How to Find Your Sweet Spot
You need this in order to succeed in business (especially with content marketing)
You need this in order to succeed in business (especially with content marketing)
How to Find Your Sweet Spot
What is it that separates you from your competition? What makes you stand out from the crowd? What is that "thing" that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning because you love what you do? In this blog post, you'll learn how to bottle all this up into what's called your "sweet spot."
In Joe Pulizzi's book, Content Inc., he lays out the six steps he believes (and proves through the evalation of several successful brands) are required to build an effective "Content Inc. Model" - the first of which is finding your sweet spot.
Here's how Pulizzi explains the sweet spot:
Simply put, the sweet spot is where your particular fields of knowledge and your skill sets intersect with a passion point - somehing you feel is of great value to you personally, or to society at large.
So, finding your sweet spot iinvolves bringing together a combination of three things:
1. Your Knowledge
2. Your Skill Set
3. Your Passion
What my sweet spot looks like.
As an example, I'll share what I believe to be my sweet spot; it's what led me to write Stop Selling. Start Helping. and to continue sharing that message through this website, speaking to groups, and consulting with businesses.
1. Knowledge: I have 25+ years of knowledge and experience in advertising, marketing, and sales.
2. Skill Set: Over those 25 years, I have become a strong writer, presenter, and educator.
3. Passion: Boiled down to one thing, my passion is helping people.
So, I have taken my knowledge and skill set, and combined it with my passion to create a business niche called Stop Selling. Start Helping.
The question becomes: Now what?
Once you have uncovered your sweet spot, that is just the beginning. In my case, lots of people have knowledge about sales and marketing; an lots of people have the skills to educate; and, many people also have a desire to help people.
According to Pulizzi, finding the sweet spot is just step number one in the process of building a Content Inc modeled business. The other steps include:
- Developing your "content tilt" - how can you do what you do uniquely different than anyone else out there?
- Building your base - finding your audience and helping them
- Harvesting your audience - grow your audience
- Diversifying your content - time to consider other content types
- Monetizing your content - this is intentionally the last step; do everything els right, and the money will follow!
Read the book!
I highly recommend Pulizzi's book, Content Inc. Whether you're a start up or an established business looking to grow in a particular market, the concepts in this book WILL make a difference, and will open your eyes to a whole new way of thinking.
Disclaimer: I do not get compensated if you buy this book. I am purely recommending it because I think it's a great resource! So, go get it. Seriously.
