We've all heard the saying, don't judge a book by its cover. Well, you know everyone does. We all do.
Think about on the first day of class, if you walked in and you saw me looking like this, what would you think? What would your thought be? Would you be excited?
Or would you think about taking a U-turn and leaving the class? Like, oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? But now, what if I do this? Come in the first day of class looking like this. How do you feel?
You'd probably feel a lot more confident. And maybe even excited for the class. Oh, what are we going to do today? We all have these kinds of thoughts.
We don't think we do. We try to avoid them the best we can. But we all know we do. Think about even going on a first date. Or any date.
What if I meet you on a date at Costco? How would you feel? I probably wouldn't be married to my wife if I took her on a date to Costco for the very first time. But if I take her on a date to Lake of the Isles, what I think one of the nicest lakes in the Twin Cities, the beautiful homes around there, it's much quieter, it's a peaceful lake, you know, we have a nice dinner, we sit and chat, that's probably very romantic. And hopefully someday she will be my wife, which she is my wife today.
These things really matter. And so today we're going to take a different approach to the class. And we're going to sort of do it through the lens of... How can I make myself better, whether it's for job interviews or at your job and just getting promotions and becoming more successful? These things, unfortunately, they all matter.
So we're going to talk about today, positioning statement, right? Again, like think about if you go to work or your first interview and you wear the regular clothes you wear every day, will you get that job? Potentially.
And in a perfect world, you would get the job because we only judge based on people's ability. But if you show up to your first interview wearing a suit, Looking like an all-star, you know there's a much higher chance of getting hired. Even every day at work, they might say it's casual wear, but if you dress nice, people notice and that makes a difference and it goes a long way.
Because unfortunately, people judge often by the way that we look, by the words that we use, by the way that we sit, by our personalities. These things often have more influence into our image and the success of our career than it does actual the ability but we also do the same thing when we buy products we care about the image of the product more often than we actually care about the quality and we're gonna kind of get into that today so that hopefully you can actually control the image and if the image actually matches the ability that you're trying to sell and that's what's important because there's a really great quote by marketing consultant Harry Beckwith and he says a position is a cold-hearted No nonsense statement of how you're perceived in the minds of your prospects. Prospects means customers, hiring people, managers, CEOs.
It's all those people. For me, it's your students. All of this matters and I need you to view me in the same way that I view myself.
By the end of today's class, you will be able to see how a brand places itself in a spot in the marketplace compared to its competitors. So what is positioning? Positioning is... Staking out a place in people's mind. What you want is you want people to say, what is this product?
And as soon as they look at it, they have that instant spot in their brain of where it exists. They know exactly what it does, what solution it provides, and what needs it's meeting. And that's what you want.
Because in this huge marketplace where there's so many things, I want to be able to look at that product and be like, that's what it is. Immediately. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to get Basically superlatives in people's minds.
Superlators are things like the most, the best, or ending in EST, right? So they're saying it is the most natural product. It is the best price.
That's the best warranty. It is the safest. It is the healthiest. It is the strongest.
It is the most fashionable. It is the quickest. We want things like this.
And whether it's a brand or it's you at work, it's the same idea. You want your boss to say, Hey, I have this problem. Who should I get to fix it? Oh, you know what?
I know Sally. She's the smartest. I know Tom.
He's the best at computers. Or Clara is the best at Excel. We want these types of things in people's minds.
Because all of us have one or two great skills that we want to emphasize. And that's what it is. What is that skill? How are we going to put it out there so people know what it is and it connects directly into that place in their mind?
So clear brand positioning statements are really powerful because they help consumers categorize where these brands fit compared to their competitors. Think candy bars. We know there are multiple candy bars that are out there, but we know which each one is.
Slightly different from the next one based on this positioning statement or based on these super layers or these one or two specific Value claims and the same thing is that work you're in a team of five ten fifteen twenty people But where do you sit compared to them? What is your skill? that you are the best at that makes you unique or special compared to your teammates. So ultimately what is a positioning statement? The first thing it's not a tagline, it's not like a slogan, it's nothing like that.
It's an intro. statement you don't go around you don't tell anyone else what it is that's why we don't know what brands are you can't really google it and find out what it is it's for you on the inside it's for the managerial team on the inside but this puts you on a path to success so ideally you it down. You write it out what it is. And then once it's done, you know, you look at it every day.
You think about, okay, this is who I am. This is the clothes that I wear. This is the hairstyle that I have. This is how I talk. These are things that I'm going to excel at.
These are things that I'm going to try to ignore because I don't want to show that I'm weak at those. And then you think like over time, you build up an image at your company or in your career of you being this one person, just like brands do all the time. So what's What's important is you don't choose a large portfolio of things you're amazing at. You pick one or two things.
So there's obviously some strategic in there, but a lot of it's based on who your customer is. We've already talked about segments and we talked about target markets. And once you know these and know what they care about, you know which claim to make to say, this is what I'm the best at because I know that you need this to become successful.
You need this to solve the problems that you have. So a positioning statement is made up of four main things. So the first thing is your target market. You need to define who your target market is. The second thing, what are you good at?
What is your actual value? Like what is that one thing that you're going to be the best at? Then what you need to do, you need to give some kind of evidence to prove that you're the best at this.
So people always say to me, well, Corey, my best skill is I'm a hard worker. Everyone thinks they're a hard worker. No one says they're lazy. So what your job is, is to come up with a story that proves you are a harder worker than everyone else.
You need to have some kind of evidence to prove that you're the best at that work. one specific skill. If it's a brand, you say, yeah, we're the healthiest because we have the most protein. You show you have the most protein. And the last thing, which is different, and sometimes it's kind of confusing, you need to state who your competitors are.
You need to know who your competitors are and you tell people because then people know where you belong in the marketplace. But if you state who your competitors are, then it's easier to understand, okay, that's where they are in the marketplace. So if you take a second and you check down below, I actually pasted a skeleton of what a positioning statement looks like.
But I'm going to give you a couple examples here and then we'll be done with today's lesson. Because we've been talking about who we are, I'm going to give you an example of myself. So imagine I'm applying for...
a job at General Mills. I'm applying for a brand manager position. So I'll read you mine and then you can look at it and I'll kind of explain it.
So you can check it out here on the screen. For brand managers looking to build a successful team, Corey Nelson is the only candidate among all applicants that offers the ability to build brands from the ground up because he has built two very different brands, an online cosmetic brand and an international hops brand. So the first one is, who's the customer? The customer or brand manager is looking to hire someone, right?
They're looking to add people onto their team. The second one, who are the competitors? The competitors are other applicants, other people looking for this job. We're also going to interview.
Then the next thing is, what is my value? So I said, oh, I can help build you a successful brand. And then the last one is, what is the evidence? I've shown, well, you know what, because I like to build businesses on my own, and I have built two businesses that were somewhat successful in the past. So this is my personal.
Again, I don't share this with anyone, but every day if I read this, I think, okay, this is what I need to do when I go to work. I need to prove these things every single day for the next 20, 30, 40 years. The last one, just to give you an example of an actual brand, this is Boss Waters. It says, for middle class consumers looking to make a design statement with their choice of water, Boss is the only brand among all bottled waters that offers the purest and most distinctive drinking experience.
Because it derives from artesian source in southern Norway and it's packaged in a stylish iconic glass bottle. I'm not going to spend any time breaking this one boss one down. You can read it, you can compare it to the other one, but these are just gives you ideas of what brands do. So you should be doing this in your own self. You should be doing this when you work at a company.
But again, the goal of this positioning statement is to keep you on a path because as time goes by, whether it's a brand or yourself, you sort of can It gets windy. You sort of lose where you're going. And that's not a good thing.
And that's how brands start to suffer long term. To maintain your success for years. So by having this positioning statement, you can always come back and reflect on it and say, are we still on this path?
And if you slightly come off, then you fix it. Hey, you know what? Lately, our customers are viewing us differently than the way we view ourselves.
What are we doing wrong? What's the error? What's the flaw?
And then you can start to make adjustments to bring it back. So hopefully by the end of today's class, you will be. Able to see how a brand places itself in a spot in the marketplace compared to its competitors.
So I think today's lesson was a different approach. I think it has a ton of value for this class and for your own personal life. I hope you learned something. I appreciate you taking the time to come and watch our class.
It means so much to me. Take care, stay safe, and of course I will see you soon.