In other words, what do you stand for? Tom Stoyan is known as Canada’s Sales Coach. Suzanne Sherkin is known as the expert on Essential Conversations. What is your personal logo?

Think about it. What do you want to be known for? Can you sum it up in a few words? Once you can, it nails down your positioning. By positioning I mean where you stand as a brand in the marketplace. How can you stand out in a crowd of wannabe speakers? How can you be truly memorable?

For example, Tom Stoyan uses Canada’s Sales Coach as his umbrella. That umbrella stretches over everything that he does. If something doesn’t fit under the umbrella’s theme, it gets left out.

Your umbrella is based on your core message.  What is that message?What do you have to say to the world?  That core message defines your positioning and your positioning defines your audience.  Once you’re clear on your message, you know exactly who would benefit from hearing it.

Give your core message some serious thought. I hate to see speakers with a list of topics as long as your arm and as diverse as the population of New York City!

You need to stand for something, you need to own a certain category the same way Larina Kase owns the theme of confidence, the way top copywriter, Joe Vitale, owns the name Mr. Fire.

Chris Widener knew he couldn’t compete with the big name speakers out there such as Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitely and so on. He also knew that he really wanted to be one of that group. So Chris crafted a really great (and highly risky) plan to create a relationship with these top speakers and to position himself as exemplifying The Next Generation of Great Speakers.

It worked out brilliantly. Check out Chris’s website at www.madeforsuccess.com to see for yourself.  In the past couple of years, Chris has become a columnist for Success Magazine. If you’d like to find out more about his brilliant plan, go purchase my book, The Six Figure Speaker where North America’s top speakers share their success secrets with you.

Now back to you. What is it that you own? Not necessarily that you’re the only person speaking on that topic (if that’s the case, it’s a pretty unpopular topic!). It’s that you have your own unique spin on an in-demand topic and you have something fresh and new to say.

That’s your position, that’s your umbrella, make it as high and as strong as you possibly can.