This week on Wednesday, I was interviewed about Purpose.

What is your purpose? How do you find it? How do you make that into a paying business?

And in particular, I was asked how did I come to be so interested in the topic of purpose? There were several answers to this question, but there was something in particular that it seems critical for me to tell you…

When I started ignite!, I actually started with styling services for high-end coaches and speakers. But styling in itself wasn’t unique enough for me – any stylist that’s good enough at their craft to pay rent in NYC can style you. So in addition to styling, I added in “brand” styling to make it more leveragable in the market place, since my target market is a femme-preneur with a strong online brand.

And then I began to notice something. I worked with coaches and speakers who were extraordinarily visible – like in-your-inbox-every-week kind of visible. And when I took them shopping, they fell into two camps.
Camp Clarity: 
Some of them were crystal clear about their branding – what they were a stand for in the marketplace, what they are here on the planet to do, what their role is among the people they serve, and the specific dreams and problems of the people they serve. These women had really remarkable, magnetic personal brands. I could give them my brand assessment, and because of their clarity, I could take their key words, and match it to clothing that spoke their message without words.

Camp Cloudy: 
Then there were others who were highly visible who lacked that clarity, who when I asked what they were a stand for, couldn’t give me a direct, concise, distinctive answer. It was really hard to style them based on their brand. I could style them based on their body type or their favorite colors, or their website colors, but I couldn’t go any deeper. Their websites looked AMAZING. And that made their branding palatable. But not remarkable.

Re-mark-a-ble [ri-mahr-kuh-buhl]
adjective
1) Notably or conspicuously unusal; extraordinary.
2) Worthy of notice or attention.

Pal-at-a-ble [pal-uh-tuh-buhl]
adjective
1) Acceptable or agreeable to the palate or taste.
2) Acceptable or agreeable to the mind or feelings.

At this point, I became aware of 2 things:

1) That it is totally possible to go very far in your business – make a ton of money, be uber visible, and not stand for anything. It’s possible to have a brand that looks great online but isn’t compelling to anyone, not even yourself. These brands were vanilla, palatable, and very pretty online. They had websites (I personally) drooled over.

2) I wanted no part of that. Since I can choose, I’d rather have brand clarity and a basic, no-frills website for a while as I built the brand foundation, than look pretty online and in my clothes without a remarkable brand. Remarkability in a personal brand is EVRYTHING when it comes to your long-term success. And what makes a personal brand remarkable is what it stands for.

As I looked even deeper into this, I noticed that at the foundation of remarkable brands – brands like Marie Forleo, Oprah Winfrey, Mama Gena, and others – is a compelling message. At the heart of every remarkable personal brand, is what the brand stands for and how the business owner expressed that truth.

Marie? Curses like a trucker.
Oprah? Always talking about the woo-woo stuff these days.
Mama Gena? Every other word out of her mouth is pussy or goddess.

Palatable? No. In fact, these women are often times confronting.
Remarkable? 100%.

Now hear me out…I’m not saying that online experience, look and feel aren’t important. But I am saying they are icing on a well-baked web-cake. (I personally like my cake with cake and icing. Just icing alone can get too sweet, and there’s only so much of it I can take before I’m bored.)

And it’s this inquiry – what makes a personal brand remarkable and how do they sustain that remarkability over time?
…That started me down this path. Sustainability in a personal brand has to come from something deeper than your head or your graphic designers palette. It has to fuel you even when you aren’t making money, even when haters come (and the bigger you get, they will come.) And that’s how I realized that it’s purpose at the heart of every remarkable personal brand. And it’s purpose that accelerates the visibility of every personal brand.

Brand work:

Make a list of the top 3 things you stand for – specifically – in your marketplace. What do you truly believe everyone in your marketplace needs to do or know? If this one stumps you, don’t worry, we’ve all been taught at some point to tone down our passion. Look to things that make you upset or mad, or things that excite you to the point of distraction. Your stand is in those directions.

Has your business changed as a result of taking a stand? I’d love to know what stand you took and how your business changed in the comments below.

June 2013 Issue