Your Uniqueness Lies Within You
There is too much commoditization and not enough uniqueness..
The most valuable piece of personal branding advice I ever received came from a gentleman named Larry Winget.
He told me, “Rory, the goal of personal branding is to find your uniqueness so that you can exploit it in the service of others.”
We developed a process called the Brand DNA Helix. It is a series of six questions that we take somebody through to help them find their uniqueness
- What problem do I solve?
- What do I research?
- What would people be willing to buy?
- What business am I in?
- What do I have results in?
- What am I passionate about?
And at the overlap, the intersection of those six questions is where your uniqueness lies.
We look at everything in someone’s past. We believe that everything you’ve done in your past gives us hints and clues to who you were called to be, what makes you truly unique, and what you are called to do in the future.
The things you feel compelled to move towards to are there for a reason and help us triangulate on a person’s uniqueness.
It’s a very individual experience that we take someone through to help them find what makes them unique to break through the wall.
At the end of the day, instead of going through this long process to break through the wall, there is one thing you could do, and that is simply to build trust.
Your differentiator is you.
It’s not about differentiating yourself based on knowledge; it’s differentiating yourself based on trust.
Building Trust
What does that mean?
Don’t differentiate yourself based on what you do. Differentiate yourself based on who you are.
We want to have some unique processes and methodologies, and there are things that we want to do as much as possible to differentiate.
But at the end of the day, the reality is that it comes down to who do I trust?
Do I trust you, or do I trust my brother in law? Do I trust the guy I’ve been with for 10 years?
It is ultimately an equation of trust.
A personal brand is what people think about when they think of you.
Reputation is an assessment of your trustworthiness.
People do not do business with companies, knowledge, expertise, products, or services.
People do business with people.
We spend so much of our time trying to show how we’re smarter than the next guy or how we’re different than the next guy.
When in reality, all that we have to show is that we care more than the next guy.
That is what moves a lot of people.
That is a way to create differentiation.
It is that trust.
Reaping the Benefits of Good Reputation
And once you have established that trust, you start to break through the wall.
What happens next is amazing.
On this side of the wall, the unknown side, everything is pushed.
Everything is a fight. Everything is hustle, claw, and scrape.
But when you break through the wall to the other side, everything is pulled. It’s coming to you.
You’re not a megaphone. You’re a magnet.
It is coming to you because you have built up such a trusted reputation with so many people.
Your customers become your salesforce.
When you have trust, this is what we call a rock-solid reputation.
Which side of the wall are you on? What’s your uniqueness? I would love to know in the comments below.
