It’s Your Positioning Strategy, Stupid – Part 2
In the previous article “It’s Your Positioning Strategy, Stupid – Part 1”, I covered why positioning is extremely important for gaining mind share amongst your clients.
Why Position Your Personal Brand?
Your personal brand defines who you are in the eyes of the external world. Whether you like it or not, you have a personal brand.
Positioning your Personal Brand is important for those who are interested in becoming a recognized expert in their specific field. With recognition and respect, you would be able to sway and control public opinion to a certain degree. Furthermore, you become the “go-to-guy” (or girl) whenever there are questions fielded in your area of expertise. You will also be able to:
- Have access to more Joint Ventures
- Charge a premium for your products
- Sell more products
- Sell more future products easily
- Get more invitations to Speak (seminar organizers generally want people from different specialties)
- Have stark naked raving fans outside your home (just kidding)
- And the list of benefits goes on and on…
When people mention the word “Cashflow” or “Rich Dad”, it is highly likely that the author and businessman Robert Kiyosaki comes to mind. He is best known for his Rich Dad, poor Dad series of motivational books and other material. He has written 18 books which combined have sold over 26 million copies. No easy feat.
Or let’s say you mention the word “Strategy”. A huge majority would definitely think of Michael E. Porter - the Godfather of strategy. Maybe Jay Abraham and hopefully this Singaporean doofus Alvin Huang. Hah!
Being more specific and looking at the internet marketing arena.
When you think of “Search Engine Optimization”, Aaron Wall (SeoBook.com), Jill Whalen (HighRankings.com), Rand Fishkin (seomoz.org), Danny Sullivan or Dan Thies (SeoResearchLabs.com) would probably come to mind. Or maybe some other names that I did not mention.
The key point to understand is that majority of us (hardcore SEO followers excluded) would only be able to remember a couple of experts offhand. And perhaps buy material and subscribe to the newsletters of 1 or 2 experts.
Google Adwords? Perry Marshall, X….
Affiliate Marketing? Ewen Chia, Jeff Johnson…
eBay Marketing? Jim Cockrum, John Thornhill…
Product Launches? Jeff Walker…(dang he seems alone at the top as king of his hill)
Most Charitable? Dr Mani
Ok these are well established experts that I have mentioned. A look at a more recent example might prove more useful.
Recent Case Study
Tiffany Dow (tiffanydow.com) is an up and coming marketer whose name seems to surface again and again. With rave reviews from other experts, she looks set to dominate Web 2.0 marketing tactics with squidoo (SocialMarketing101.com) and her recently launched www.TwitterTraffic.com
If she continues to go on and create Web 2.0 products in say Stumbleupon, Digg, myspace or other social marketing mediums faster than other Web 2.0 experts. She will be the #1 “go-to-person” for a lot of people for Web 2.0 marketing methods in the future!
Though of course there are some issues to iron out as she still markets Private Label Products and has a “Building an eBook Empire” product. Don’t do that Tiffany, don’t dilute your brand name and expertise. Leave the old and make way for the new.
How Should You Position Your Personal Brand?
The makeup of a personal brand has four main elements: personality (think Rich Jerk), appearance (think Jason Moffatt’s Videos), competencies, and differentiation.
DOs:
- Select a niche for your personal brand. It’s best to concentrate on 1 area for your personal brand, 2 at most. Or perhaps use a pseudonym like David DeAngelo (www.doubleyourdating.com) which Eban Pagan (www.getaltitude.com) did.
- Make sure you stay ahead of your competition with the leading strategies/solutions for your niche. Majority of us probably don’t have the talent for this. No worries. Research, learn, copy, modify and add a bit more value than the existing experts. Like they say…why reinvent the wheel?
- Be a 1st mover, create a whole new niche by adding an extra twist. eBay + Craiglist? I’m lazy…go brainstorm yourself.
- Register yourname.com and have a blog.
- Create a LinkedIn profile, it ranks well on search engines.
- Review books on Amazon and BarnesAndNoble.com related to your area of expertise. Remember to leave your real name.
- Differentiate, Differentiate, Differentiate! Wannabes will be forgotten and will never have a strong sustainable following. Differentiate through the medium you present yourself – Videos? Audios?
- Focus on creating more products specifically related to your personal branded niche. Provides a synergy between your products as you cross promote them. The more products (quality ones) you have for your personal branded niche also gives the added creditability and impression that you are the thought leader in that industry.
- Always give first, your returns will come back ten-fold
- For newbies, stop using PLR and Resell Products as your giveaways. Unless you just want to attract newbies. Or at least get a couple of PLR products on a niche together, combine and modify them to make it unique.
- Help others become as successful as you
- Can’t implement the above steps? Copy the Rich Jerk. The Rich Bitch has a nice ring to it.
- Publish a book. A bestselling hardcopy always adds to your creditability.
- And lastly, thank Alvin Huang =)
DON’Ts
- Start a “Make Money Online Blog” like the millions out there and then offer general advice which you copied elsewhere
- Dabble in numerous niches all under your brand name. People trust specialists more than a Jack-of-all-trades.
- Place adsense your on yourname.com unless you want people to click away rather than read your material. All for the traffic JohnChow.com gets, he gets a miserable $800 a month for adsense. I’m sure keeping your subscribers and prospects glue to your material is worth much more. Superstar marketer John Reese of income.com said that he’d no longer have affiliate links on his posts, increasing the value of his reviews and his own integrity brand value.
- Get lazy and stop researching on the latest innovation and strategies just because you get 5 figures monthly.
- Lie to, cheat or abuse your list subscribers. The lifetime value of a loyal following is simply priceless.
- Do a Joe Kumar, for those haven’t heard of his story. Google “Joe Kumar” (Interestingly enough, reading his story got me starting in IM)
Personal Branding Gone WRONG
You might disagree with me but it really didn’t make sense to me. Not that PLR sellers are below copywriters but the PLR package seemed like a stringed together package from elsewhere. And having a master copywriter like Carl Galetti promoting it just to make a quick buck?
Master Copywriter Carl Galetti launches “Private Label Rights Product” Read more about it at http://www.imnewswatch.com/archives/2007/08/carl_galletti_l.html
While you are digesting the above ideas and thinking of how you can implement them. You should…
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