Finding your voice will empower you in knowing who you are and the audience you can help.
It is not just about finding your brand messaging or creating a logo, it is about finding your state of being.
Why should you find your voice?
When the planets align the gravity of the planets pulls on the earth. Just like the alignment of the planets, when your brand story is aligned, it will pull people in.
To be able to find your voice ask yourself these simple questions:
- Looking toward the future, what is the perceived business strategy for your business?
- If your business were a religion what would you worship? Is it Customer Service? Innovation? and Why?
- Who are the most important or significant Competitors?
- In your opinion, how are we positioned to compete?
- What is our greatest strength as a company?
- What is our greatest weakness as a company?
- What are 5 words that describe your business?
You will be able to produce your Tag Phrasing, Brand Mantra, Value Proposition, Position and Mission Statement by answering these question. This is your voice, this is who you are. This will help your voice resonate with your potential audience.
Who is your potential audience?
The animated movie Robots when the main character based his “business” on a theme he learned as a kid and would repeat to himself,”See a need, fill a need.” Well, that is the same thing we should be able to say about our businesses, what need am I filling today and who needs it?
Your potential audience are PEOPLE who need what you are providing. These people go on a journey to understand what they need. If you have found your voice, you will help them become the Hero of that journey like what Obi-Wan Kenobi or Yoda is to Luke Skywalker.
Now, we need to find who they are. Well, sometimes it is very obvious who you are trying to reach. If you are selling pre-teen clothing, you are trying to reach the mom. You make her the hero of the story by providing “fashionable” clothing to their children. If you are a tech entrepreneur that created a CRM for Real Estate Agents, you are trying to reach the Agent. You help the agent make their clients the hero of their journey in purchasing or selling their home.
Sometimes, it isn’t clear in who you should target. If you find yourself in this place, there are a couple of things to do.
- We talked about “see a need, fill a need.” Looking at why that need is there and who is in need will help you know who you need to target. Joe Pulizzi of Content Market Institute said,”We are so focused on our product or what we sell, we need to focus on the audience, understanding their needs better than anyone else, and see what is possible.”
- Study your competition. Try to find out who they are targeting, and where they are targeting, and ask why.
- See what people are googling for what you are able to provide.
Let’s make sure that we understand who our audience is and what they want.
Conclusion
As you can see two of the most important things at first is to know who you are and how you resonate. I do have an invitation for you: BE SPECIFIC. There are many sayings out there and one that resonates with me is “Riches in the Niches.” Joe Pulizzi said,“It isn’t about being Global. Being Specific will make it universal, the truth is in the specifics and then it will resonate.”
Finding Your Voice Worksheet
This is a worksheet that will help you organize your voice for your audience. This worksheet has two parts.
- The questions to ask yourself and your team to understand who you are.
- The questions to ask yourself to know who your audience is.
Theses questions are the exact same questions that I ask my clients. They help change the mindset of what we are doing to why we are doing it. You will find your voice and it will resonate with your potential customers.