The most important thing about building a personal brand is knowing what makes you different from everyone else in your space. We call that your point of differentiation. But figuring out your point of differentiation can be tricky, especially when you have several.
Below, we break down some strategies and questions to help you determine your point of differentiation. Here are 10 questions to help you decide what makes you different.
1. What’s Your True Passion?
Tonya, Founder and CEO of BrandFace, learned two things growing up in the radio world.
First, she saw how a personal brand impacts a business. Some business owners were like rock stars, and she tried to figure out what they were doing differently. She noticed many celebrity business owners were the voice and face of their businesses. Their story was part of their brand, and they could tell it through their marketing.
Second, she recognized that if you wanted to change how people perceived you, you needed to change how you presented yourself. Over the years, that became a true passion for her and then turned into something much more. Helping people unveil their inner star became something she loved so much, and BrandFace, LLC was born.
2. What Are Your Hobbies?
What do you like to do daily that doesn’t feel like work? Find out what you love and enjoy doing. The rest will go much smoother.
Michael, Co-Founder & COO of BrandFace, never felt like he worked a single day. Every day feels like a Saturday to him because he does what he loves and enjoys: building companies and helping his agents grow their own bank of business. As individual people, we take on different personal hobbies that can lean into our professional brands quite creatively (hang gliding, running, fishing, hiking, writing, etc.). Although a favorite hobby can turn into a very recognizable and attention-getting part of your brand, please know that you must be able to connect your hobby back to what you do for your clients.
When you can pull your hobby and what you’re known for in your profession together, that’s magic.
3. How Did Your Upbringing Influence You?
We often ask people on our podcast, “Was there some person or event in your life that influenced who you are and what you’re doing today?” The answer to this question often explains exactly why someone is headed in a particular direction. Our childhood upbringing plays a big role in who we become, and how we behave.
When we’re willing to dig into the past, we often find a strong connection to exactly ‘why’ we’re doing what we do. It’s a phenomenon that we see time and again. That’s why we say, ‘we don’t make stars–we unveil them’, because everyone has an inner star. They just may not realize it until they put the puzzle pieces together.
4. What Type of Education or Training Do You Have?
We help brand people who are often in a different business genre than they were trained in or educated in. However, what they already know brings value to their new endeavor.
You may have been a top-rated salesperson in the clothing industry, and now you’re a coach, author, or speaker about what you learned on that. Even though you weren’t trained or educated, per se, as a coach, author, or speaker, you are using what you know to train other people in that niche.
So pay attention to your education and the training you have, and not just formal education. You may have gained a lot of training from other work or life experiences.
5. Do You Focus on a Specific Area or Niche?
A niche says, “I have specific expertise in this area or this type of business or this type of clients/customers.” The importance of this one pretty much goes without saying, but you can check out How To Find Your Business Niche: 5 Criteria To Consider for the full benefits.
6. Was There a Mentor Who Influenced You?
It helps to emulate a successful mentor. This mentor can be personal or professional. One of the coolest answers we’ve heard with regard to this question was, “Books. I’ve learned from all sorts of books. I have hundreds of mentors because I’ve read their books.”
A mentor who influenced you can have much to do with your direction in life. If we think about all the choices we make today and who we are today, it inevitably comes from our upbringing. Most of us have experiences with people or events in our life that have shifted or changed us, or caused a turning point to happen. We have often learned something the hard way, but it has ultimately taught us how to conduct business, how to treat people, and how to lead.
7. Do You Have a Unique System or Process?
Do you have a unique system or process in your industry that could be your point of differentiation?
That’s what we do at BrandFace. We’re known for our 3-D formula of personal branding: define, develop, and display. Underneath these three categories, we look at 77 different criteria when we brand someone. On the surface, though, it’s just about:
- defining who you are, who you serve, and what sets you apart
- developing every part of the branding elements to get that message out to your prospects, and
- displaying that in all the ways you market yourself
We’re known for creating formulas around personal branding. It’s not just about “Being yourself” and “Being authentic.” Those are true and needed, but how do you do all that? Our formulas make it practical.
8. Have You Created Original Content?
A great point of differentiation is a book, a guide, a podcast, a TED Talk, or any intellectual property solely yours. If you haven’t created any, start now with these 6 fresh content ideas.
9. What’s the One Thing That You Help Your Customers Accomplish?
For us, it’s ‘changing the way you’re seen so you can charge what you’re worth’.
When Tonya was selling vacuum cleaners door to door, she consistently had doors slammed in her face. She realized then that if she wanted to be seen differently, she had to change how she presented herself. When she learned how to do that for herself, she then applied those same principles to her clients, helping them to position themselves uniquely in their space. They became stars within their industry, and their businesses grew by leaps and bounds.
We connect with people, and when we do that, we change how people see us.
10. How Does That Change Their Lives?
Most of your customers only care about how your service matters to them and how it will improve their lives. You have to put a lot of thought into answering this question, but it makes a big difference in your point of differentiation.
For example, Michael is known as The Abundant Life Broker®. It’s relatively easy to see and figure out what that means: he does something with abundance and abundant life. You may not know what the rest of that is, but it’s easy for Michael to articulate that. He helps his agents and clients build a business to achieve the abundance they desire.
How something changes your ideal customer’s life for the better is a powerful way to develop a brand and point of differentiation. If people believe something will help them, they’ll probably do business with that person. If that reputation precedes you in your brand, then you’ll have a better chance of prospecting because people will already know how their life will be changed as a result of doing business with you.
The Takeaway
These 10 questions will help you get one step closer to figuring out your point of differentiation. You may have multiple, but you must narrow down to one that will become the theme of your brand and what you’re going to be known for.
For your point of differentiation to work, you must know who you’re trying to attract. When you determine your point of differentiation, it must be important to your ideal customer. Schedule a free call with us today so you can hone in on your ideal customers and develop the desired message to bring them to you.
Are you a Coach, Consultant, or other Expert with a life-changing message to share? Join us inside our free Facebook Group to learn how to position & present yourself and your offers differently in order to maximize your time and dramatically increase profits.
————————
BrandFace LLC is a personal branding company for coaches, consultants and other experts who want to STAND OUT from their competition and attract their ideal customers so they can become recognized and sought after authorities in their industry. Tonya Eberhart & Michael Carr are international bestselling authors and the partners behind BrandFace. Their mantra is, “People don’t do business with a logo. They do business with a person.”