Are you getting more cold calls and pitches than potential clients contacting you? The reason for this is simple. You are not being seen as an expert. What you want to do is position yourself as an authority on a topic.
Everybody is constantly talking about how important it is to position your business and brand. Since I am not a business coach and I focus on branding, I want to talk about how your brand positioning can help you build that authority.
Firstly, brand positioning covers three major areas…
Target Audience. A breakdown of your entire audience pool into segments, so you know who you are talking to and what information they are looking for.
Market Analysis. A list of brands you aspire to, including both direct and indirect competitors, so you can find what makes you different from your competitors.
Awareness Goals. A list of awareness initiatives to achieve brand awareness, so that you know where your audience gathers and how to deliver your message to them.
However, your entire brand strategy is very important in building that authority. In this article, we’ll go over all three of those in more detail and the few others that can help you become an authority in your field.
One of the things I want to stress here is that you do not need to create a new, innovative service in order to be seen as an authority. That is what your business creation is all about and what your business coach can help you with. That is also, most commonly, the reason why you started your entrepreneurial journey. What I am talking about here is selling the exact same thing as thousands of others and still being seen as the expert out of all of those options.
Here is how your brand strategy can help you do this…
TARGET AUDIENCE
Narrow down your target audience to one specific person. There are almost 8 billion people on the planet, trust me, whatever crazy personality you can come up with, exists. Once you have that one person you are targeting, they will know you are made specifically for them. This means, even if everybody else offers the same services as you, they are more likely to choose you because you offer that service only for them.
MARKET ANALYSIS
Out of the thousands of others that do the same work as you, narrow it down to the ones that do the exact same thing you do and then narrow it down to the ones that target the same person you do.
Once you know who those people are, focus on finding what makes you different from them. Here is when knowing your target audience becomes very important because you want to know what do your audience want from you.
Also, remember to look at your indirect competitors.
For example, if you’re an online service provider focusing on helping entrepreneurs who recently left the corporate world, one of your indirect competitors would be a hiring agency helping people get jobs in the corporate world.
AWARENESS GOALS
This one may seem like the simplest of all the ones listed here, but it is also the most impactful one. This is because you won’t know how to target your audience without knowing there they are. In order to make people aware of you and your brand, find the correct platforms where your ideal client can find you.
You can have the best brand in the world, but if you haven’t shared it with anyone, nobody will ever know about it.
VALUES
Your guiding principles are part of everything that you do. These values are important because they influence how your audience views your brand. For example, do you want them to remember your brand as the highest quality in your industry? Then maybe you should focus on quality as one of your values.
Having shared values with your audience will help not only remember you, but connect more with you and look for you.
VISION
Define your brand’s long-term decisions and goals, and state them clearly so that your audience knows what they are and can connect with them. If your vision is one that your audience can connect with, or better yet, one they can help you with, then you are more likely to be listened to.
It is important to make sure you have a vision to strive towards that is achievable, believable, and involves other people.
LANGUAGE
The imposter syndrome is strong here. No matter what language and style guide you create for your brand, your personal language speaks of authority more than anything else. Be confident in what you’re saying (and writing) and it will translate across. The more words you use that make people question you, the more likely they are to ignore you.
Consider the words you’re using, where, when, and why.
WHAT IS AN AUTHORITY?
If you haven’t noticed, everything refers back to your audience. Because, what’s the purpose of becoming an authority if there is nobody looking to you? What defines authority?
au·thor·i·ty /əˈTHôrədē/ the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.
Without other people, there is no authority. Now, I am not saying go out into the world and make everyone kneel at your feet. But an authority means to be seen as someone that people will listen to. Make sure the right people are listening.