Creating Clarity Newsletter # 006

Hey there 👋🏻

I wrote my first book, CareerKred, to help professionals develop their personal brand. It lists the four steps every brand must go through to build a powerful brand, but what it also does is position you as an expert in your space.

The book Positioning by Al Reis and Jack Trout defines Positioning as:

“What you do in the mind of the prospect.”

In other words, positioning happens in the mind of others. While others control how they see your brand in their mind, you can influence their perception by helping people understand who you are, what you do, and the problems you solve.

Another way to look at position is that positioning is when people think about you when your area of expertise comes up.

🎯 Positioning has three parts

After helping hundreds of entrepreneurs get clear about their business and brand, I can tell you without hesitation many of them struggle with positioning because they only focus on one thing…

👉🏻 Audience.

When it comes to crafting a perception in others minds, you need to know who’s mind you are looking to influence. Without understanding who you serve, you cannot create a position in someone’s mind. Not knowing who you serve will create confusion around your positioning. What is it Ryan does again?

👉🏻 Message.

Once you know who you serve, it’s essential to craft a message that resonates with them. The “we help everyone” stance doesn’t work when it comes to positioning you brand in the mind of others. When you try you get lost in a sea of sameness.

While it may be true that you can help many people with your offer, you should target your message at a specific audience and no one else. If you don’t do this, you’ll craft generic messaging that doesn’t resonate deeply with anyone.

👉🏻 Offer.

If you sell a service, you are selling something that is invisible. As a result, you need to use words, sometimes many words, to describe what you do. The more words you use, the easier it is for people to get lost or confused and if you confuse them during your explanation, you’ll lose them as a client.

One way to avoid this is to visualize your offer. A visual offer does two things for you from a positioning standpoint.

First, it allows others to “see” your service and how you help.

Second, the image becomes ingrained in their mind.

It takes a little work to visualize your offer, but we all have a process we follow to create results whether we know it or not. Turn your process into a visual and you’re well on your way to helping people remember you.

It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, to create a powerful position in someone’s mind about your brand, all three parts of positioning need to be cohesive.

If any one of the three are off, you’ll create confusion. And if you confuse, you lose. 

That wraps up this week’s edition.

Cheers 🍸,

Ryan