You can use your life and work experience to help you create an amazing solution for others dealing with an issue you’ve faced. You see, what you have been through, what you have learned, and what you have come to feel passionately about may just be the root of a product, program, or service you can create to help others.
As a personal branding consultant, I work with individuals to help them package their unique mix of gifts — expertise, skills, big ideas — into solutions to others’ problems. One of my fundamental beliefs is that life gives each of us at least one gift we can use to touch lives, make a contribution, and to make income. Packaging that gift in the right way is the vehicle to make all that happen.
I know how important these unique solutions can be. When I was on my breast cancer healing journey last year, I devoured blog posts, podcasts, and other resources by and from people who had also been through cancer and had beaten it. I gained such hope and help from these resources. For instance, Dr. V of BreastCancerConqueror.com turned her breast cancer diagnosis into a site that, today, helps so many women fight this illness. She provides coaching, retreats, and more.
I first heard Steph Wagner’s story on Ali Brown’s Glambition podcast. In that episode, Steph Wagner shared how she turned her own divorce experience into a divorce concierge service for others who found themselves walking that bumpy and winding road.
As for Brown, she has turned her expertise into her own programs for women leaders. She has helped a lot of women in business over the years.
In each of these instances, the woman saw an opportunity to turn what had caused her pain, stress, or angst into something to help others. This can work for you, too.
I am helping one woman turn her experience as a curvy woman into a women’s empowerment brand, while I’m helping another woman develop a brand around her ability to help people get clear on what their real issues are, so they can finally create success and stop going around in circles. In each of these instances and others, when the woman realizes she can create a solution based on her experience and her own ideas, there is a certain excitement that takes hold.
So how can you package what you’ve learned into something others would buy?
1. Consider What Challenges You’ve Faced in Life or Work
How did you deal with those challenges? How did you overcome the obstacles? How did you get to this much better place that you may be in now? The answers to those questions may just pave the way for your big idea — a product, program, or service that helps others face the challenge you faced.
2. Identify an Audience
Once you identify the challenge you faced, look around you to see if there are others who also are facing what you’ve already dealt with. What is the issue they are facing? What problem is this issue causing in their lives? How desperate are they to find a solution to this issue? Who are these people who are dealing with this issue? If you find that others are facing this challenge, then you can consider whether your solution may be an answer for some of these people.
3. Break Down the Steps to Success
If you find that others are dealing with the challenge you have already faced, it’s time to break down your solution into its step-by-step approach. What were the steps to your success? What was your secret sauce? What mistakes did you have to correct in order for your solution to finally work for you and for any others you’ve shared it with?
Package this into your solution, including your step-by-step approach or your way of doing things, to help others going through that thing, so they can learn from what you experienced. You may find that you package your expertise into services, a coaching program, an event such as a retreat, an online course, a book, or in some other way. In this, you may just create a unique solution that is the perfect answer to someone else’s pain.
We often think we can only build our businesses around tried and tested services or products that have worked for many others. But in today’s Internet economy where you have the potential to market to anyone around the world, it is possible to find an audience for your unique offering. You can build an online business that allows you to reach people far beyond your geographic area. And no, your offering doesn’t have to look like what everyone else is doing. As long as you can help people solve a pressing problem, there is potential for your unique offering.
So consider what you’ve been through or experienced. What have you learned that can be packaged into a solution to help another woman along the way? Turning what you learned into an offering for others may just be your next big idea.
Monica Carter Tagore
Monica Carter Tagore is on a mission to empower heart-centered entrepreneurs and professionals to take courageous action to do the work they feel called to do. As the owner of ChaseYourStar.com, she helps entrepreneurs and professionals build brands around their expertise, ideas, and gifts. For more than 15 years, Monica has provided small businesses, ministries, and individuals strategic communication solutions including book and editorial consulting, brand-building assets such as websites, and marketing services. She has authored or ghostwritten more than 45 books and her company has helped clients produce even more. Monica combines her communication expertise with her love of self-growth to help clients show up big in the world through their brands, while becoming better versions of themselves. Her most recent book, Stronger: 31 Inspirational Messages to Get You Through That Tough Time, empowers the reader to take courageous action in the face of challenging circumstances. You can learn more about her on her website, http://monicacartertagore.com. Connect with her on Facebook @monicacartertagoreauthor, on Twitter @monicatagore, and on Instagram @monicacartertagore.
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Monica, I want to send you positive energy for the personal challenges you’ve faced, and kudos for turning it around into a source of empowerment and expertise. I think it takes a lot of character, and that’s truly commendable.