Discover & Define Your ONE Thing KDS: 142

Before we get too much into discovering and defining Your ONE Thing, I want to preface this by saying that it isn’t about only doing or having ONE thing.

Even though that level of focus is pretty amazing (and is something I’m working towards, it’s a process).

This is about creating the ONE thing you’re known for.

Not a niche (swear I’m not anti-niche, I’m anti-ONLY-niche), but more of a brand philosophy and mantra that people associate with you and your business.

And if you’re a personal brand, ideally, people associate your ONE thing with YOU personally.

I’m hosting a free workshop next week, so I thought I’d give you a little sneak peek and preview what we’re going to cover and why this is crucial to differentiate yourself in a very noisy world filled with AI content.

And for what it’s worth, I LOVE AI and use it all the time.

But what sets you apart is who you are.

If you have even a little understanding and knowledge of copywriting, marketing, direct response, and content, you can use AI pretty easily and get decent output.

What AI can’t do is be YOU (and hopefully not in my lifetime because, let’s face it, that’s a little creepy to even think about).

You can absolutely train it to sound like you, write in your voice, use the type of language you use, but you still have to train it.

That’s where Your ONE Thing comes in.

I have a 6-step framework for “Your ONE Thing” – so let’s jump into it.

Be sure to register for the FREE workshop here. The LIVE Workshop is on Wednesday, May 15th at 11:00 PDT. It will be recorded, but you need to register.

If you get this after the live workshop, you can register and watch the on-demand workshop for free with the same link (and my goal is to run this live more than once while I continue iterating and refining everything).

Your ONE Thing Framework

Here’s the 6-step framework, with more detailed explanations below:

1. Core Discovery Dive
2. Audience Alchemy
3. Idea Incubator
4. Reality Check
5. Identity Imprint
6. Launchpad Lift-Off

Let’s dive deeper into each one.

1. Core Discovery Dive (self-assessment & reflection):
2. This is the self-assessment and reflection step of the framework. You’re going to want to dive deep into the core of your personal and business identity to uncover the unique elements that define you. Self-awareness is key here. This step also requires a certain level of courage and commitment to showing up genuinely as yourself and letting go of what people think.
3. Understanding your strengths and passions will make creating more authentic and engaging content much easier.
4. Audience Alchemy (market and audience analysis):
5. This involves a combination of market research and analysis and knowing your ideal target audience, including psychographics (which are just as valuable, if not more valuable, than demographics).
6. You want to hone in on what excites them, their desires, and the specific problems they have that you can solve uniquely.
7. Understanding market trends and audience preferences can help refine your unique selling proposition to meet your audience where they’re at.
8. Idea Incubator (ideation & concept development):
9. This is where we will start brainstorming potential “ONE Things” for you and your business. I love all the steps, but this is probably my favorite. There are a couple of different methodologies for doing this, including the SCAMPER method (which I just discovered) and my Umbrella method.
10. The Umbrella method is an easier place to start, and then, as you get clearer, you can iterate and move on to the SCAMPER method if you want to go deeper.
11. Reality Check (validation and testing):
12. This is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. Once you have “Your ONE Thing,” – you want to start testing this with your audience via email, social, and content. I did this with Everything Is Content and have shared that before (mind you, I knew this resonated with people because I had already used it before). It was a 5-part email series that then became 5 videos, 5 podcasts, a long-form blog post, coaching sessions, and a workshop.
13. There are a handful of ways to test this, but the key is to do what feels most natural to you that you can deploy quickly – you don’t want to overthink this (and bonus if you can create a hashtag of it, but it’s hardly necessary).
14. Identity Imprint (definition and documentation):
15. Now that you have your ONE thing, you want to explain in a clear and compelling manner what it is (clear is better than clever here) and map out how you can integrate it into all aspects of your content and, quite possibly, your business.
16. We’ll document and standardize this core concept across all business channels and content (for example, I’ve integrated “Everything is Content” onto all my social profiles) so your messaging is consistent and clear.
17. Launchpad Lift-Off (implementation & promotion):
18. Here’s where you’ll create a plan (mini-campaign?) to integrate your new core message into your current marketing efforts.
19. Your plan should include some storytelling and personal elements and give a little behind-the-scenes look at “Your ONE Thing” and the impact you hope to create with it.