What's up brand builders! Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and
in this video you're gonna learn how to find your branding niche so you can
position yourself in a way that will make your prospects think I need that
person doing that thing on my business.
now if you are new to the channel and you want actionable brand strategy tips
and techniques to grow your business well then hit that subscribe button and
the notification bell and you will be well on your way now one of the core
principles of branding is effective positioning yet there are so many brand
service providers out there that do not position themselves effectively at all
or in fact do not position themselves at all in the marketplace now if you are in
branding then you know the state of the market you know there are literally
millions of people out there selling branding services in the form of logo
designs brochure designs website designs etc etc and they're all out there
offering the same thing they're not differentiating themselves they're not
picking a niche in the marketplace and they're offering the same thing that
everybody else out their is offering now to complicate things even further a
large majority of these service providers are offering their services
at prices that you simply cannot compete with so if you are playing in
that pond if you are offering those services those logo design services
brochure design services website services and that's how you're
presenting your offering then you're playing in that pond and you're not
differentiating yourself and it's gonna be very very difficult for your
prospects and your future clients to see the value in what you offer to see why
you're different with all of those other me-too service providers so in this video
I want to show you an eight-step process that you can use to find your branding niche
differentiate yourself from that saturated market and finally start to
present yourself as an industry specialist step number one shift your
mindset now in my experience when I speak to prospects and clients about the
idea of niching down they push back because they think immediately of the
large group of people that they're excluding from that niche so they're
thinking about all of the potential business that they're missing out on but
the reality is that when you need you become a lot more relevant to a certain
group of people yes you might be excluding a large amount of people by
niching down but in becoming more relevant to who those people are they're
far more likely to talk to you and to speak to you than other service
providers in the marketplace who are trying to appeal to everybody so shift
your mindset about the idea that by niching down you are excluding all of
those people yes that is true but you are vastly increasing your chances that
the people that you are speaking to will find you a lot more relevant and you
will resonate with them and the chances of them becoming a client increase
greatly number two identify your passions so what are the tasks within
branding that you really enjoy doing is it logo design is an illustration web
design strategy copywriting consulting what is it that you enjoy doing what are
those tasks for me I used to love logo design I would sit there all day every
day if I could doing those logo designs with my headphones on that was one of my
passions I also really enjoyed strategy thinking about a solution finding out
those challenges and overcoming those through strategy that's something that I
really enjoyed what is it that you love to do within your day-to-day operations
of your business that you will do all day every day if you could number three
identify your strengths so what are you really good at now of course you've got
your passions you know what you love doing but they don't always align
sometimes that is the case where you've got a passion for something and you're
really really good at it but sometimes you've got a passion for something and
you're just not that good at it so be honest with yourself here you don't
necessarily have the same passions and strengths that are aligned but the
beautiful thing about your strengths is that you can work on them if you love to
do illustrations you can work on your illustrations if you love copywriting
you can work on your copywriting if you love strategy you can work on strategy
so that is within your control you can upskill on whatever it is that you
enjoy so if it's not a strength now you could put more work into making that a
strength number four think about your goals so what is it exactly that you're
trying to build here what do you want to be doing in five years and what does
life look like at that stage do you still want to be working within your
business on the day-to-day operations or do you want to be working more on your
business so you can grow a business and maybe step away from that later on what
is it exactly that you're trying to build what does that vision look like
and what does life look like as well number five find your sweet spot now this is
where you will line your passions your strengths and your goals and you really
want to have all three aligned here it's great that you've identified your
passions and your strengths but if working on those two things don't help
you achieve your goals well then that's not a great way to really think about
the business that you're building so you really need to consider the goals and
where you want to get to alongside your passions and your strengths and it's
when the three of those are aligned that you find your sweet spot now this was a
big one for me because I enjoyed logo design and I had a passion for logo
design but me personally I didn't see that aligning with where I wanted to go
because I was trying to build something bigger than just myself I didn't want to
be doing execution services in five to ten years time I wanted to be able to
take my foot off the gas take a little bit of a step back from those execution
services and deal more one-on-one with my clients with the problems that they
were having to help them overcome those challenges through strategy and to build
something that was bigger than just myself that I could later take a step
back from and watch the business grow without me number six identify your
audience so you found your sweet spot now and now you need to identify the
types of people that really need this type of service so think about the
problems that they have the challenges that they have how can you help them to
overcome them and if they had questions about these types of challenges would
you be able to answer those questions better than anybody else so think about
those questions as confirmation that yes you are in the right place and you are
answering those questions better than anybody else and if you are planning on
creating content then coming up with maybe 10 20 30 questions that this type
of person might ask and then answering those questions is a
great way to start getting some content out there number seven confirm your
niche market viability so here you want to make sure that there are enough
people in this pond that you've identified that need your services now
you might have identified that you want to create brand story videos for cat
groomers which is really niched and it's really unique and you're probably gonna
be one of the only people within that space doing it but are there enough
people within that space that need those services now there might certainly be
I'm not completely up on cat grooming services or that particular niche but
you need to identify the niche that you want to target and then identify whether
or not there are enough players within that space to justify your position now
if you've already identified ten twenty thirty questions that are specific to
this group of people chances are that you are onto a winning niche but you can
go out into the marketplace and confirm that go on to groups go onto forums and
just make sure that there are plenty of people within those spaces asking those
certain types of questions and number eight define your position so what are
you doing and who are you doing it for are you doing illustrations for modern
brands that want some visual pop are you creating brand strategies and a plan for
growth for businesses in the hospitality sector or are you creating branded
videos for weight loss consultants or weight loss coaches that will help them
connect better with their audience so when you have this level of clarity then
you can see how more relevant you are going to be to your particular audience
and then compare that to all of those other me-too service providers in the
marketplace that don't have a defined position that don't have a niche that
they're serving who are just offering the same as everybody else now if you
are in the business of helping your clients build their brands well then
chances are you know what the market is like you know how many service providers
are out there and you know the types of services that they're offering so take a
look at what you're offering take a look at what they're offering and see if you
can make a distinct difference between the two of them and think about what it
is that you're saying to your client what market are you serving who are the
types of people that you're serving and why is your service so specific to them
what is it you can say to them that resonates with them so well that will
make them think of your business and your brand before all of those other
me-too service providers so really take that time to understand what it is that
you're passionate about where your strengths are and what your goals are
what you are trying to build and then once you have that you can set your own
path in place to go and achieve that vision that you have for your branding
business but I would love to hear from you have you taken the time to carve out
a niche for yourself to carve out a position in the mind of your audience as
to what you do differently or are you struggling to find a unique position for
yourself you're struggling to find a niche that you can serve I'd love to
hear your comments below if you've got any questions at all let me know in
those comments if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and hit that
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comments below what your experiences are what your challenges are I'll do my best
to answer all of those questions until next time brand like a master and I will
see you in the next video!