Home Business Success - Define Your Brand - Steve Norris

When you are developing your business, among the first things you need to do is define your brand.

That is, what do you stand for? What is the purpose of your business? What problem does it solve and for whom does it solve that problem?

Your brand is how you communicate that to the market. It’s how you make people feel. How you want the market to think of you. Your brand is the expression of how you want to be in the world.

Every Message is a Marketing Message.

You’ll want to communicate your branding in every marketing piece, post and conversation. Online and offline. This is what you will repeat, message after message so that the people to whom you are speaking will hear you and, ultimately, raise their hand.

So the first thing you need to decide as you define your brand is “what is your over-arching theme?” What is the broad brush with which you want to paint your vision for your business and your life? This doesn’t necessarily have to be stated publicly, but it can be. This is the umbrella under which you will build your message.
Define your Brand - Start with the umbrella My slogan, for example, is “Be Your Own Boss. Live Your Own Life”. I mean this in a financial, physical and emotional sense.
My goal, my mission, is to achieve a life that is independent of outside employment. To help myself and others OWN their own lives.

I believe that to “own your life“ you need to have three things: enough money, enough time freedom to do the things you enjoy and the good health to enjoy them. So my umbrella covers all three areas.

My business is designed to help me achieve those things for myself and to help others achieve the same thing, too.

Choose a Target Market

My primary target market is retail managers who are over 35 years old. That age group, because they have been around long enough to know in their guts that there is more to life than what their career can provide. And because I tend to remind Millenials of their dad, which isn’t always a good thing.

Retail managers because I’ve been one for most of the last 30 years and I understand their situation, their frustration and their problems. Do I work with folks who aren’t retail managers? Of course. Younger folks? Sure! But I target boomers and Gen-X folks with retail backgrounds.

Pick 3 Subjects to Define Your Brand

The next step to define your brand is to pick three subjects, or categories, that will act as placeholders for your subsequent messages. These are the legs that support the umbrella. Your ads, social media posts and blog posts will be categorized within these three subjects. By continually communicating around these categories, you will create a consistent message and a stable image within the mind of your target market.
If you have a blog, you will want to write a piece of cornerstone content around each of these three subjects.

Mine are: Finance, Fitness and Fun. These are the categories I use to express my theme of owning your life. This means I talk about how to earn income by starting and growing a Network Marketing business. This income then feeds into investments that compound that money to ultimately achieve critical mass, or an asset base that will support a person’s desired lifestyle whether that person works or not.

I also talk about fitness: getting lean, getting strong and fit. This creates the health needed to live a long and happy life (or at least improves your odds) and gives you the energy to live well.

Fianlly, Fun is the label I use to talk about emotional fitness. No, life isn’t always fun and it isn’t (sadly) an episode of Glee where problems are solved by bursting into song and dance. It is, however, composed of finding the joy in the mundane and doing the things that please you.

So many of us live to please others: parents, kids, significant others. Doing things that please and serve the others in our lives is important, but it’s crucial to make sure you are deriving joy out of the things you do. Else you are in for a long, hard road.

Pick 3 Topics to Define Your Brand

Last step. Pick three topics, or hooks, which you will use to support your major themes. Here’s what my final list looks like:

Finances
1. How to build a network marketing business.
2. Why you need a Plan B.
3. Investing to build wealth.
Fitness
1. Strength training.
2. Endurance training.
3. Eating right and supplements.
Fun
1. Learning.
2. Leisure.
3. Service.

Get to Work and Define Your Brand

Now that you have your messaging outline complete, make sure that ads you run, posts you write, letters, business cards, web sites, everything you do, revolves around and stays consistent to the themes and topics you just worked out.

You’ve made a good start on the quest to define your brand and position yourself in the market. As you continue this, you will begin to attract the exact customers, clients and partners you most want to serve.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and what you come up with as you work on this for yourself.

I have more stuff to say that you should hear…