Don’t Let the Fraud Factor Show up in Your Branding
What I’d like to talk about is the fraud factor, how the fraud factor plays in branding, how it shows its face. The fraud factor, as you know is any time that you feel like a fraud, you feel like you don’t have the credentials. You don’t feel good enough. You don’t feel like you have the resources. You don’t feel like you really measure up to your competition.
What we do with brand identity when we’re building it, is have a process of going after the fraud factor. When we look at the core four, the what, who, why and the emotional solution, we define the who. We have a fraud factor diagram, which we fill out. Let me just walk you through it. You look at what you’re good at, what you know, what you have training in, what you have expertise in, your sweet spot. You list it out inside the middle circle. Draw a circle and list out what you’re good at. Then on the edges you start to notice where it’s not your territory. Let’s say you work with children with disabilities, and you’re helping them or helping their parents deal with everybody having a better life and a better journey. You look at what you absolutely know about that yourself from your own experience. Then you start looking at what you don’t know about. Maybe you don’t know about health care aspects, or medication, or prescription, or physical therapy or… What kind of disabilities do you know about, and what are outside of your purview? That’s a big category.
When building your #BrandIdentity you must examine your fraud factor. Click To Tweet
The fraud factor kicks in because if you’re trying to claim the entire category, you will be found out. There will be someone else in the space that absolutely knows a segment, that slice much better than you. What we look at is what is yours, and what is theirs? When you’re clear about that with your own services, then you do that with the target audience. Who do you serve? Do you serve mothers? Do you serve fathers? Do you serve teachers? Do you serve psychologists, therapists? You start looking at where your sweet spot is, what’s inside your territory, and what’s on the outside. When you start to get towards the fray, the fraud factor kicks up. What I want you to do, what we do with our brands is we get really, really clear that those are not your people. Whenever you feel that fraud factor slip in it’s because you’re playing with people who are not your people.
One of the funny things that we’ve come up with is get over yourself. They’re not your people because you’ve heard the phrase, “The riches are in the niches.” The fraud is in the broad. If you go broad, there’s fraud factor, but if you get your niche clarified who they are, who you are. That’s you.
Kerri Konik is a seasoned senior branding executive who has committed her focus and expertise to bringing big agency strategies to business owners and entrepreneurs to achieve next level growth. Kerri is the CEO of her 5th venture, Brandscape Atelier, a women-owned boutique agency specializing in strategic branding for small business. They develop brand strategy, identity, messaging and marketing that ignites emotional connection, increases sales, drives growth and profits, resulting in sustainability and achieving a greater impact in the world.