Intentionally carving out your brand position is one of the most critical pieces of creating a personal brand that will cut through the online clutter and stand out to your ideal clients. 

In today’s episode, I’m talking all about the power that effective brand positioning has on your ability to be chosen by your ideal client.

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On Instagram @hayleymaxwellwrites

At www.hayleymaxwell.com

Have you ever heard of the term brand positioning?

It’s an often overlooked piece of the brand building pie, because not many people intentionally work on their brand positioning. In fact not many people even know about it.

Which is a shame because intentionally carving out your brand position is one of the most critical pieces of creating a personal brand that cuts through the online clutter and stands out to your ideal clients.

Today this is what I’m talking about.

The power of effective brand positioning

Brand positioning is all about carving out a unique space in your ideal client’s mind, so you become the ONLY choice for them. And that’s what we want. We want you to get chosen.

So the purpose of positioning is about increasing your chances of getting chosen by the right people.

When we think about what a brand is, we know it is the perception – the thoughts, feelings, beliefs, emotions – that people have about you. That come to mind when someone thinks about your brand. 

The perception that people create in their mind about you, comes from each touchpoint they’ve had with you. 

Everything you do and say in your business, as part of your brand, affects the way people perceive you and the position they hold you in, in their mind.

Every message your brand shares – whether it’s written, verbal, or visual (because remember our visual identity communicates messages about us). Every single touchpoint, every single experience, what they’ve heard about you from others. How they’ve seen you showing up. 

Every single interaction – directly or indirectly via others – contributes towards the perception people have of your brand.

So intentional, strategic brand positioning is incredibly powerful in helping you to grow your business.

Brand positioning is all about clarifying and carving out what you want to be known for, how you want to be perceived, in the mind of your ideal client.

When you understand this, it enables you to strategically think about how you want to be perceived and how you need to show up – what you need to communicate and how you do that – in order to positively curate and influence that perception, and to reinforce it. 

When you know what position you want to hold in peoples’ minds, it helps you to be incredibly focused. It helps you to stay in your own lane. To cut through the noise, confusion, and overwhelm within your business.

It helps you to figure out what needs to happen, it structures everything you need to do, to achieve what you really want. To become known for what you want to become known for.

It also helps you to get chosen and to sell at the level you want to be at. 

Because if you want to be perceived as a premium high quality brand, but you have not positioned yourself in a way that communicates that you are a premium level brand, it’s going to be far harder to attract those ideal clients who want a premium high quality experience. 

Brand positioning example

Let me explain this in an overtly simplified way.

Say you’ve got a mall-based handbag/luggage store, like Strandbags (lots of sales, practical, quite affordable.) 

And say they decided to launch a luxury expensive range of small handbags in the early thousands price brackett. 

There would be a mismatch – people who want a luxury handbag, who have a thousand odd dollars to spend on a handbag are unlikely to go somewhere like Strandbags to buy their bag – even if it is made with the finest leather, has all the trimmings and looks beautiful. 

Because when you’re spending a thousand odd dollars on a handbag it’s not just about the practicality of needing a new bag. It’s about so much more. It’s about the experience, the emotions, associations, exclusivity, prestige, it’s about making a statement about who we are.

And we will choose the handbag brand – the shop – that gives us all of those things. 

And an affordable, no frills, everyday handbag/luggage store in a mall isn’t going to give us that level of feeling. That level of emotion. It’s not going to meet our needs and desires in the same way. 

Position your brand to resonate with your ideal clients

The same principles are true for service based personal brands. Clients will choose you or avoid you for very specific reasons. If you’re positioning yourself in a way that doesn’t resonate with your ideal clients, that isn’t meaningful to them and what their desires are, it’s going to be really hard to get them on board.

So you have to be clear on:

1) what position in the marketplace, in your ideal clients minds do you want to hold.

2) What your ideal client desires and values – as well as “what” they need. Because that will allow you to intentionally align yourself with your ideal client, so you can claim that unique position in their mind. 

It’s almost about working backwards from the position you want to claim, asking yourself how you will intentionally carve out that space. How you are going to become meaningful in a specific way to your ideal client.

What do you need to communicate? What messages do you need to be sharing? How do you need to show up? What experience do you need to provide? How should you position your offers and pricing, and so much more.

In summary:

Strategic, intentional positioning will help you to rise up, stand out, and be remembered by your ideal clients, so they chose YOU.

I hope you found this quick episode thought provoking.

Before I go, ask yourself this:

Is my current positioning going to help or hinder my ability to attract my ideal client? Or is there a mismatch between the way I am positioned and the ideal clients I want to work with?

Next week, I’ll continue the conversation about positioning – talking about some of the key strategies you can use to help you position yourself in a specific light. 

How I can help you

If you need to work on your positioning and message and you’d like me help you, check out my
Fiercely You coaching experience. Over three months we’ll work together to reshape your business into a brand that fiercely represents you, so you can break out of obscurity and get chosen by the people you really want to help.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode and don’t want to miss out on future episodes, hit subscribe in your favourite podcast player. 

And so, until next time, go forth and be fierce.

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