 Hello ACEs, welcome back to module two, lesson number eight, leveraging your mind space to dominate the crowd. In this lesson, what you're going to learn is how do you carve out your own mind space so then that way you can dominate your competitors so then that way you don't need to worry about that new guy around the block coming after you guys. You don't need to worry about that because you've occupied your own mind space. Mistake number one is that I see so many restaurateurs making is that they fail to occupy a single mind space. When you think about your restaurant concept or when you introduce your restaurant concept with your friends, your family or new customers, oftentimes people will be like, Hey, I have an ice cream bar or Hey, you know what? I have an American diner. I have a burger joint, whatever the case may be. And when you do that, you end up choosing to occupy an entire category over something very specific like a specific niche. So let me illustrate this for you. Your mind space should not be a category nor just a specific cuisine. That's not what we want to be. We want to fine tune the niche down even more. Now what is a mind space? Mindspace is solving a specific problem for a specific customer. So let's say you have an ice cream shop. Many, many times I see people introducing, Hey, you know what? Yeah, I own an ice cream shop. Come and check out my ice cream shop. And then when you say that to your friends, you're like, Hey, you know what? There's this new ice cream shop around the block. They just opened. You want to go check out the ice cream shop? This is the conversation that usually happens. That's an entire category that you're fighting against, not a single mind space. Specific solution to that is connecting people by providing a novel experience. So you're not selling ice cream, you're selling a solution which is to connect people. Specific customers are millennials. For me, I'm targeting the millennials with my ice cream shop. What they're really going after and why they're coming is not specifically just for the ice cream. They want to come and connect with their friends. They want to come out, be outside the dorm, be outside the parents' house, and actually chill with their friends. The mind space that we want to be able to occupy is connecting millennials through trendy desserts. Imagine this. Instead of you trying to occupy ice cream shop as a mind space, which when people think about, Hey, you know what? Where should I go next time for ice cream? You're basically competing against Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins, Marvel Slab. We basically do not stand out because when you think about ice cream shop, you think about these big chains and these big brands versus if you're dominating a mind space of cool, trendy hangout spot for millennials serving delicious dessert, then that specifically the mind space that we're going after and that's the reason why 720 sweets would pop up. If you were a millennial, which place would you go to if you're just thinking about, Hey, you know what? I want to hang out with my friends. I want to try something new and trendy that I haven't seen before. Automatically you would think about 720 sweets over DQ over Baskin Robbins over all the other brands out there, mainly because you're dominating a very specific mind space. If you are just another ice cream shop, then people will compare you with many other different ice cream shops. And here is why you are stuck. A lot of people at restaurantiers and mentees that I have, they are always stuck because they want to appeal to the masses. Once again, it's very intuitive for us to be able to want to appeal to the masses because it's just the right thing to do. However, by niching down, we're able to really talk to our customer and by doing that, that's when you gain traction and that's when you're going to have lots of people come through your doors because you're niching down. You are too broad if you really just focus on the whole category, the whole cuisine. You need millions of dollars just so that that way you come top of mind whenever people think about ice cream shops. You're afraid to take a stance by narrowing on a specific problem for a specific customer because it's just counterintuitive. You want to speak to everyone. And when you do that, previously what we said is that when you do that, you speak to no one. Your brand becomes like the hundreds of other brands out there and no one remembers you. That's a mistake you make if you don't have a proper mind space statement created and communicated to your customers. However, when you stop making this mistake, when you have a mind space that you're already dominating, then you can position your restaurant as to go to spot for your customers. You cut out all the competition because everyone else is just an ice cream shop, yet you are the cool, trendy hangout spot for millennials. And once you occupy this very distinct, this very niche mind space in your customer's mind, they'll always come back to you when they're thinking about cool, trendy hangout spot. Hey, 720 suites. That's the response that we want to be able to elicit whenever they're thinking about this moment. We come to mind first and foremost. Now that you figured out the golden trifecta, now that you figured out basically how can you create a very successful and profitable restaurant? We talked about the concept. We talked about location. We talked about customers. And in the middle right here, that's the golden trifecta that we want to be able to occupy and be in. Time to carve out your own mind space, guys. Go out there, identify your specific customer. We already done that in lesson 2.4. Second, identify the job to be done and the solution, your specific solution to that, which is in lesson 2.5. Third, declare the mind space that you're occupying. Go out there and start declaring that this is the thing that I want to be known for. And this is the solution that I want to be known for. This becomes your guiding light to all the communications that you have moving forward to your customers. Because when you do that, that's when you can train them to introduce your shop and your concept to many other of their friends using that same tactic. The difference between a mind space and a value proposition is completely different. Value proposition. For example, ours in the lesson previously to this, I talked about creating memorable moments. When your customers refer your ice cream shop, they would not be like, hey, you know what? Do you want to create memorable moments? No. They are not going to introduce your restaurant and your concept to their friends like that. Rather, they'll be like, hey, you know what? There's this cool trendy ice cream shop. You want to go check it out? They have really cool desserts. That's the difference between a mind space and a value proposition. And you need both to be successful. One is what you portray out to your customers as, hey, you know what? Come and expect this. The other is something that allows them to actually share with all the friends and family. And that's what mind space we want to be able to occupy. In the lesson below, there are links where you can download it and work on the worksheet together with me. So make sure you download it and go out there and start creating your mind space statement. In this lesson, we talked about how do you carve out your own mind space to dominate the competition. In the next lesson, what we're going to be talking about is how do you validate that the mind space you're creating is going to be able to outbeat your competitors. So make sure that you guys go to the next lesson and pay attention. Do not go into the next lesson before you craft out your own mind space because you need that in order for you to move into the next lesson. I'll see you guys in the next lesson.