How to Turn Your Biggest Struggle Into Your Unique Value Proposition
You don’t have to enter a cave full of bats as Bruce Wayne did. There are gentler ways to befriend a hardship and leverage it for your brand.
I’m excited to share this story because it’s about a meaningful transformation in my creator’s life. I recently made a challenging shift in how I portray my brand, and I believe it can inspire your branding, too.
Unlike my usual self-discovery content, which guides you to find your strengths and work energies, this text aims to help you befriend and share your main struggle.
I know sharing such a thing is not for everyone. It requires you to be vulnerable and brave, but putting your biggest struggle out there can significantly upgrade your personal brand.
It’s not that you can’t be a successful content creator without doing so, but showcasing your struggle to your audience can help you become a more relatable online figure.
In other words, I want you to consider turning your struggle into your unique value for your audience. Something that will make them favor you over other creators, follow your content religiously, and adopt the solution you offer them.
So, how can you unleash this superpower and become an authentic, compelling creator?
There are many ways to get there, but I share my approach backed up by my own experiences. I hope this will inspire you to dig where it is difficult and dial in your unique value.
Locate your biggest struggle and make it your brand story
The first thing to do is find the most bothering issue in your life — whether in your professional career or personal life.
It doesn’t have to be dramatic, like a disability, chronic illness, or tragedy, though many successful creators build their brands around these issues. It can be an everyday life problem that took you years to solve or a question that bothered you for a long time.
For example, my biggest problem in the last four years was finding myself. I felt lost, with no direction in life, working in back-office positions, and devastated from not fulfilling myself.
I strived for something that could make a difference or help people significantly, but I had no clue what it should be. I felt lost, and frustrated as everyone around me seemed to build the life they wanted.
Yet, instead of overthinking that and doing nothing (which was my case at the start of my crisis), I initiated different online endeavors and blogs.
The prolonged journey finally propelled me to initiate my main blog about self-discovery, write Medium stories, and launch a free email course to help people find their creative online thing.
So, my thing is being a lost adult person who found himself late in life, aka a late bloomer.
I decided to double down on my issue of being a sensitive man who took way longer than usual to find himself. That has become my brand story.
Such a story is not easy to convey. In today’s world, more than ever, men are expected to work hard and provide in a super-competitive work market. So, admitting that I’m SLOWER than most men was pretty embarrassing.
But I did it anyway, as my purpose was to inspire people like me.
Since then, I have consistently used late bloomer branding in all my social media bios and devoted content on the issue. Naturally, this attracts sensitive people and late bloomers who struggle to find their thing in life.
However, the cool thing is that I soon realized my prolonged self-discovery journey could be valuable to everyone who feels overwhelmed or stuck and wants to start a creative side hustle.
The knowledge I earned the hard way enabled me to stand out and provide a deeper understanding of becoming a creator.
Hardships, Mistakes, and failures teach you valuable knowledge
It seems counterintuitive to use your failures and mistakes to attract followers.
We are naturally lean to learn from those who succeed and ignore their failures.
Nonetheless, the truth is that when you fail or struggle with a problem for a long time, you learn so much about it. You know why the issue appears, what doesn’t work, why, what mistakes to avoid, and how to motivate yourself.
When you struggle with something for a long time, you get so familiar with the nuances of the problem that you can help others more effectively than those who haven’t faced this issue or solved it quickly.
Let’s return to my first-hand example — finding my thing in life. Even after discovering content creation as my remedy, I was still overwhelmed and confused about how and what platform or side hustle model is good. So, I tried many things and lost time on failed attempts.
In hindsight, I know it was not for nothing. My long process of exploring myself, my experience with various content platforms, and my failures in a few side hustle attempts gave me a wide perspective on the different ways of becoming a creator.
Try asking yourself, through journaling or speaking out loud, what did you learn from the mistakes and failures?
How can you harness the knowledge you earned to help your prospective audience in a better way than your competitors?
You might not have a specific niche and platform you are dominant in yet, and that’s okay. However, start imagining yourself creating content on your biggest struggle. Consider ideas for sharing your journey, tips on overcoming the problem, etc.
Problem-solving is one of the most popular educational content you can find today. People search for solutions to their problems on Google, YouTube, and here on Medium.
If you can provide detailed, first-hand, relevant answers to their problem, your chances of getting more traffic and earnings are better.
Turn all that into your unique value proposition
One key concept taught in almost every marketing course is UVP — Unique Value Proposition. Others call it USP — Unique Selling Point, but it is more or less the same thing. It’s the reason people buy your products and services and consume your content.
My UVP is me being a late bloomer, using all the knowledge I earned to offer a self-discovery approach to becoming a creator.
This UVP is very different than what you can find out there, where gurus tell you to start and experiment with creating in the platform they succeeded in. While experimentation is indispensable, it would be a waste of time if you don’t experiment with what has the most potential for you as a person.
That is what UVP is all about. Your unique angle in the niche, in my case — content creation via a self-discovery approach. Especially in such competitive fields, you must spot your UVP to get sign-ups for your newsletter and maintain a relationship with your audience.
Of course, your UVP doesn’t have to be tied to your struggle or problem in life and can be a more straightforward benefit for the audience. It can also be expertise in a narrowed aspect of your hobby, focusing on a segment of your audience, or a more diligent content schedule.
For example, you have focused on miniature woodworking for years, have a more frequent video publishing schedule in your channel, or maybe you target only 30-year-old guys struggling to lose weight (instead of weight lost in general). These are all valid branding techniques.
Nonetheless, if you can use your struggle to set you apart from your competitors, that can be a game changer. The more vulnerable and authentic you become, the more relatable your content can be.
Disclaimer: The information in this article is for informational purposes only and doesn’t substitute professional advice. Results may vary.
