When branding your business it is essential to have clarity about your target market and your area of specialization. You want to maintain this focus as you go about creating your plan so that you are limiting your activity to where you will have the most opportunity to create results within your target market. Branding includes several elements that all require a clear message to those you most want to work with, about who you are and how you can best help them.

One client I worked with specialized in providing financial planning for women. After his father passed away, his mother had worked with a financial advisor and the result was a significant loss. Because of the impact of his mother’s financial loss on his own life, he is now focused on serving women and helping them make conservative decisions with regard to their overall financial picture. His expertise was well defined and communicated to the niche market of women he wanted to serve. I have other clients who specialize in serving women simply because they have good rapport and simply like working with women. I have had a client who specialized in being a financial advisor for attorneys. Because his father was an attorney, he grew up around the legal conversation and had a comfort level as well as an appreciation for attorneys as professionals.

Going through these simple steps listed below can assist you with strengthening your marketing focus and ultimately your brand:

• Write down your target market and your area of expertise

• Now look at what you enjoy doing/providing and make a list:

(For example, helping people to see how they can retire comfortably on their desired retirement date, helping them to create income from their investments, creating financial plans, monitoring portfolios, working with pension plans, whatever it is).

• Next, make a list of those areas where you most enjoy serving your clients.

• Now write a list of the problems that they want solved.

Take some time answering each of these questions thoroughly. You may surprise yourself!

If you want to create a powerful branded system for your business, you will need to have a focused target market, with a focused area of specialization. This requires alignment between you and the group that you serve. Given who you are, your experience, your personality and your values, the more aligned you are with your target market the more natural the attraction they will have for working with you.