In this age when all pop music sounds the same, and mumble rap is an actual thing, some of you might not remember the term "biter."

Back in the early days of rap, a "biter" was someone who stole another rapper's style. "Bitin' rhymes" was synonymous with being a low-down dirty thief, because stealing someone's art was considered a helluva lot worse than stealing their rims...

To this day, biting someone else's style is considered to be the realm of talentless pretenders. Many would say it's only people with little skill or imagination who stoop to do so.

And what does this have to do with your brand and image?

A lot, as it so happens. Because no matter how much you elevate your brand and image, it can only take you so far without this one key element that's like rocket fuel for your brand.

And that key element is originality.

Why Be An Original?

You might as well ask, "Why be memorable?" If you want to be just another "me too" business, then don't concern yourself with bringing originality to your brand. 

Instead, just copy what everyone else is doing. Make your logo, your website content, and your marketing materials look exactly like everyone else's.

Sure, you'll probably get by just fine with that approach. Lots of people in this industry do. But you'll also always be struggling to get new students in your school, because you'll never have a competitive advantage over your competition.

And no one is going to remember your brand.

Why Your USP Is Worthless

You've probably heard of a "USP" -- a unique selling proposition. The standard business and marketing advice is that you have to come up with a USP in order to make your brand stand out.

Well, the problem I've found with USP's is that, for the most part, they can be copied. Sure, in some cases you may have an advantage, say being the only instructor who is qualified to teach Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in your area.

But all it takes to lose your market position is for another Gracie instructor to move in the area. So, if you want to always have a competitive advantage, then you'd better build a memorable brand.

How To Build A Memorable Brand

Building a memorable brand requires three things:

Originality is being unlike anyone else in your market. It's doing things so differently that you stand out like a sore thumb in the crowd.*

Authenticity is making sure your brand is genuine, and genuinely you. You can fake originality for a while, but the fact remains that if you're faking it eventually you're going to run out of original ideas (more on that in a minute).

And flair is that certain something that makes your brand sticky. Call it personality, presence, charisma, style... but whatever label you put on it, flair is what really makes people remember you.

Building a memorable brand for your dojo will require you to integrate all three of these ideas into your brand and image. This is not something that you can accomplish overnight -- instead, it is something that will likely happen organically over a period of time.

That is, IF you spend a great deal of time brain-storming and pondering these questions:

Answer those questions and apply what you've learned from the previous lessons in this series, and you'll be a long way toward creating a brand that fuels growth in your business for years to come.

Now, let's talk about those biters again...

Copycats and Your Brand

At least once a year some new "consultant" in the industry will show up out of the blue and try to be my new best pal. I take these people at face value, but experience has taught me that they're just doing a weak version of a competitive analysis...

...which is basically the biter's version of it, where you don't do any actual research, and you don't intend to come up with something new. Instead, they're just trying to lift ideas from me so they can bite my style.

One guy used to email me constantly to tell me how much he liked my stuff, blah, blah, blah. Next thing I know, a client of mine tells me that whenever I introduce a new topic on my blog or in my newsletter, this guy would write about the exact same thing the following week.

Yet another person -- a European school owner -- took the chapter and topic outline from Small Dojo Big Profits and used it to write a similar book, which was basically SDBP in his own words. What was really funny about it was that he got a lot of the key concepts completely wrong. Still, I couldn't fault him for trying.

Another foreign consultant copied my blog format, topics, and business model to create his own martial arts consulting service. Yet another launched a product under an almost identical name to one of mine.

Still another consultant recently started advertising that he's going to show people how to make moar money working just ten hours a week running small dojos. Never mind that the guy has never run a small dojo (he was, until recently, a big school proponent), nor has he ever actually launched a dojo himself. 

I find this all to be very, very interesting. But I no longer get upset over such things.

How To Deal With Biters

So why doesn't this piss me off?

Well, at one time it did, years ago when I was younger and hadn't yet made a name for myself. I mean, I was talking about the benefits of running small, highly profitable dojos back when everyone -- and I mean EVERYONE -- in this industry was saying things like, "If a school is under 300 students, it's dead."**

I was also the first independent consultant to get online and tell people there was another way to run a dojo. Outside of the billing companies and "industry associations" I was the lone voice in the wilderness for a long time.

And for years, people ridiculed me and my ideas. So when those same people started copying me and claiming they had been teaching my principles all along, well...

The Best Way To Deal With Copycats Is...