Know-How Exchange : Branding

The problem is the hodge-podginess of your message. Who specifically are you targeting? If you're targeting a variety of different people, then a generic message will likely resonate with none. Better to craft a finely honed message/tagline. Maybe you really want to have 3-4 different business titles, for your varied audiences (and different web pages for each).

Hey Joe!

Good advice above. However I would like to point out and expand upon a point made by Jay - focusing on your target market.

Believe it or not, your market doesn't care about you or your expertise (yes, it's important to mention, but not like you may think). They care about one thing:

"What do I get out of this?"

It is absolutely essential to focus everything on:

#1 - Your Target Market (preferably one audience at the beginning). A mission statement is the best way to focus in on what you deliver. I'll give you some simple steps to follow in a bit.

#2 - The benefits you can offer to your target market (don't confuse benefits with "features").


Here's how to get what you want...and how to start your business with the best chance of success.

For due credit, It's derived from a strategy that my mentor, Jon Morrow, teaches in his courses.

Your Focused Mission Statement:

#1 - Pick the area of expertise you wish to deliver. In your case, you picked "Careers". A great choice! It's one of the top ten blogospheres, which is an excellent way to gauge the market you're in.

#2 - Start listing potential audiences/target markets that may be interested in your field. Pick out the 3 best ones, but you need to make One of them your primary target (more on this in a bit).

The method to picking the best ones, in a nutshell:

- 1mil people or more;

- At least one top 10 blogospheres write articles for your target market ( it means top blogs are getting good engagement from your target -a good thing);

- Does your target market spend money on similar products/services? Obviously "Yes" is good :)

- Which ones do you like and/or like to talk to? e.g., If you hate speaking/dealing with employers, then mark them off. Otherwise you set yourself up for misery and failure.

You picked and stated: "The target audience is college students/early stage job seekers and all employers"

For the sake of example, let's say "Career Seekers" is your primary audience/target.


#3) Empathy Exercise (vital step - you won't regret it):

A. In excel or on a sheet of paper, create 2 columns. One is titled "Pain,Fears,Frustrations". The right column is titled "Achievements, Desires". Write the name of your single primary target audience above the columns as a reminder.

B. In your "Pain/Desire" column, list out the things that make your audience scared to death...the kind of stuff that keeps them up at night. Put yourself in their shoes. And don't forget emotional things such as "my friends make more money than me" and "my father thinks I'm a loser", etc.

This isn't for devious or manipulative purposes. It's how to really connect with the things that drive your audience.

Your audience is motivated by benefits that solve their biggest problems and/or grant their deepest desires.

C. In the "Achievements..." column, list items on a more positive note - solutions to the pain, acquiring desires, and so on. e.g.; "land my dream job", "make my parents proud", "earn 6-figures a year", "stay happy while climbing the corporate ladder", and so on.


#4) Construct Your Mission Statement

Pick a few of the Achievements and relative Pains that not only appeal to your skills and your own goals, but also provide you with the best chance of differing from your competitors.

Now you use these empathy items to craft your mission. Keep it simple and focused. One thing for one audience.

(These will also help craft your USP later on -after you research competitors).

Use this template for your Mission Statement:

"I will help/provide/teach AUDIENCE how to ACHIEVEMENT/AVOID PAIN"

In your case, you could state:

"I will teach Career Seekers how to Get their 6-figure Dream Job"

As you do more research and decide upon a method of delivering the benefits, you can refine and add more specifics to your mission statement. For example:

"I will teach Career-driven College Grads how to Land Their 6-Figure Dream Job, and Plan for a Debt-Free retirement"

Now many experts will tell you to place a specific time frame on your benefits, but that isn't always advisable. Imagine stating "I will help you Land a 6-figure job in 30 days". You can't guarantee this time frame. Too many variables. But you can teach them how to find and secure a 6-figure income. Make sense?

As far as your other audiences, often they will find you because they fall into the same advertising and blogging categories. If you think about it, imagine finding a site that offers an "advertising course for smart marketers", and you desperately want to learn. Would you say "Damn! I'm a Career Coach, not a Marketer", then click away? Of course not.

Focus your initial energy on either the people looking to start / improve their careers, or the employers. Leave the opposite audience out for now. You can always revisit it later.

But what about all that missed opportunity?

If start out trying to focus on serving both sides and/or too many audiences and services, you'll be spread too thin and serve both audiences poorly (if at all).

And you'll likely ruin all your opportunities in the process. Not to mention burnout, depression, wasted money, wasted time. It's simply not worth it.

So focus on one topic for one audience. And focus your message, headline, mission, etc. around the benefits for your audience.

Remember, they don't care about all your skills. They care about what you can do for them. Briefly mention your skills on your About Page, and casually mention your qualifications in your emails, webinar intros, etc.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions. You can reach out here, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Good Luck!
- Blaine Wilkerson

[consulting business name]
Helping you get the career, the income, and the life that you want.

You will be doing yourself a big disservice if you try to position yourself as a hodge-podge. Each target audience segment, and each unique benefit promise, needs its own identity. Rifle shots, not shotguns.

The goal should be to narrow the target audience for each business to a market you can dominate -- with a market share approaching 100%. That will at least force you to deep-dive that market and master it from a marketing standpoint. When you're there, you can always go after another segment.

If you drop #2. Customer Service, the other three are actually reasonably close together - human talent management/optimization:

1. Career Services For Job Seekers & Employers
3. Employee Engagement
4. Life Coaching (Personal, Family, Financial)

Rearranging, this becomes:
For employers: career services and employee engagement
For employees: career services and life coaching

Perhaps use the wording above (or something like it) - you may need to change the career services to something more descriptive for each category. Or maybe you could skip the list and go with something like "Making the most of human talent"

Think about further narrowing your niche target. How many life/career coaching niches are market viable? Pick a narrow one that matches your talents and interests the best, and then create the best focused content/programs available for your target. Easier to expand from a money-making core than trying to be too many things for too many customers from the beginning. Hope this helps you process this opportunity.