brand-company

In order to survive in this competitive marketplace, having a personal brand is just as important as having a brand.

By building your personal brand and your company at the same time, it can help to increase sales and get your name out there as a leader in your industry.

This may take more time and effort on your part, but the rewards can be well worth it. In fact, there are so many benefits to cultivating your own personal brand, including:

  1. A steady stream of clients that are aligned with your goals, personality and intentions
  2. Rewarding partnerships that continue to grow and develop for years to come
  3. Leadership opportunities to get your name and your ideas out there into the world
  4. Greater potential to become a leader and influencer in your field
  5. Focusing on a niche market or on a specific industry in your chosen field
  6. Increased credibility and longevity as company
  7. Prestige and recognition in your field
  8. A higher perceived value

Building your personal brand has so many more benefits, but most importantly it helps you to grow your company to a new level and allows your customers and clients to get to know who they are doing business with.

This in turn can make your brand more accessible and a more attractive choice for your customers.

Just take a look at some of these statistics-

  • 77 percent of B2B brands said they only speak with a salesperson after doing extensive independent research online
  • More than 50 percent of decision makers have eliminated a vendor based on information they found about them online

With the growing emergence of social media and social profiles, having a strong online image is paramount to increasing sales and pushing your business to new heights.

People want to know who they are doing business with, which is why having a personal brand is so important, but you also need to make sure that you do it right.

The last thing you want to do is have customers turned away because you have built your personal brand in all the wrong ways.

When it comes to building your personal brand, it really is about truth, authenticity and organisation. While we can’t be truthful and authentic for you, we can help you to get organised.

Here is how to start building an amazing and epically powerful personal brand that will turn heads-

Your Intention

Before you start building your personal brand you have to first nail down your intention. What is your personal brand going to stand for?

Typically people build their personal brand because they want to be known as experts in their industry. By doing so, it allows them to grow many businesses in one particular industry and also allows them to become a well established thought leader.

When people start following you, they are also naturally drawn to your companies and the type of businesses and business ideas that you are creating.

To help you get started with pinning down your intention, here are some places to start-

  • What is going to be your main focus when it comes to building your personal brand? What do you want to be known for?
  • What will be your unique angle, how will you stand out from competitors?
  • What do you want to centre your personal brand around?
  • What is your ultimate vision in creating this personal brand?

These questions should allow you to narrow your focus and help you to get started on the right track.

Your Headshots

Headshots that reflect your true nature and personality are important when it comes to building your personal brand.

By allowing your customers and clients to see a genuine picture of your face, it makes them feel more comfortable and more open to doing business with you.

When it comes to the style of your headshots, simple and professional is best, but you also want to make sure your headshots showcase your personality and offer a true representation as to who you are.

Definitely avoid cheesy, outdated or glamour shots, and instead choose images that reflect who you are in an honest and truthful way.

Before you go in for your headshot session, perhaps make a list of all the places you are going to use your headshots such as your LinkedIn profile, company website, business cards and so on.

Think about what you want each of these images to look like and then plan your wardrobe and hair accordingly.

If you are making the investment to get headshots, you might as well have a couple of different looks that you can use across various platforms.

Your 30 Second Pitch

Part of developing your personal brand is knowing what you stand for and being able to communicate it to others and to the world effectively.

As part of your brand building process, you are going to have to come up with a single sentence or 30 second pitch that can clearly explain what you do and what makes you stand out from the crowd.

Creating this pitch not only helps you to network effectively, which is a key to building your personal brand, but it also allows you to create catchy and efficient taglines on your social profiles and personal webpage.

To help you come up with your pitch, start by making a list of all the keywords that you offer or bring to the table, and then try to intertwine them with what you do.

What Makes You Stand Out From The Crowd

Knowing what makes you stand out from the crowd goes hand in hand with your 30 second pitch.

By defining what makes you stand out from the crowd, it helps you to get a competitive advantage, and allows you to communicate strongly to your clients and customers what you can offer that others can’t.

This can be tricky to do, but these questions may help you to start brainstorming some ideas-

  • Why should your audience pay attention to you?
  • What will clients and customers get with you that they wont get with anyone else?
  • What are your greatest strengths in what you do?
  • How are you going to convey your strengths to your customers and clients?

These questions should help you to start building a succinct statement of who you are, what you offer and your greatest strengths.

To push you along further, you may also want to cement your ideas surrounding some of your business practices, including your philosophies on quality, price and service.

By having these three points well defined, it can help you to really start defining your brand and the overall tone of your marketing and outreach messages.

Defining Your Audience

Now that you have defined your position when it comes to creating your personal brand, it is time to think about your audience. By defining your audience, it is going to help you to know who you are catering to and who you should be targeting.

Many entrepreneurs and business owners looking to create their personal brand forget to define their audience, but if you want to turn heads and make an impact, you have to know who you are speaking to.

When you know your audience you can then successfully-

  • develop highly valuable content that is specific to their needs
  • generate offers that will provide value and solutions to your customer’s biggest problems
  • develop a brand that your customers instantly resonate with
  • identify the best way to engage with your audience
  • identify the best places and online mediums to find your audience

Develop Your Growth Mindset

To be a real leader in your industry you have to make growth a priority. Trends, customer needs and customer wants are always changing, and in order to stay relevant, you have to stay ahead of the trends.

As part of your strategy to staying relevant, you also have to keep growing your skills and mindset. This requires you to never stop learning and never stop pushing the boundaries on how far you can grow.

When you adopt this mindset, you become inspiring for your customers and clients, and this in turn helps them to stay motivated and engaged with you and your business.

Social Media

As part of an effective branding strategy you have to be present on social media. This includes LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

By being present on these social profiles, it allows your audience an inside look into who you are and your day to day business operations.

Using social media to develop your own personal brand is a blog post on its own, but here are some general ideas to help you get started-

  • Upload your headshot to your profile
  • Update your profile with relevant and up-to date information
  • Share relevant content with your audience
  • Ask questions and engage in discussions
  • Reply to comments and offer valuable suggestions

To help you manage your social media, consider subscribing to a social media scheduling tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite. This will help you to manage your social profiles all in one place and will make it easier to schedule content.

Write a Blog

Blogging is one of the most effective ways to get your name and ideas out there. It is also a great way to showcase your knowledge and what customers and clients can expect from working with you.

Having a personal blog also allows you to provide value to your readers and is a great way to be seen.

Along with having a blog, you may also want to consider guest posting on other popular blogs and writing for major business websites like Forbes or Entrepreneur.

Having a blog is also great for SEO purposes and can get your name ranking higher in Google search results.

Audit Your Online Presence

When it comes to building your personal brand it is also important to do an audit of your name online. When you type your name into Google, what comes up?

If something appears that doesn’t match your branding image or support what you are trying to achieve, you may have to tweak a few things before you start pushing your name out there.

Build a Personal Website

Along with your company website, you may also want to consider having a personal website. Think of this personal website as a creative way to present your resume and also offer ways for people to reach out to you.

Don’t fall into the trap however, of simply designing your website to be all about your achievements. Balance it out with additional information such as a blog, your story and a personal biography.

You may also want to add visual elements to your website as well, including videos and images.

Even though your personal website may be a side to your company website, having one in place is going to help grow and establish you as an authority.

Create Your Personal Story

In order to become an influencer you have to be relatable. People have to feel a connection to you in some way, almost like they know you.

In order to do this, you have to come up with a personal story that shares your trials and tribulations. By highlighting your successes and failures, it can also be inspiring for others and can allow them to resonate or identify with your journey.

It is important to note here that your personal story is different to your biography. For your personal story to be effective it has to go deep and it has to really stir people’s emotions.

Even if you don’t feel that your journey has been awe-inspiring, we all have something to share and a story to tell. Start by talking about profound moments for you growing up or even what inspires you.

You can also talk about your upbringing and the things that motivated you to get where you are today.

Over time, you can start tweaking and adding to your story as you and your business continue to grow.

The most effective personal stories out there are the ones that convey emotion and offer a beginning, middle and end point, so keep this in mind when constructing your story.

Get Feedback

Sometimes it can be difficult for us to objectively look at ourselves at really define our strengths, weaknesses and where we fit.

As part of your personal branding process, you need to consider getting feedback from those closest to you on ways that you can tweak and refine your personal brand.

Especially as you start putting all the pieces together, it can be helpful to have someone else weigh in on whether or not your branding efforts are getting your personality across.

Be mindful of asking everyone for their opinion however. Sometimes it is best to just stick to a few people who are closest to you, as having too many opinions can get overwhelming and confusing.

Perhaps consider asking your friends and family to offer their suggestions on things such as your headshots, your website, your 30 second pitch and so on.

Create a Personal Style

Just like your business brand uses certain colours and a logo, your personal brand should also do the same.

For your personal brand, your logo will most likely be your headshot, but it is also important to choose colours that reflect your style and personality.

By choosing 2-3 colours for your personal brand, it can help your profile to stay consistent and uniform. It can also help to establish your image as more of a “brand”.

Along with being consistent with the colours you choose, it is also important to develop your own unique tone and style of communication.

This is all going to be important in how you develop and grow your brand and is going to help your audience to resonate and remember who you are.

Try to find your tone and style of communication and then stick with it as you write your blogs and whenever you are speaking to your audience.

Understand Your Direct Competitors

Most likely there will be other influencers in your niche that are also building their personal brand.

Narrow down your competitors and take a look at what they are doing. Instead of viewing them as your enemy, see if you can learn anything from what they are offering and what elements you like or dislike in their personal branding strategy.

You may also want to browse through their social media profiles and see what type of audience and customer they are attracting.

This can be very helpful when it comes to developing your own image and defining your ideal customers.

Future Goals

One of the last steps to creating your personal brand is really about defining where you are heading.

While having an intention is an important step before you get started, having a bigger picture vision is also going to be helpful. This is going to help you craft milestones and continue to grow as a business owner and thought leader.

To help you navigate through this process, perhaps ask yourself where you want to be in 6 months and then again in 12 months. This will help you to formulate some goals and keep them in mind as you continue to grow your brand.

Conclusion 

Creating a personal brand can be extremely rewarding and powerful when it comes to developing your company or companies.

By having a personal brand, it allows you to stand out from the crowd and makes your clients and customers feel more comfortable and confident when it comes to doing business with you.

Having a personal brand also allows you to grow a name for yourself outside of your business, and is an effective strategy if you are looking to move into other ventures within the same industry.

There are no hard and fast rules about what it takes to create a personal brand, but the steps highlighted above are going to help you get organised and will give you an excellent foundation when it comes to building up your image.

Whatever you do, here are some of the most important components to remember-

  • Create a solid intention and understand why your personal brand is important for the growth of your business as a whole.
  • Get headshots that reflect your true personality and your professionalism. Upload these headshots to your social profiles, website and even business cards.
  • Create a 30 second or one sentence pitch that clearly demonstrates what you do, what makes you unique and your top strengths.
  • Understand what makes you unique and what makes you stand out from the crowd when it comes to your philosophies on business and life in general.
  • Define your audience and who you are going to speaking to.
  • Use your audience to craft valuable content and  messages that speak to your customers and clients directly.
  • Continue to grow and develop your image and keep up to date with current trends in your industry in order to stay relevant.
  • Post regularly on social media and develop an active profile on the top social accounts where your audience frequent.
  • Write a blog that highlights and showcases your philosophies, knowledge and thoughts and ideas.
  • Design a website that reflects who you are and highlights your achievements and how to contact you.
  • Share your personal story on your website and use it to inspire, motivate and engage with your audience.
  • Conduct a personal brand audit to see what comes up when you Google your name. Put steps into place if any damage control is needed.
  • Ask your closest family and friends for feedback and if your personal branding image is getting across what you want it to.
  • Keep your branding colour scheme and design consistent, this includes the tone you use and the way you communicate your messages as well.
  • Reflect on your future goals when it comes to your personal branding mission and keep setting milestones for growth.

By following these easy steps you are going to be well on your way to creating a personal branding image that stands the test of time and allows all of your businesses to grow in sales and profits.