Defining Your Core Promise And Speaker Identity

The first step towards becoming a successful speaker is to determine your speaker identity… you know,
the thing that makes you different… your USP.

Your speaker identity
is made up of your;

• Story
• Title
• Hook
• Angle
• Brand

Once you have defined
your speaker identity, you can go on to take the next step… determining your core
promise!

Your promise is the core reason your business exists.  It is a statement you make of who you are,
what you do and how you do it.  

I’m sure you will
have heard of elevator pitches before? Well, your core promise is your mini
elevator pitch… it should be able to be delivered in less than 10 seconds, but
be conversational in style.

Your core promise is
made up of;

• Your Identity
• Your Niche
• The biggest problem,
  or pain that your niche audience are suffering
• How you and your
  topic as a speaker solve that problem/pain for them

For example, my
promise for my Shift Speaker Training business is;

“You know how most speakers are great at
giving a speech, but are struggling financially?” Well,
what we do is show them how to make over a million dollars a year from their
passion.”

So to relate my
promise back to the individual aspects of your core promise that I talked about
earlier;

My niche = most
speakers

The biggest problem
my niche audience are suffering = struggling financially

How I solve their
problem based on my speaking identity = showing them how to make over a million
dollars a year from their passion.

Does that make sense?

So, if you haven’t
already figured out your own speaker identity and core promise, I invite you to
spend some time over the next few weeks getting both of them nailed down.

1. Come up with a hook,
   angle, title and brand based on your story.
2. Find out from your
   niche what is their biggest problem?
3. Create a promise that
   solves that problem.
4. Formulate your
   promise so that it can be easily and powerfully communicated in less than 10
   seconds.

Using these phrases to put your core promise
together in simple terms, will help you to get clarity around your thinking;

“You know how…”
“Well what we do
is…”

Start by figuring out your speaker identity to
determine what you will represent… then set down your core promise. Once you
have these in place you will be much closer to matching your market’s needs and
being an amazing and memorable public speaker.