This week we’re talking about your brand positioning statement. How do you write one for your business? Why is this important?
WHY YOU NEED A BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT
Your brand positioning statement is your way to tell the world what it is about you, your brand, and your business that is different. What is special about your company? The reason your customers need to know why your business is special is that they need to know how to choose what’s for them.
They need to know if they should pick your business or the competition. Those choices are not easy because a lot of businesses start to sound the same. A lot of people start to sound the same. When you’re out there choosing a product, how do you know what’s different?
WHAT IS YOUR BRAND MESSAGE?
It’s a lot like walking through a grocery store. Imagine you go down the condiments aisle. You’re looking for ketchups and mustards, and none of those had labels. Imagine all you saw were red and yellow bottles of mustard and ketchup. How would you know what to pick?
If there was not any type of branding and you didn’t hear any of their messaging that explained to you what it was about those catch-ups that made them right for you, you wouldn’t know what to pick. The only thing you could do is go ahead, take a risk and buy one, taste it, see if you liked it, and then go back and buy a different one.
You’d have to keep on trying things until they fit for you. We have the advantage as people who are building brands to go out there and tell people upfront what it is about us that is different, why it matters what those differences are and why they should choose your brand.
For the coaches out there and the people who are building personal brand businesses, what’s great is that the biggest differentiator in your company is you. A lot of people can help your audience with whatever problem it is that they need to solve, but what you bring to the table is your experiences, your perspective, and your own approaches that you’ve developed over time. They are special because of you.
A BRAND POSITIONING STATMENT CREATES A DIFFERENCE
Being able to explain that to people can be complicated. I understand why that’s a struggle. It’s hard to pinpoint why your way is better than someone else’s way of doing something. That’s what we’re going to clarify today, but I wanted to get to the core of why that’s important.
If you cannot explain to people in a way that is easy to understand what it is that makes you right for them, it’s going to be hard for them to want to choose you. It’s a very confusing space. Your job is to help them with that decision by developing your brand positioning statement.
IT HELPS YOU TO BECOME LESS GENERIC
We’ll go through the format of that in a moment. First, let’s talk about why this is so hard for people. Coming up with a brand positioning statement is a challenge because the format makes you think that you need to explain to people what it is about you that is great. What a lot of people lean into are the things that are pretty generic.
They like to say that they are the best quality or the lowest cost, or they have the best-looking thing, or they have the most effective way. All of those statements are hard to believe because they are vague. They sound like something anyone could say, and they don’t come from any sort of believable differentiation.
What I’m going to offer to you today is a simple way to get there and a way to think about it that might help you frame this for yourself. It is important that you come up with these things.
YOUR BRAND POSITIONING STATMENT ELIMINATES FEAR
Another challenge that people run into when trying to come up with these things is they tend to run into the problem of explaining the benefits of a program instead of explaining the differences. What happens when you explain the benefits of a program is you start to create this laundry list of things that are all the outcomes, benefits, and features of the thing that you’ve built without explaining what the difference is between that and someone else’s program.
A lot of that is fear. Either you fear that you’re going to pick the wrong thing in your list to highlight as the one, or it’s fear that if you just mentioned the one thing, it’s not going to be enough to convince somebody. It’s fear that the thing that you’ve explained as your one thing is not ownable and that anyone could say that.
TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT WHO YOU REALLY ARE
I can see why that would be a fear you would have. Maybe it’s a fear that you think that someone else does this better than you do. However, if you don’t pick that one thing, it’s going to be hard to really isolate what makes you special. You do have to hone in on it.
There are different ways to approach this, but I think you need to dive into who you are and take a good look at that. Compare yourself to other people. Think about what do you do well and what do other people do well. Why would you want to go with you versus someone else?
What is that one thing that’s different that you can own based on your experience, your history and how you operate? Think about your purpose and your mission. Bring all those to the table and say, “Which one of those things is actually going to bring success to somebody?”
RELATED: Build your personal brand with the Content Marketing Starter Guide.
SPECIFIC BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT EXAMPLES
I know this is a little vague, so I’m going to get you some specific examples, starting with photography. I love professional photographers. It’s a space that I have invested in. If you’re building your personal brand, you should get professional photography.
It’s very competitive. A lot of people are professional photographers, and these days they even have to compete with people that are taking pictures with their phones. The quality of phone photography has gotten so good.
When choosing a photographer, most people just pick one that they’ve been referred to by someone else, or who is local to them that they find who has good credentials. If you are a photographer positioning yourself to people, you have to explain to them what it is that makes you different than other photographers.
ASK YOURSELF THESE BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT QUESTIONS
What I think is important is you start by saying to yourself and framing in your mind something as simple as this: anyone can take your photo. Anyone can be your photographer. However, if you want to take quality pictures that you can use for your business, the one thing that matters is you pick a photographer that ________. You fill in the blank.
For this example, if you’re a photographer who is great with lighting, you might want to say, “The only thing that matters is that you pick a photographer that understands lighting. The lighting is going to be the difference between good pictures and bad pictures.
“Someone who understands that will put you in an environment that will have great lighting from top to bottom. I, as a photographer, have spent so many years focusing my entire world around lighting, et cetera…”
You have to fill those things in if that’s what the difference is. Bring to the table what you focus on and what the difference is.
DIFFERENT NARRATIVES BRING DIFFERENT QUESTIONS
Another photographer who takes family photos could say, “You can hire any photographer out there in the world and get good photos. If you want great photos, the only thing that matters is that you hire a photographer that understands what it’s like to be a mom.
“You want someone to understand how to take photos of families. They have to understand how to entertain the kids and to get them to look good in a photo, someone who understands how to get all four people smiling at the same time or how to pull the best types of poses out of family members that look natural and not awkward. I’ve been photographing families for 10 years. This is what my specialty is.”
See how that’s different? If you can hone in on that thing that’s special about you and brings that out as the important thing for a good or not good photo for your customer, it changes everything.
I’ll give you another example and then I’ll give you the template that you can use for developing your business right now.
A BRAND POSITIONING STATMENT HELPS YOU STAND OUT
Let’s say you’re a fitness trainer. I’m picking these, but there are so many industries that are just overfilled with so many quality candidates. Marketing is one of them too, but let’s stick with fitness. In the fitness space, there are so many people out there that understand fitness and nutrition and the know-how to bring to the table the things that will help you get results.
If you are coming into this space, you have to figure out what it is in your training that you think is the most important thing for them but that is also something that you specialize in, that you focus on. It has to be the key to them having success and to them reaching their goals.
Maybe that wouldn’t be something that means success for one person, but it would for another, and that’s what you’re focusing on. It’s supposed to be drawing them to you. Your brand positioning statement has to do with finding that thing that’s special about you and bringing in the right customers for you.
A BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT BRINGS THE PERFECT CLIENTS
For a fitness instructor, let’s say the focus is on longevity. In other words, this isn’t about people who want the results overnight, looking for huge, massive muscle gains or miraculous hundred-pound weight drops. These are people who are looking to learn about how to exercise for the rest of their life without breaking their bodies.
That person might say, “Anyone can help you understand how to exercise. Anyone can coach you on how to be fit. Anyone can coach you on how to eat. What if you want to be able to learn how to do that for the rest of your life and use exercises that will work for you even when you’re old and your body starts to betray you?
If you want to know the exercises that work over time without hurting your body as your body ages, you need to work with a trainer that teaches you these balanced routines that understand your muscles. I’m the trainer that does that because I focus on a mix of yoga and stretching, et cetera…”
TIE YOUR BELIEFS TOGETHER
You say you have this program and the reason that that’s important and why you’re better at it is that you’ve been focusing on this specific area for however many years. You have specifically gotten results for these kinds of people. It is your belief and your mission to make sure that people can work out for the rest of their lives.
You have to tie those things together in a way that says, “This exact thing is what’s going to make the difference for people who are looking for long-term fitness for the rest of their life.”
Someone else could say, “I’m somebody who focuses on immediate results and big gains. I want to make sure that you look your best and be your strongest within the next three months. We focus on understanding your body, how to build your muscles quickly, and whatever else. I do that because I’ve worked with weightlifters in the most professional settings for the past five years.”
You can see how they’re very different stories. Those stories come from your skills and your beliefs and apply to only certain people that are looking for that thing. Again, if you have to start with something that’s going to help make this clear for you, I would start with the idea that anyone can help you lose weight, anyone can help you get fit, but if you want to ______… You fill in the blank.
YOUR BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT IS SPECIAL TO YOU
You have to fill that in with what is really special with your program and you. Here’s a template for you to come up with this statement for yourself. This is my brand positioning statement that you can fill in for any of your businesses out there.
Start with your industry. Start with the thing that people want to accomplish. When trying to accomplish this goal, start with that. Think about what people are trying to accomplish and fill that in.
Then move on to the next thing, which is your key statement. You can say, “Anyone can teach you to XYZ. The key is this.” Lighting is the key, nutrition is the key, balanced exercise is the key. What is that thing? Fill it in.
Then move on to what is the thing that they’re trying to solve? Balance is the key to achieving long-term sustainable fitness, or proper diet and routine is the key to massive muscle gains in a short period of time.
Find something else for photography. Lighting is the key to beautiful professional headshots or comfort with your photographer, understanding family dynamics and setting the mood is the most important thing for great family photos.
THIS IS THE BRAND POSITIONING STATEMENT TEMPLATE
You have to fill in those three fill-in-the-blanks: your industry, the one difference if everything else was the same, and then the third is what the outcome is. What is that success for that particular person?
You fill those three things in and you have a brand positioning statement that will help you separate yourself from the crowd. Identify why you are the number one resource for the person who’s looking to solve a problem. It will help you gain confidence in how you explain yourself and how you find the words to tell people why they should choose you instead of the competition.
That’s the importance of your brand positioning statement. I hope you guys use some of these exercises today to continue to set yourself apart as a brand, to differentiate yourself, to find people that are the right people for you to continue to move forward and grow your business.
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