Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, I'm Jesse Forest. I'm the chief copywriter and founder at copyrighting crew dot com. In the last 14 years, I've worked with some of the world's top online marketers, and entrepreneurs have also been invited to share my copyrighting tips at conferences around the world and the companies like Chanel, Disney and Sony. In this class, I'm gonna walk you through the process of credit, your own powerful personal brand using five Fill in the blank writing templates that will help you take your business and brand to the next level. I'm also going to give you lots of examples and ideas that will help you answer the important questions. Who is your target audience and why should they choose you? A recent study by the Freelancers union found there are now over 57 million freelances operating in the world. Now that level of competition makes it a really challenge for most freelances to attract clients and earn a decent income online. How do you stand out from the millions off creative businesses competing for the same jobs and clients online? The only way to truly stand out is by having a powerful personal brand statement or value proposition, and that's exactly what we're going to create in this class. And by the end of the class, you walk away with a clear value proposition, and personal brand there will tell your customers who you are, what you do, how you're unique and why they should choose you over the competition. This class is for anyone who wants to learn how to stand out in a competitive marketplace and attract more clients and customers online. It doesn't matter if you're a website designer, a writer, a graphic designer, a freelancer or any other type of creative business owner. If you've ever struggled to answer the question, what do you do for a living in a way that makes people want to hire you? Then this class is for you. So if you're ready to create a personal brand that's gonna help you stand up from the competition, then go ahead and enroll in this class, and I look forward to seeing you inside the class dashboard
2. Class Project: So for this class project, I want you to download the work shape and use any of the five. Fill in the blank templates to create your own personal brand or value proposition. Then, when you're done when you toe upload that filled in work shape inside the class projects, that way, myself and other students can read it and give you advice or feedback on how to make it even better. So make sure you go to this class that you're using that template, and I look forward to seeing what you share with us inside the class dashboard.
3. What Is A Personal Brand?: What is a personal brand? Why don't we ask? Three experts have all successfully created personal brands. The 1st 1 is Jeff Bezos. He's a founder of amazon dot com, and Jeff says that your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room. Now, second expert is Tim Ferriss. You might have heard of him, he wrote. The famous book The Four Hour Work Week, is also the founder or the owner of Tim Ferriss Stock Common, he says. Personal branding is about managing your name. Even if you don't own a business going on a date, chances are your blind date has Googled your name. Going for a job interview The same thing doesn't make a lot of sense. I know I have personally, especially before dates or even trying to hire other people. We always google their name to see what we can find about them and that really, what we find in Google can be someone's personal brand. The third person is Gary Vaynerchuk. You might have seen him for his popular book, Siri's, and also he is YouTube, Siri's, and he says it's important to build a personal brand because it's the only thing you're going tohave your reputation online and in the new business world is pretty much the game. And isn't that so true again? When people search for us or they look at our social media, that's our personal brand in action. So in summary, a postal brand. I really believe what those experts are saying is three things. It's what people say, think and feel about you even when you're not in the room. It's how you manage your online reputation, and it's how you position yourself in the market place. So in my eyes and according to the experts, that is what a personal brand is.
4. What Is A Personal Brand Statement?: So what is a personal brand statement? Will A personal brand statement or value proposition is a 1 to 2 sentence statement that answers the following important questions. Who is your ideal target market or markets? If you have multiple, what problems do you help them to solve? What benefits can they expect from working with you? And why should people buy from you and not the competition? Okay, so those are the important questions that you want to answer. And in fact, I've given you inside of the class projects a value proposition work shape in that work shape, it's gonna list out all of those questions, and so you definitely want to download that. And make sure you answer those questions because you're gonna need those answers when it comes to filling in and using those five writing templates to make sure you go ahead, download that work shade and fill them in now to help you out. In the next couple of videos, we're gonna be looking at some great examples off other creative businesses that have used personal brand statements and value propositions to create amazing things. So hopefully those will give you some ideas on how you too can position yourself and also answer those important questions
5. Case Studies & Examples: examples of great value propositions and personal brand statements. So in this video, we're gonna be looking at creative businesses and also non creative businesses that have used personal brand statements and value propositions to really stand out in the marketplace, dominate and achieved business success. So they should give you some really good ideas on how you, too, can answer those questions. You know who is your target audience? What benefits do you deliver, What problems do you solve and why should people choose you over your competition? So let's start with the 1st 1 This is one of my favorite case studies because they're really fun company. They've done incredibly well, and that's Dollar Shave Club. So Dollar Shave Club was founded by Mark Levin and Michael Dubin. The pair met at a party and spoke of their frustrations with the high cost off razor blades . So what they did was they offered something that their competition couldn't. That's high quality raises delivered to your door for just $3 a month. Now that's a dollar for the razors and, I believe, $2 for shipping. So they launched their Dollar Shave Club membership service in 2012 with a YouTube video that went viral and I do encourage you after you watch this skill showed class to go and look up their YouTube video, The Dollar Shave Club Video, because it's really funny and a great example on how to use video marketing to really stand out in your marketplace. And they sold 12,000 orders within the 1st 48 hours of launching that video in 2016 the Dollar Shave Club was acquired by Union Leyva for a reported $1 billion. That's just an incredible result. Now we look at this case study and what I really want you to take away from this is what they've used to stand out is Price. So what they saw in their marketplace was that, you know, the competitors were charging a really high price for their product, which was shavers, and they found a way to compete on price. Now, not every creative business should compete on price. I don't compete on price and certainly not the most affordable copyrighting agency in the world, and you probably don't want to compete on price either, but you might want to position your price to be more affordable than your competitors, then that really is the lesson here. So Dollar Shave Club, this is their home page. It's a great example off their value proposition, which reads a great shaved for a few bucks a month. No commitment, no fees and no B s. So that's their value proposition in a nutshell. Okay, now I want to move on to another way to position yourself another way to answer that question. Why should choose you over the competition? My favorite one here is from one of my friends, websites and companies, and that's automation agency dot com Que Automation agency dot com will be providing a list of all of these examples in the work shit, so you can always look at these later. But this example is so good that I found myself recommending my friends company all the time to my clients and friends, Teoh relatives as well, so their value proposition reads. Get unlimited technical and design task done for you by experience programmers and designers from just $249 a month. Now, if you have a high it a graphic designer or a website programmer before you know how expensive that come bay. So what they're doing is they're offering a set monthly price with no contracts where you can get unlimited work, whether it's programming the design for just $249 a month. An incredible deal. They found a way to make that work by, you know, outsourcing a lot of the works. The next one is designed pickle dot com. They offer just designs again for a flat fee. I'm not sure what that prices, but it is affordable the way their position it is ego free. Graphic design service for a simple, simple monthly flat, right? Okay, so again, their position themselves as unlimited design graphic design work for a flat monthly right now that could be anywhere from 400 up to $1000 a month. But again, it's just a way to position themselves differently than their competition. All right, another way to position yourself is based on your speed or how quickly you turn around your projects. So our fast turnaround would be a way of saying that now one of my favorite ones is the website called Lightning sites dot com, another good friend of mine and his business is turning over a $1,000,000 a year, which is an incredible amount of revenue for really a Web design company. And then what he has done here is his promised your website built in 10 days, or it's free, an incredible value proposition that most Web designers probably couldn't match. But the way he's done that is by having a large team and a really efficient process, where they use templates and their streamline that process where that is actually achievable. You know there's more to it than that, but really an incredible value proposition as well. So you can you to offer your service in 10 days. Or it could be two weeks or even a month. Whatever it is, can you offer a fast turnaround or speed of delivery that's gonna make you appealing and different in the marketplace. Another example is a website called Shudder rocket dot com dot au. There are cooperating agency where they will promise deliver, I think, a couple of pages of copy within 48 hours. Again, they're promising speed as a value proposition. And then there's Marty Daily, whose a graphic design who specializes in promotional materials and he'll trace a low resolution logo within 30 minutes. Again. Really fast. Turnaround. Yours doesn't have to be that fast, but it just shows an example of offering speed as your value proposition.
6. Should You Specialize?: now should you specialize in a lot off freelances and credit business types are generalizing there, offering Let's say they're copyrighting or their graphic design or Web design del, just to accept all types of jobs that can be beneficial if you're just getting started. But if you specialize, I would say you can charge a lot more money for your services. You can also position yourself as the go to person in your industry, so the way to think about this is if you're getting married and you're looking for a wedding photographer, would you would you hire someone who positioned themselves as only a Web wedding photographer? Some of the Deschutes weddings exclusively and has a port follow full of beautiful wedding photos? Or would you or would you hire someone who's a journalist? Photographer has put followers field of product photography, portrait photography. Just a couple off wedding port. Follow examples. I think if you're like most people will choose the specialists. So just another reason to specialize. You become a big fish in a small pond, as opposed to a a small fish in a big pond, competing with lots of other generalist. So there's some reasons why you might consider specializing your freelance business or creative business. A few ideas specializing could be a photographer who only shoots weddings. A copywriter or writer who only writes white paper reports. You might be a social media manager who only works with accountants. You could also be an illustrator who only draws Pet Portrait's or a graphic designer who only designs presentations for speakers and thought leaders. So they're just some ideas on how you could specialize your services. If you want to become that, go to expert in your industry. So here's an example off specialization. Now my business actually writes for the professional services industry. So accountants, financial planners are professional services of all types. But we decided specialized having one landing page, and this is the the top section of that landing page. You can see the example here. This is a way of how you might write the copy Financial service firms, how to turn your website visitors in the warm leads and profitable clients. We help financial service firms generate more qualified leads and clients with professional , written and engaging Web copyrighting, and by the end of this class will be a shame sharing with you examples and those templates and how you could write the exact same type of copy for your website as well, when you want to use your personal brand statement or value proposition.
7. 5 Writing Templates: Okay, so now we come to the rial Practical fill in the blanks video. And that's how to create a great value proposition using these five fill in the blank writing templates. Okay, So what I'm going to share with you now is templates that I've adapted and examples that I've adapted for all types of creative businesses. So were you about to say on the screen here is the actual template. There's gonna be five of them five riding templates. You're going to see the actual template, and then you're going to see an example for a specific creative business. But what I want you to know is that you can adapt any of these templates for any type of creative business or any business in general. So if you're a writer, a copywriter, you might even use these in your own business off your clients businesses. So the 1st 1 here is template number one, and this is how it reads. So where you see the parenthesis or the brackets? That's where you enter in your specific information that starts with business name offers adjective products, slash services for target market, who want who want to and then desired outcome. Unlike other competitors, we don't common problems and then points off difference. So looking at the example here, it reads Speaker design Office, Beautiful presentation design services that thought leaders who want to captivate their audience with impactful presentations. Unlike other designers, we don't use cheeky, cheesy stock images or generic typography. We handcraft every presentation with images and content. There are as unique as you are. So as you can see that, that's a fleshed out example off a speaker design company that specializes in that for speakers. And they're really presenting how they're different to the marketplace. So that's something you can use if you really want. Teoh really want to present yourself different in the marketplace in the way that it shone there in that example. Okay, so Template number two. This example here is for a graphic designer, but again could be used for any type of credit, business or business in general. This one is a bit shorter and simpler. This is where you start with the problems that you help your target audience to solve, so it starts with. Forget the problems at business name, which is your business. We offer your point of difference for target audiences or audience. So, the example reads, Forget expensive, egotistical and slow moving graphic designers At Design Frog, we offer affordable, eager free design services with a fast turnaround for startup founders and small business owners says you can see in that example there really positioned themselves differently there, explaining, You know, they're starting with those problems, that they know that their clients of experience dealing with other graphic designers and then they explain how they're different and why they're different. So again you could easily use the exact same thing in your business. Temple Number three is for a freelance copywriter, but again, like every template here, can be adapted and used for any type of business. This one is quite straightforward. We've got in the bracket here, we or I. So you're going to choose if, if you say way, that's because you have a team and you might be an agency. If you say I, then that's yourself as a sole operator or a freelancer. So you choose. Do you weigh? I help target market benefit with al slash my adjective and then services. So the example is we help hardworking business owners turned more of their website visitors into customers without professional and affordable copyrighting services. Okay, so that's it really simple and straightforward value proposition or personal branding statement that really any credit, business or business owner could use to position themselves differently? All right, Number four were flying through these. This one is for a Web designer. Now, this one I really like and I've used in lots of the copy that we write for all kinds of businesses. So it starts off with multiple points of difference. So again, when you've entered the question in the work shape, why should people do business with you or choose you over the competition? You've written down a number of reasons off why you're different. You're competitive advantages, and you're gonna list these here in the start of the template. So multiple points of difference are just some of the reasons why I'm or target audience. That's your target audience. Choose to work with and then your business name. So unlimited support, beautiful design and free hosting. And just some of the reasons why I'm or business owners choose to work with big Web design again. It really straightforward and easy example, you could use as your personal branding statement or value proposition. Enter anywhere on your website or in your online marketing off your own creative business. All right, so the final template tempo number five. This one's for a video animator, and this one reads, We provide service now. This could be your product or your service is. But I said services here. So we provide service. That verb verb is your action word. Things like brings or attract or generate or turn or convert any type of verb word. You could use their and then benefits. So again it's we provide service that the benefits his example. I've used for a creative business. A video animator. We provide video animation that brings your ideas to life, engages your audience and communicate your unique message in a powerful way. All right, so this is a whole list of benefits that that video animator is offering to does to their target audience to their potential clients, And you could do the same thing as I mentioned for any creative business
8. Final Words: All right. So I hope you've enjoyed watching this class. Now, remember, this class is only valuable to you. If you actually take action, download that work shape and, you know, answer those questions not only to discover who your target audience is, what makes you unique and different to your competitors, but also how you can solve your tired audiences problems now. So it make sure you go ahead, answer those questions and then fill in those writing templates, so fill in the blanks to create your own personal branding statement or value proposition. And then I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to see you upload your worksheet, your field in work shape into the class project so that myself and other students could review what you've written and give you some valuable feedback that can make your value proposition or personal brand statement even better. So please go ahead. Make sure you actually implement what you've learned in this class. So thank you so much for enrolling and participating in this class. And I'm gonna be publishing more classes and courses soon. So I look forward to seeing you in the next cloth
Jesse Forrest, Copywriting Veteran
