As I’m sure you know in this day and age. As a business owner, you need to create a personal brand. Your personal brand starts with your positioning statement.
You’re probably sick to death of hearing about it, to be honest. And I understand. Everyone waffles on about a personal brand, but actually very few of those people even know what that really is or how to do that.
There are several elements of a personal brand, especially a good one that stands out. Each of those elements requires your attention, requires some thought on your part. It can’t just be a slapdash approach.
One of those things is what I’m going to talk about today. And that is your positioning statement.
What the hell is a positioning statement?
A positioning statement is just a fancy way of saying who you are and how you came to be what you are right now. But it’s a little bit more complicated than that. Although complicated is not really the right word for it, but there is a little more to it than that.
As well as it being a definition of you, who you are, and how you came to be in the place that you’re in, it is also who you are to your customer. And that’s the bit that people often leave out.
People love to talk about themselves but, nobody wants to hear about you. Your audience couldn’t care less about you, about who you are, what you are, and how you came to be. They only care when it becomes relevant to them. The customer wants to know who you are, to them. They want to know how you came to be in this place where you can serve them.
How to create your positioning statement
It can be difficult, at first, to figure out exactly how to go about it. How to come up with that positioning statement. So you start with the autobiographical approach.
The who
You start with who you are. So, who are you? What sort of person are you? What are your core values as an individual? What is your story? What have you done in your life? What have you achieved? What have you failed at? And, so on.
You need to think about those things. This is your backstory. So this was a movie, this is the character development stage. This is the bit that gives the actual character in that process depth. Figure out your backstory and figure out how your backstory has played a crucial role in shaping your entrepreneurial journey, in bringing you to this place where you do this thing. What have been your struggles and successes? What has been the motivation to do what you do now?
The story part is stuff you already have within you, you know who you are, You know how you came to be. You know how you came to be in this place that you’re in right now. Get it down, just write it down. Write yourself a mini-autobiography.
The what
Now that we’ve covered the “who” it is time to think about the “what.”
Figure out what your key strengths are, what your major highlights in your career have been, and what your biggest lessons in life have been. That’s the “what.”
That information is all embedded in your backstory, it’s all there. So, it’s not difficult to find once you’ve got your story written. Once you’ve got it all down on paper the data is there just waiting to be plucked out. So, figure out what your key strengths are and what the major highlights have been in your career so far.
These are the things that are used to impress people, hype you up, and build you up. These are, as previously mentioned, the highlights. Figure them out. Again, get them down on paper. I know you already have it down from when you wrote your autobiographical statement but pluck them out and write a list to create a little bit of separation and organise the data.
To whom
And finally, we come to the, “to whom,” part.
Who is your target audience and what parts of your backstory, your key strengths, and highlights would be most standout and relevant to those people? What would it mean to those people?
Think about the people that you wish to serve while you do this to prevent the results from being skewed in some way. Now this, if you have an ideal customer profile set up already, shouldn’t be that difficult. If you haven’t got an ideal customer profile in place, then there is something I’ve already written that will help you with that. So you can go here https://mybizacademy.co.uk/ideal-customer-profile-understanding-and-implementing
Who is your target audience
Go through that post and create that document. It is indispensable, it is something that will help you in virtually every aspect of your business, it will help you when you deal with people, and so on. So get it done, it is really important. It might seem like a bullshit task like it’s a bit woo-woo and unnecessary but I promise you it’s completely necessary. It’s not woo-woo at all, it’s totally sensible and logical.
Get yourself an ideal customer profile set up and when you’ve done that, then you can think about the “to whom” part of your positioning statement.
Who are you trying to deal with and talk to? And, how would your backstory, your key strengths, and highlights be perceived by those people? What impact will it have on those people? And what is the likely reaction going to be?
This information is really important because it helps you to craft your positioning statement in a way that actually makes sense to your audience. It makes it so it doesn’t come across like you’re boasting and arrogant. It comes across like you’re the person for them; you are the person that’s going to solve their particular need.
Your positioning statement is for the customer, not for you
Your positioning statement, on that front, should be written for them. So your backstory, from that perspective, should have brought you to a point where you are the only person in the world that can help them solve their problem. And that is why the “whom” part is so important; without it, it’s just you waffling about yourself. And no one’s interested in waffle.
When you have that variable in place, the “whom” part, you can craft that story, those key strengths and career highlights into something that shows your ideal customer exactly why you are the ideal person to help them with their problem.
Your positioning statement is a key component of your personal brand
Your positioning statement is what separates you from your competitors. It is the very thing that makes your personal brand, personal. It is you, it is the image that you’re going to put out into the world, and it is the perception that you want people to have of you. This is your opportunity to craft that perception and make it work for you, rather than leaving it to luck and chance.
So go write your positioning statement. It is something that tends to make people feel quite uncomfortable, nobody really likes doing this stuff. But once you’ve done it, magic will happen because it sets you apart from the crowd. It means that people can identify you, and not just by your name. They will spot you from your story, by who you are, what you are, and what you stand for. And that is the very purpose of the personal brand. The real magic in personal branding begins with your positioning statement.
There is support available
If you want help to figure out your positioning statement, there are a few ways of finding me.
You could find me on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/mikethebizguy
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Or, for a more direct approach, you could drop me a message via my company website to get yourself booked in for a 1:1 https://mikethebizguy.co.uk/Contact