This is a general overview of the first day of the 30 Day Branding Challenge. Lots of questions are jumping around my head so I apologise if this post feels a little all over the place.
In her PDF report Tiffany has identified four different ways in which people earn their money online. I think that I am a mixture of three out of the four ways. I provide a service by offering quality PLR articles at The PLR Boutique, I earn commissions through a range of small websites and I earn money with adsense commissions from a selection of articles on different web 2.0 platforms.
Once you know how you earn your online income or how you would like to earn your online income, you need to decide whether to brand yourself, your collection of websites as one entity or to separate everything out.
I think I am aiming to create, or rather develop, an umbrella brand to encompass the different arenas that I operate in.
My Thoughts On The Challenge Report
At first glance I didn’t really like the style of the PDF. I am the sort of person who likes to be taken by the hand and told what to do. Step one, do this, Step two do that etc. However, after reading through the lesson again, I realised that there are lots of questions being asked. It is just that they are not prefaced with a number or a bullet point. This time through I actually made notes in the form of questions I needed to ask myself.
The information that I need to discover is the following:
- What subjects am I interested in?
- What websites or forums are out there that cover these subjects?
- What do they do well?
- What do they do less well?
- What is missing from their websites?
- What questions are people asking in these topic areas on forums or Yahoo Answers etc?
- What could I add or how could I improve on what is already available?
There were quite a few questions/statements above that I feel I can’t really answer yet as I haven’t done enough in order to evaluate or sum up my thoughts.
Light Bulb / Aha Moment!
When I took a look at My Google Reader to see what type of sites I like to keep up with, I noticed one, now glaringly obvious, thing about almost 99% of the blogs on my list. They are all written in the first person and are about people actually sharing their lives and experiences with their readers! They are all about the topics that I want to write about such as travel, books, films, making money online, finding great bargains and living out the life that I really want.
Here I am a little scared to put myself out there but I am happy enough to read all about these different people. It made me chuckle. This is something that I vow to change by the end of this challenge. First things first:
Hello My Name Is Victoria and This Is My Website!
(and breathe)
Strive To Be The Best – What Are Your Strengths?
This is something that I think many people will struggle with, myself included. If you are relatively new to a particular niche or topic area it is hard to even whisper such a bold statement and actually believe it. Even in real life, people find it difficult to verbalise what they are good at. I am sure you can remember job interviews where you were asked to state 3 things you are good at etc. This was a real stumbling block for most, me included.
I am reminded of the great athletes who all strive to get that gold medal. They must have some real belief that they can achieve it otherwise they wouldn’t bother. But they really put their heart, body and soul into their training so that they can win that Gold medal.
This is the mind set that we mere mortals have to instil in our own lives. If we strive to be the best, we can also get to the top. (Wow – this has turned into a mini motivational session for myself LOL).
Do You Know Your Strengths?
I am still trying to figure out what my strengths are. At the moment I think that I am:
- Organised
- Funny
- A good writer
- Honest
- Open minded
- Fearless
- Independent
- Determined
- Lazy/unmotivated sometimes (not a strength but it is something that I can’t ignore about myself).
I will revisit this list later on in the challenge to see if anything needs to be added or taken away. That will be really interesting.
Tiffany wrote the following quote from a branding book:
Brands are promises – so what’s yours?
I love how personal this sentence is. This is perfect for people who want make sure that they are on the right path and are connecting with their readers in the way that they want.
At the moment I can’t answer that question because, quite frankly I am not sure exactly what it is I want to provide.
What Do I Promise?
The site that I am working on is My personal blog, My Daily Cuppa. The promise has something to do with providing people with information that will help them see how easy or challenging it is to live the life that you truly want to live. I hope to learn from my own experiences and be able to pass this on in an intelligent, informative and interesting way. That’s sounds so airy fairy / marketing speak / jargony. Short and sweet – I want to enjoy my life and share the experience with others!
Still lots of work to do on part one but, bring on Day Two.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Branding Challenge – Lesson 3
- Branding Challenge – Catch Up
- Branding Challenge – Day 2
- 30 Day Branding Challenge – Intro
