In 2020, I attended a 3-day Summit that changed my life.
This summit changed my life, my mindset, and it inspired me to kickstart my online journey.
There were so many speakers in attendance that I learned so much from, I was inspired and motivated to be intentional about my online journey.
I am not about to tell the story of the summit, rather, I am sharing the story of a lady who stood out during the summit, she spoke with so much poise, confidence, simplicity and most importantly relatability.
It was super amazing to watch her the entire time, talking with so much conviction and bliss.
I jumped into my bag, grabbed my phone, ran to instagram and followed her immediately.
It was my first time seeing her or hearing about her, when I got to her page, I was in awe, I was hooked and ever since that moment, I have been learning so much from her, till this very minute.
There is a saying that goes thus “Your brand is how you differentiate yourself as a business”
And I will tell you for a fact that this lady did this differentiation game really well.
There was a pool of speakers at the event but she was able to stand out.
She stood out for me, and the question now is, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?
A wise man once said, ‘every opportunity you get, is a chance to pitch yourself’
That was exactly what happened, she had the opportunity and platform to pitch herself and she used it.
Today, if I want in-depth knowledge on marketing or digital product launches, she is my number one go to person.
Just in case you’re wondering who this lady is, TRICIABIZ is the brand.
From this story, here are three things i want you to pay attention to;
- Connection
- Differentiation
- Consistency
She displayed the first two when I first met her, I got the connection, I saw the differentiation and I discovered the third one which was “consistency” when I followed her.
If you intend to build a solid and sustainable brand that you can monetize, then you must have these three elements in check.
ELEMENT 1 – CONNECTION
This is when you share an unspoken level of trust with your audience. A type that can be felt and seen.
In order to build connections, the first thing you need is to:
- Clarify your message. Simply state how you intend to serve and help your audience.
Ask yourself this question:
‘What impact will my business be providing its customers’?
Before you can go on to answer this question, you need to know who your customers are.
You have to do research on your customers, or audience before you go on to clarify your brand message.
Research where they are, where they spend their time, what they enjoy doing, what they are struggling with, what they complain about and what you have observed as an expert.
In marketing, this is known as AUDIENCE RESEARCH, Audience Research can be in the form of social listening, surveys, interviews, feedback etc..
Whether you are a beginner or an expert, it is important that you have to conduct audience research.
Here are few things to note when you are conducting your audience research:
- Ideal Audience Description
This is basically a list of what your typical audience should look like.
Think of this like you’re writing about your ideal man or woman.
Identifying your target audience starts from you knowing the kind of people you want to serve first.
So, make a list of the ideal audience for you based on your skills, expertise and what you want your brand to represent.
The description includes; gender, age range, location, where do they spend their time online, who they follow online, their lifestyle, occupation, etc…
- Go Even Deeper On The Description:
After you have decided on your ideal audience description, you will then proceed to learn more about these people you have described by identifying how your audience want to be served, what their paina are, what their desires are, your opinions and observations as an expert.
This is where you now go look for the people you have described above to see what they’re saying through social listening, surveys, customer feedback, etc
Let’s get more practical; create a table with 3 columns and label them as shown in the image below.
| Pain/Struggle/Complaint | Desires/Wants/Solution | Observations/Expert Opinion |
To get this information, you need to do proper social listening, check what your audience are saying or talking about online, ask your audience questions like what are they struggling with, what do they want, create a survey.
An example is asking your audience questions like:
“what would you want me to share with you?
What are you struggling with?
Ask your audience or client for feedback, get on a call to understand them.
As an expert, based on the information on their pains,
/struggles or wants/desire you’ve gathered, what are your observations and opinions on things that they are not doing well, and how you think they can do it better to get them results
P. S. – From your research, copy and paste what your audience are saying how they’ve said it under each column as listed above.
The next thing to do is to:
- Clarify your impact, we have another short exercise to do…
Draw out 2 columns like the one I have below and label it skills, impact.
| SKILLS | IMPACT |
SKILLS: Write down all the skills that you have, the skills that can help you run this particular business successfully, from facebook Ads to video editing or presentation skill, anything at all, that can help you leverage to help your audience get results.
Write them all out in the column where you have skills.
PS: If you are like me that have so many skills, there are some skills you do not have to offer as a service in your business, some of your skills are for you to use to amplify your business and grow. .
For instance, I have Facebook ads skill, but I don’t bring it out here as a service anymore, I only run Ads for my business and not for my clients, same as my video editing skills; that skill is for me to create and edit video content for my business.
So, while listing out your skills, only list the ones that will be relevant and useful to helping the audience you’ve identified above to achieve results based on their needs and desires as listed above.
IMPACT: Next, Look at your skills and identify the impact it provides to your audience.
How to do this: go to the audience research document and look at everything you’ve written down on pains, struggle, wants, desire and observations of your audience and with your understanding of your target audience.
This will help you find out how to impact your audience with each skill you’ve listed out.
So at the end of this exercise, you will be having something like…
SKILL: Facebook Ads
IMPACT; I provide my audience with quality lead generation to fill up their webinars and increase conversion rates.
SKILL: Copywriting
IMPACT; I help my audience build conviction and write sales driven copies that convince their customers to take specific actions.
Once you have all of the skills listed and their individual impact, next thing to do is to look through the impacts and see how you can turn that into a single sentence that highlights what you do for your audience.
This is the formula,
We help (target audience) do (one- sentence impact you just created) so they can ( result) through (skills)
I help coaches to write sales driven copies to increase lead generation so they can have a 10% increase in webinar sales through copywriting.
Now that you have created your brand impact/message, you can now get clarity on your offers because you need to sell and make money as well.
- Clarify your offers: By clarifying your offers you will have to get clear on the different solutions you can provide your audience based on the information you have on their struggles and desires.
You can start by creating one product for each category of your audience and as you grow you can increase your products or offers.
HOW TO CLARIFY YOUR OFFER
Create your different audience categories based on their pain point and create a product for them…
That’s it!!!!
For example, if you serve coaches and product businesses, you can create a general product for them, you can also create different offers for them that are specific to their needs.
For instance, I have a product for people who want to monetize their knowledge through online courses, that product is COURSE LAUNCH BLUEPRINT (CLB).
I have another one which is “CLUTTER TO CLARITY” session for people who need to clarify and simplify their brand message so they can monetize.
I also have an offer for people who want to learn how to write compelling sales page copies and build their own sales pages to sell their digital products called DIY SALES PAGE MINI-COURSE.
And so many other products that I currently run.
I was able to bring out all these offers because I have done my audience research and I understand what they need, I know their struggles and pains and based on all of these data, I looked at the skills I have, the impact I provide my audience and then asked myself how I can help these different audiences achieve this impact of MONETIZATION that Digital Creator Chic is all about.
The most important thing to do is to focus on your impact, not your skill.
Then, focus on your audience and see how you can help them get result, then create a product for them.
Now that you’ve decided on the different products/services you want to create yo help your audiences achieve your brand impact based on their different problems, the next thing to do is to work on your product offer(s) to make it very clear..
Give your product a name that is memorable, interesting and even relatable, so that it can be easy to connect with the product by hearing the name first. For example, course launch blueprint, sell anything to anyone with words https://digitalcreatorchic.com/selltoanyone , clutter to clarity, etc..
Pro Tip: I usually leave the naming for last after doing everything else I will list below.
- Make a promise to your target audience, tell them what they will achieve after buying your product, or taking your course, or attending your seminar.
For example, at the end of this seminar you will be able to get xyz results and do ABC.
Or “I will help you build a business beyond the internet if you attend this conference’
Or this course will show you how to achieve ABC.
- The next thing is, Who is it for? Mention the audience categories and what they’re struggling with that you’re trying to help them solve.
For example this product is for creators who are struggling with xyz.
- The next is the outline or deliverables, what is the expectation of the service or what is the course outline of the course, show it, tell them, people want to know what they will be getting from the services or a course. It will help you sell your offer confidently.
- The emotional benefit is the next factor to consider, what will they be getting from the product, how does it affect their lives or businesses. You can write about one to five benefits. Tell them why it is important for them to solve this problem with this your product
- Why is this product different from every product out there, this is where you focus on your value, brand impact, personality and social proof.
For example, this product is different because it is practical and I am a great teacher. I can help you understand xyz in a few hours.
- The last thing is the process you are taking them through to achieve everything you have promised. Make them understand how you intend to achieve this transformation you promised.
When people see all of these, the perceived value of your product automatically increases, and you will be able to sell confidently and ultimately, monetize.
Pro Tip 1: Do this for each and every one of your product/service
Pro Tip 2: Once you have these, put them out there and always remind people that these are ways you can help them beyond the free content you publish online and you will slowly start to train your audience to want to pay you
Pro Tip 3:
- Identify Your Stories
Tell personal stories that align with your brand impact. It could be stories about yourself or customers or your surroundings that aligns with your brand.
Once you have your brand message clarified, your offers and stories identified, it will be easy to build a proper connection with your audience.
The G.R.O.W. Challenge ( – insert link to home page – https://digitalcreatorchic.selar.co/growchallenge is a good way to learn how to tell great brand stories.
ELEMENT 2 – DIFFERENTIATION
Differentiation is that thing that sets you apart from every other business or brand or coach.
Differentiation comes from looking inward at who you are and working it outwards to how you can stand out.
Here are few things that can help you differentiate yourself from others;
- Brand Values – What do you believe in as a person that should reflect through your brand? Many times your values are shaped by your life experiences, backgrounds, beliefs, and aspirations.
Write down 5 of these things and turn them into values for your brand
A brand value I picked from my background: I learned to stand up for myself early and because of this, I have decided to stand for people who cannot do that by themselves as I go through life – Empathy.
Today Empathy is one of my brand values and if you’ve been following me for a while you’d have seen that in all of my toughness, One thing I portray is always putting people first, guiding them, and encouraging and caring for them
I also say things as they are, which is also a part of my beliefs. In as much as I want to get you, I won’t sugarcoat things and my brand value is Transparency (Authenticity and honesty)
I have also had to learn a lot of things on my own and somehow I realized that I could learn fast – my brand value is simplicity, I exemplify this through my content, training, etc.
I can go on and on but let’s stop here
So, look back inside you and see what experiences, beliefs have shaped you into who you are today and find the ones you want to exemplify through this brand you’re building.
EXERCISE – What are your 5 Brand values?
- Brand Personality – This can be funny, goofy, caring, friendly etc.., you can get your brand personality from taking the 12 archetypes quiz. Or just read up on the attributes.
Every Brand should portray not more than three out of the 12 types of archetypes, one as the primary and the other two as the secondary.
This will help you understand how to differentiate yourself
Read about the 12 archetypes to identify your primary and secondary archetypes.
Once you decide, then you can also take an online quiz( – insert link to quiz – to help you discover your primary archetype because most times, if you answer the quiz correctly, it will always pick the one best archetype for you which will be your primary archetype and the others can be your secondary archetype.
Most times, your personality is not far from your values or what you believe in, or experiences you’ve lived
While growing up, I used to spend my stipend to buy chalk and books and gather children in my neighborhood to teach them.
I loved it, In Uni I then realize that when I teach people, they get it more easily, and also, My dad was the only graduate in his family and I said to myself that no matter what, I must be one and so I believe that with education and the right knowledge you can be anything you want to be, and as a brand that is what I portray as my dominant personality – A SAGE.
As a sage, my brand is focus on providing people with the right knowledge and resources they need to monetize their expertise because we believe that with access to the right knowledge, the world can be yours and your dreams can come through which makes our second brand archetype to be A MAGICIAN.
You see how you are able to differentiate yourself from everybody else? – there’s no way there can be a copy of this
Even if two brands have the same SAGE or MAGICIAN archetype, their motivations can never be the same thing for choosing there archetypes
That is why again, you have to look inward to be able to stand out on the outside.
DISCOVER YOUR PRY & SEC PERSONALITY FOR YOUR BRAND
When you discover your brand archetype you can know how
- Stories – Stories are two edged swords, you need stories to build trust and get connection and you also need it for differentiation.
TELL stories about your journey and how this has shaped you as a person and as a business, TELL stories about your customers journey, TELL stories based on things you’ve observed in your surroundings, books you’ve read and relate them back to your audience and how it can matter to them.
ELEMENT 3 – CONSISTENCY
The third and final thing to do, to build a solid brand is consistency.
Consistency is the implementation of everything we have done to build connection and differentiation.
- Building Relationships: with consistency, you can start to build and nurture quality relationships with your audience and with industry experts
- Show up consistently with your brand message: the message can be refined from time to time but stop jumping from one place to another – good things take time
Your Content, Bio, website, products, customer experience, Everything you do comes in but they are all going to be a reflection of ELEMENT 1 & 2 (Connections & Differentiation)
- Stay true to your personality and values: When you know your personality and values, you will always know when to stop and what not to do because it doesn’t represent who you’re or who you’re trying to portray your brand as.
They say personal branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room which is very correct
But I say, personal branding is what you put in people’s minds to say about you when you’re not in the room
And that is the essence of building a solid and sustainable brand – Getting people to say and perceive your brand how it should be perceived and not having them think the opposite of what you’re building.
AS A RECAP
In order to build and position a solid and sustainable brand, you need these 3 elements; connections, differentiation, and consistency and I have broken them down during the course of this article.
And here’s my final note to you before I end drop my pen.
I asked this question in a conference I organized in June 2023 “If your business was an animal, what will it be and why” –
2 people chose Lion and another set of 2 people chose Parrot but guess what, they all said their why differently and that is as a result of who they are, what they believe in, or what they’re trying to build as a brand.
RESPONSES 1
Person 1 – A Lion; because the lion dominates
Person 2 – My business will be a lion because it possesses authority”
RESPONSES 2
Person 1 – Parrot, because it tells everyone about a product offering
Person 2 – Parrot, because I keep singing the praise of what I do to benefit other businesses in their different languages”
No 2 businesses can be exactly the same even if they are selling the same thing except one is a copy of the other — Don’t you think so?
That is why you need to channel it all from your inside out and not outside in because you cannot give what you do not have…
And this reason is why I created the G.R.O.W. Challenge; a 14 day practical and ruthless implementation challenge to help you find yourself, define and position your brand, clarify your message and offers so that you can monetize, and sell yourself confidently, and show up differently and consistently….
Whether you are building as a creator, service provider, freelancer, coach, or agency; this is what you need first before anything else
When you have this in place, the confusion about content creation, monetization, showing up, and even multi-skills will be fixed
The next cohort will be starting in October or April and you can join the waitlist by using the link – https://bit.ly/thegrowchallenge
And You will see a breakdown of everything you will get once you land there, fill out the form and you will hear from me on how to proceed with payment plus you get in at a discount when registrations open
I must also say that this article is just a peep into what we will be doing for those 14 days, so if you’ve learned a lot from this article, Imagine what those 14 days would look like…
