don't like my job. How do I start a business? And organically, without even trying, I ended up with more business coaching clients. And that is how I transitioned into

[00:05:00] business coaching. And since then, I've. Focused and niche into helping experts become positioned as the unapologetic leader in their industry.

[00:05:10] So yeah, lots of ebbs and flows and different things that's taught me so many different lessons that's helped me to show up, I guess, as the person that I am today. Oh, wow. What a journey. What a journey. What a story's story. Thank. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. Now, can you give us some tips, because a lot of our audience, they're, maybe they're podcasters and they haven't monetized yet, or maybe they're, they're just coming into this industry and they're finding out how can they position themselves to really be the authority in their niche?

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[00:05:43] Mm-hmm. , talk to us about that. Totally. So I use a framework called the Diamond Factor, and the reason I've called it the diamond factor is because, As well. I'm gonna say this isn't every female, but just about every female in my [00:06:00] world loves nothing than to to have a diamond. You know, they sparkle, they shine brightly, they attract eyeballs, and that is what we want our positioning to be like.

[00:06:09] We wanna shine bright. Now the other thing about diamonds is, And you may not know this, but every diamond's unique. There's no one diamond that's the same as another diamond. And that's the same as our positioning. So we want to be positioned in a unique way so that we stand out and we shine brightly.

[00:06:27] Now, the, the global way that, diamonds are graded, is the, what they call the four Cs. It's the cut, the clarity, the color, and the carrot. And that's how a diamond's. And we can use this same framework to position ourselves in the industry. So let's start off with the first one, and that's the cut. And the cut of the diamond is what turns the diamond into what generally looks like a.

[00:06:56] You know, a piece of it doesn't look like a rock. It kind of looks like a crystal quar. [00:07:00] When diamond comes out of the ground, it doesn't sparkle. It needs to be cut and have so that the, the face of it's cut in a certain way so that it reflects the light so that the cut refracts the light in different ways.

[00:07:12] So this is what we want to do. It's, to bring in all of the different aspects of our knowledge, of our experience of. The different, experience we've had in our career and also in our life because this is what has us standing out and is different to everyone else. Even someone else that's worked in dance wear or fitness or retreats like I've done are going to be completely different because of the stories that I share and the frameworks that I put together.

[00:07:44] So that first one, that cut is to get that cut through and really, You know, share those different aspects of ourself in a very authentic. Then second we have clarity. So clarity is the clarity [00:08:00] of the diamond so that when you're looking at it through a microscope, you get to see where all the, the, the things are that aren't so perfect with the diamond.

[00:08:09] Uh, For clarity, the way that we are going to take this is the clarity in our message. Our message and how we explain what we do is the most important part of our positioning. A lot of people explain how they do what they do, so when people say, Oh, Jennifer, what, what is it that you do? You could say something like, you know, I'm a podcaster and what I do is I get up at 9:00 AM and I put these podcasts together and I cut this and I do this.

[00:08:40] And a lot of people do that in coaching. They explain their process, which is totally not the right way to do it. So to get clarity of our message, it's about explain. Who we help and the outcome that we help them achieve. So getting really clear on that, and even if someone does ask you, Oh, [00:09:00] you know, what do you do?

[00:09:00] Or How do you do that? They don't actually mean how, What they mean is, how does that relate to me? And what outcome am I likely to expect? So that's the clarity. Then the third C is color, and this is the visual aspect of your branding and the visual aspect of your branding needs to be recognizable. So we need to make sure that we're using the same colors, the same font, or the same typeface, the same sort of templates.

[00:09:30] So that if someone's scrolling through social media, they can tell straight away whose, whose visual branding that is. But also our images, uh, anything that we put together, it needs to align and support the message that we're talking about. What's really interesting is, just before we did this interview, my husband and I were scrolling through social media looking for something and he, he opened up someone's profile and I looked at the profile picture and I said, Who's that?

[00:09:59] It looked [00:10:00] like an image of someone from the early eighties, but like in, you know, like Russia in the early eighties. They had this specific look and the, what this person said they did was visual brand. And specifically helping people to, style themselves. And I kind of looked at it and went that, that just doesn't match.

[00:10:22] The visuals don't match, you know, the, like what's there. So our color is our visual branding and making sure that everything is matched and aligned. And then the fourth sees carrot. And carrot is the weight of the diamond. So, I like to think about this as the weight of all of your IP or your intellectual property.

[00:10:45] So if you had a book, if you had, you know, printouts of all your transcripts, of your, of your interviews, all of your blogs, all of your worksheets, frameworks, if that was all in a big. Folder and it just [00:11:00] boof down on the table. What is the thud factor of that? What's the weight of that? And when you bring together these four aspects, the cut, the clarity, the color, and the carrot, you are able to position yourself.

[00:11:12] So you are unique and you stand out from the crowd. Wow. I absolutely love that analogy. That is brilliant. That is absolutely brilliant. And what a way to help people understand. In a way that's understandable because you know, there's a lot of stuff coming at business owners these days. So many things to choose from, and you've narrowed it down in a way to focus so that they can actually achieve this.

[00:11:39] That's so brilliant. Now can you tell us how can people connect with you and, and go to the next level with this? How can you help them break? Yeah, so this is just one of the frameworks that I use in, in how I help experts to position themselves. I was talking about, you know, how we are unique and how to [00:12:00] bring those stories out and how to bring that visual branding out and, and all of the frameworks.

[00:12:05] And I use a modality called human design that underpins it. I'm not a human design expert in that I don't just deal with human design, but we use human design in our business to really help people to understand what makes them unique. So it actually makes it easier to extract all of this information and, you know, slaughter into the right places.

[00:12:29] So, I have a, a free guide called The Human Design Advantage that really helps you to understand how to bring in the different stories, depending on what your unique design is. So you can go and get that at SamanthaRiley.global/advantage and in there there's a little link so that you can get your unique blueprint, so that you can have a look and it explains in there like this is your diamond factor.

[00:12:58] This is what does your diamond, so that you can start to understand and bring all these pieces together. Oh, that's so amazing. That's such a huge help for our audience. Thank you so much. So, so now I really want people to get to know you a little more though. I find this just amazing and compelling to know about you because I've known you for a couple years now and I've seen you sparkle yourself, so I know that you practice what you preach, right?

[00:13:23] Yeah, totally. And so tell us a little more about yourself. You're from Australia, is that right? Correct. So in Australia we are living, we are living the, the perfect Australian lifestyle. We live near the beach and we live in an area where, uh, most people come to vacation. So it's, we we're just living the dream here.

[00:13:44] Oh, that sounds so amazing. But you do come over sometimes. Mm-hmm. to North America. Over here. I'm in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Up in the, uh, northwest area of the continent. So, So you do come over to the US [00:14:00] Totally. We head over to the US quite often, have not over covid and are really looking forward to heading back there soon.

[00:14:06] Have not spent nearly enough time in Canada. So I'll give you a, like a little fun fact. My, uh, my husband and I are austral. We got, he proposed to me. Uh, so obviously I'm married. Uh, for the second time. After my original story, he proposed to me on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, uh, when we were there running an event and we decided, well, how do we do better than that?

[00:14:29] So we decided to get married on the top of me, Madden Hall Glacier in Alaska. So when, So, uh, to get to Juno, the only way that you can do that is by boat. So we cruised up to Alaska, so we have stopped at. Oh, Victoria, bc. and that is all we've done in Canada. Just went to that one place and went, We have to come back.

[00:14:54] You, From what we've seen, Canada looks like the most stunning place. Oh, we'd love to have you. We'd [00:15:00] love to have you. So, yeah, that's great. Well, what a story. So you've had some, some experience here and maybe you can come back and and speak for us here in Vancouver, bc We're just across the water from Victoria and it's beautiful here as well.

[00:15:14] So we'd love to have you. But, okay, so, So now all of these links will be on the show notes@inspiring.show. So we can put all your links there as well. And if you're listening to this on the audio, you can come and watch the video over there and catch all of Samantha's lead magnets and we'll put the links for those in the show notes.

[00:15:34] And then also, Samantha, is there anything else you'd like to add? How our audience can connect with you, how they can work with you. Because I know you just had me on your other podcast that you do. Yes. Right? Yes. Well, I've got two podcasts. So we had you, on an influencer panel on the next Level Influence show the I co-host with Melanie Benson.

[00:15:55] Definitely go listen to that episode. It was amazing. And [00:16:00] I also have a podcast called Influence by Design and that's where I, interview experts all around how to influence more people using you, your unique human design. So, yeah, and you are going to be on that show soon. Wonderful. So many ways to connect.

[00:16:17] So thank you so much for being here today and for sharing your wisdom with our audience. Thanks, Jennifer.