How To Define Your Brand

Before you can make money from customers, you kinda have to think about the TYPE of awesome (brand) you’d like to be. This means analyzing your deep inner thoughts and your business as YOUR first step. 

The first thing you need to do involves answering fun questions like:

• What type of business am I in?
• Who are the customers I serve?
• How do I serve them?
• What are my products and/or services customers can expect to see or buy? 

While this might seem easy (and even basic), you truly need to reflect your soul’s purpose in your answers. You must decide, really, if you’re willing to put effort into your answers instead of writing down surface garbage answers that will get you nowhere.

Let’s play this out in real life, shall we?

I recently worked with a private branding client who was starting her business as a wellness coach. 

Now, it might seem really easy to define her wellness brand (as a person who helps others get well), but what does “well” mean here? 

Well, gee Aliza, I’m not really sure.

^^See what I did there?

One of the largest focuses of branding is making you stand out among competition, but – if it’s done right – you’re also calling in your perfect clients through the messages you put into the world. 

If you only work with people who want to try out a whole foods plant based diet (as it was in my client’s case), then saying you want to help anybody who wants to get well can be confusing to your market because you’ll attract all kinds of people wanting to get “well”.

Including:

• Those searching for someone to help them with energy healing 
• People interested in working with a personal trainer
• Meat-lovers who think you’re a whacko for telling someone they can get protein from plants

See what I mean?

If you want to build a brand that REFLECTS what you do, you have to get specific in order to streamline your results. 

Wanna work with veg heads? Awesome! Decide what type of foods you’ll encourage and the type of client you want before you market yourself in a world full of wellness coaches. 

If you are ready to define your brand, you need to clearly describe it so you can give your people the experience they’re wanting, but – also – the one they’re actively seeking from your services.

Let’s break this down into several steps so you can dig deeper:

Tell’em what you’re made of.

In a list, write out every skill you have. What are you especially good at (maybe your niche)? How should clients feel when they think about your brand? 

Give’em the deets on your desired clients.

Take a look back at your list of skills and highlight any that scream “MY CLIENT NEEDS THIS.” Ask yourself why your client is coming to you in the first place (get in their head and BE them).

And, for the love of all things delightful, do NOT define your brand based on things you can’t deliver. (Yes,this is like a real thing that some people do ALL the time).

Spill it: what makes you different? 

In my previous client example, I’d want my herbivore wellness coach to tell me what makes her different than another green goddess. This step is critical, because (let’s be honest) she wasn’t going to be the only person out there slinging pea protein and spinach smoothies. 

If your goal is to be unique, and – ahem – stand above the competition, you have to tell consumers what qualities or points of view sets you apart.

Now, my client is much more concrete in her focus and branding. Instead of blending in in a problematic way, she now says she’s a “raw foods coach” who “helps veggie-curious people establish a new, healthy relationship with wholesome, nutritious food” and “gives them the flexibility to stop counting calories with a new approach.”

That. 

That is exactly the type of clarity you should have in the earliest stages of your branding process.

There is a need for balance when you do this, so be sure you don’t get so specific you’re cutting down on your opportunity to find clients (read: don’t say you only work with people who eat two pounds of kale daily).

Unless, of course, you’re in a field that the niche is strong enough to make your business successful.

Well, there you have it folks! A simple, non-convoluted way to define your brand. 

Got questions? Lay ‘em out there for me, lovelies in the comments. I’m happy to help via the comment section below.