We’re in the anti-niche era. Build a beloved brand by being your multi-passionate self and learn how to tell stories that sell. Delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday.
Hormozi explained my entire framework in 3 minutes
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Every business exists to solve a problem. That’s why you started yours. You solved a problem for yourself and had a desire to help others solve that same problem. Lots of businesses solve the problem, so how do you stand out from your competitors? Price and speed are options. However, I don’t think you want to be the cheapest and I don’t think focusing your messaging on speed and quick fixes is the type of business you’re looking to build. The other two differentiators:
While uncovering your unique zone of genius can take time, curating a vibe can happen today. People like us, do things like thisLast year my brother bought an Audi. I drive a Subaru Impreza. He’ll tell you he got the Audi for it’s German Engineering, but let’s be real. All cars can last up to 200,000 miles if taken care of. He bought an Audio because he lives in Newport, Rhode Island. The same place the Vanderbilts built their mansion, know as The Breakers. He just got married at the same church JFK got married. He belongs to the International Tennis Hall of Fame where he plays tennis on grass courts. He belongs a private golf club and the Newport Reading Room, a private club for men. Do you think my brother is going to pull up to these places in my Subaru Impreza? Not a fucking chance. I however, live in Bend, Oregon. I have run a 40 mile ultra marathon and have been snowboarding since I was 10. The thing about Bend is that I might be the worst runner here and everyone, besides me, can do backflip on their skis in the back country. It’s literally the land of Subarus. So yeah… I don’t just fit into Bend with my hobby choices, but with my car too. And my brother fits into Newport with his car too. Best selling author and speaker, Seth Godin, write in his book This is Marketing, “People like us, do things like this.” In fact, it’s on the back flap of the book. What does this mean? It’s best described in one of his essays: Every organization, project, interaction exists to do one thing: to make change happen. To make a sale, to change a policy, to heal the world. As marketers and agents of change, we almost always overrate our ability to make change happen. The reason is simple: Everyone always acts in accordance with the internal narrative. Always. You generally can’t get someone to do something that they don’t want to do, and most of the time, what people want to do is take action (or not take action) that reinforces their internal narrative. There you have it. I purchased and drive a Subie to reinforce my internal narrative that I prioritize the outdoors and I am an adventurous guy (I did ride my bike across America after all). My brother purchases and drives an Audi to reinforce his internal narrative that he is a successful salesman at one of the top companies in the world. It makes sense why we choose to live where we live too. If we want people to buy from us over our competitors, then we want to position ourselves as “one of them” so they make the (usually unconscious) decision to choose us. Our buying habits are far more emotional than logical. The best way to stand out is to focus on letting your vibe shine through. The problem with Guru Marketing adviceMost people are taught to target a specific demographic of a person…
and then you never talk about anything else. The problem here is that we are all multi-dimensional humans. You don’t love your partner or best friend because they’re great at one thing. You love them because you share similar world-views, interests, and tastes. My best friends are entrepreneurs, spiritual and athletes. We’ve trail run together, snowboarded together, belong to a mens group, do breathwork together, share business ideas, and one time even tanned our buttholes in Sedona, AZ together. People like us do things like this. If that is how you build deep trusting relationships in person, why would it be any different online? Especially when social media IS saturated with businesses who solve the same problem as you. If you are just a life coach for moms, then you are no different than the next life coach for moms who probably has more followers than you. Is that the game you want to play? Can you picture the life coach for moms? Who is she? Or you’re the life coach for moms who competes in CrossFit competitions, coaches her daughters softball team, and is obsessed with smutty fiction novels. Who are you picturing now? It’s more clear isn’t it? That’s what I call a vibe. Hormozi just explained my entire branding model in 3 minutesIf you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to the multi-millionaire entrepreneur who has amassed 10 million followers across all his social media accounts. On Diary of a CEO podcast, Steven Bartlett asked Alex Hormozi, “If you were a personal trainer, how would you build a brand in 2025?” Here’s what he said. In the game of attention it’s trying to find what is unique. So how do you how do you ”stand out” when everyone’s loud. This is gonna sound trite but your fingerprint is unique literally from a biological perspective, but so are your life and your experiences and so there’s there’s benefit to be had above normal level of effort by leaning into you. What makes every person unique is what makes their content unique and so trying to be like, “Oh I wanna make content like Alex” is probably not the best way to do it cause you’re not gonna beat me at being me. But you’ll beat me at being you. So like for me it’s like, I have elements of philosophy that are in my brand, I obviously talk a ton about business, marketing and sales, promotion conversion, those are all things that I spent a lot of time thinking about and so a lot of my contents about that. Fitness is a component of my life and so there’s light sprinkling of fitness in my content. I come from background of fitness with the with Gym Launch (company he sold for $46M) and the companies that I owned before that. I have my wife Layla and so that’s sprinkled in and so those are basically the components of my life and so that’s what kind of shines through my content. You have all of those little buckets of you and not only are those buckets unique, but also the proportions of those buckets will be different. Maybe your philosophy is way bigger [than mine] or maybe fitness part is way bigger but I think what makes the truly unique personal trainer fitness brand is leaning into people being interested in you for being you and then being like, “by the way I have fitness stuff if you want to buy it from me.” This is the model I teach my clients (free training here) Hormozi get’s known for his Zone of Genius, Scaling Businesses, by making MOST of his content about that because it’s what he thinks about most (as underlined above) and it’s how he makes money. He also makes content about philosophy, fitness and his relationship. He ALSO stands out by sharing his world-views and beliefs like, “if you want to get ahead, work on the weekends.” This ruffles feathers but as his wife Leila told him, “Never dilute yourself.” (he shares this story at 40:30 in the podcast). Alex is just being Alex. BTW, how meta is it that he just said talking about his wife is a part of his brand that sets him apart and then a few minutes later he tells a story about his wife supporting him. You see, it’s not hard to stand out when you’re being yourself. It’s supposed to be NATURAL. That’s authenticity. But why is it so hard to be myself online?Reason 1: Engrained Beliefs Humans build beliefs through repetition over time and/or heightened emotions. For example, if you touch a hot stove you experienced the heightened emotion of pain and now know to not touch the stove. You don’t need to do it 100 more times to learn that lesson. Or, if you’re a normal kid like the rest of us, your parents probably had to tell you to brush your teeth every night for years before it became a habit that you now unconsciously make part of your daily routine. While it is a truth that touching a hot stove will burn your hand, unfortunately, most of our other beliefs we stop questioning. Because we stop questioning them they become truths in our minds, even when they’re not. Someone may say this statement is true, “Work hard and you’ll be successful.” But is everyone who works hard successful? No. Therefore it’s not true. It’s a belief. It’s hard to be yourself online because for decades the marketing gurus have told you NOT to share anything outside your niche. Through the last 10+ years (repetition) of authority figures telling you to behave a certain way, you begin to see it as the truth, even if it’s just a belief. The truth is, everything works. Hormozi, myself, and many others have proven that you can talk about your love of philosophy, your fitness routine, or your wife and still grow a beloved brand and profitable business even if your niche is “scaling businesses.” Wouldn’t you know it, 90% of Hormozi’s audience are entrepreneurial men who love working, working out and philosophy. That’s the vibe. Reason 2: The Unknown isn’t Safe Steven said it best after Hormozi’s answer, By very definition of it being unique, that that means that there is no blueprint. There is no person that’s come before you and proven that it works. There’s only one Steven Bartlett so if I’m truly myself, it’s never been done before, that means that the risks are unknown. The upside’s also unknown. So again, going back to our hate of uncertainty, it makes much more sense for me to try and copy you because I can see a blueprint there, then to run the risk of being myself. As humans, we are wired for safety. As Steven says, nobody has ever built a brand like yours because nobody is and ever will be you, therefore you are building in the unknown. The unknown is not safe. Our brains hate that. However, if you truly want to stand out and be authentic, then you must get comfortable in the unknown. Let me make this a little more safe for youI love sports. Specifically tennis, baseball, golf, snowboarding and trail running. Baseball was my sport growing up and I stopped playing as an adult. I missed it so much I joined a mens baseball league 6 years ago at 29 years old. Being a baseball player and Mets fan is a huge part of my identity, buutttttttt, I am so obsessed with tennis lately that I might give up baseball next year and stop playing altogether so I can go all in on tennis. It feels scary, but it’s truly more fun. I am letting my love, excitement and joy guide me in this decision (plus I can always come back to baseball the next year if I miss it that much). As far as my content goes, if you’ve been following me for the last year, you can see that I am clearly obsessed with tennis. I’m not trying to be. I just am. So that’s what I share online. This is true for you too. While you are a multi-passionate human, there are things you love more than others. To find structure in building your brand, I want you to simply let your obsessions take up more space than others. Not because it’s right or good, but because you prefer it. Hopefully one of the core things you are obsessed with is your zone of genius (the way your business makes money….if not, it’s for sure the reason why it’s so hard for you to creation consistent content and we should talk.) To take this a step further, allow your other obsessions co-mingle with your zone of genius. I am obsessed with storytelling and content creation. It’s not hard for me to talk about this because I fucking love it! I am also very spiritual and I’m an athlete. I love these parts of me, so I let them shine through. What sets me apart is my ability to allow these identities to mingle in my content. This is my vibe. I create content in the overlap of this venn diagram. I’ve shared a few pieces of content where I relate how my experience with tennis relates to being authentic online. That’s the overlap. I do this, not because I have to to stand out, but because it’s fun to make these correlations between the two things I’m obsessed about. Take the spirituality and content overlap. You’ve probably noticed by now, when I talk about content it’s almost NEVER not baked in spirituality. In the final quote above, Alex says, “You have all of those little buckets of you and not only are those buckets unique, but also the proportions of those buckets will be different.” He’s right. My Venn Diagram looks a bit more like this. Far more spirituality than sports. In this free training, I actually broke down Hormozi’s brand as an example of how to do this before I even heard this podcast. Here’s what I shared in that training: I didn’t have to know he was going to say this in the podcast. It’s pretty obvious these are some core identities if you follow him for any number of time. He has literally said he married his wife for business. So yeah… Hormozi really did explain my entire framework I have been working on for over 2.5 years in about 3 minutes. I fucking love it. I hope this idea continues to spread because it’s what will allow you to, not just stand out, but actually have fun creating content and building a beloved brand and community around your work. If you want to learn more about this, watch the free training here. With love, Matt PS - I’m on LinkedIn now, is anyone else? Reply to this email and let me know. I’d love to chat about it. |
StoryGrowth
We’re in the anti-niche era. Build a beloved brand by being your multi-passionate self and learn how to tell stories that sell. Delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday.
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