Today we’re talking about one of my most favorite and probably one of the most important topics we can cover, which is how to build a personal brand.
The reason this is so important is because a personal brand is one of the most valuable and leverageable assets you could ever create.
Yes, direct marketing is important.
Yes, proper sales is important.
Yes, using great direct response tactics and all the strategies and social media tools out there–all important…
But a brand, well, a brand is what enables you to last the test of time.
It’s what enables you to charge premium prices.
It’s what enables you to build an important and powerful relationship with your audience…
And it’s what allows you to do what you truly want to do and make the impact you know you’re capable of making.
So, with all that said…
Here are five steps to build your personal brand, even if you’re just getting started:
Step number one is to assess.
What this means is taking a step back and looking at yourself and your business and your brand objectively.
The odds are good that you probably already have some kind of brand or some kind of style that you maybe just haven’t fully articulated.
Take a look through your closet.
Does it all follow a similar style?
Or take a look at how you talk.
Do you tend to use the same words or phrases over and over?
Or ask some friends and family members about how they would describe you and what words you often use in conversation.
You see, when you take a look at your wardrobe and your style and your patterns of speech and your behaviors and your attitudes…
Well, all of that contributes to your personal brand.
And the odds are good, it’s already somewhat formed.
Sure, you may wanna make tweaks.
And you may want to adjust and change it in the future.
But taking stock of where you’re at right now is really important to build that foundation and make sure that what you build on is authentic and sustainable.
‘Cause the last thing you wanna do is build a personal brand around something that doesn’t resonate with you.
The final tip in the assess phase is to write down your strengths and what makes you unique or different from other people.
You see, when building a personal brand, the last thing we wanna do is try and bring up our weaknesses.
Rather, we wanna take our strengths and what makes us different and then amplify those.
Your goal with personal branding should become about 110% of what you already are.
So take what you are and then amplify it.
Step number two in building a personal brand is to model.
Now, the key here is to research what the people you look up to are doing and find what resonates with you and works with your brand.
So maybe make a list of some influencers or celebrities or even role models in your life and find the areas of them that you like or that you wanna emulate.
The key here is we don’t want to copy them, because they’re uniquely their own person.
Rather, what we wanna do is find the points that we admire or the parts that we aspire to and start incorporating some of those elements into our brand.
Again, do not copy here.
What you wanna do is use them as inspiration to draw from, that’s it.
Anytime someone copies someone else’s brand verbatim, well, they come off as a knock-off of that person, rather than their true unique self.
So don’t do that.
The next step in building a personal brand is to follow the rule of one.
And what this means is one theme, one offer and one channel.
So, when we’re talking about theme, what we’re talking about is: what are you known for?
If you’re just starting a personal brand, it’s gonna be tough to be known for food and fashion and health and maybe business.
Rather you wanna pick just one, so as an example, what I’m known for is marketing.
Sure I’ve got other interests, but what I’m known for and what my personal brand is all about is marketing.
Next, let’s move on to the one offer.
You see, the odds are good that if you’re creating a personal brand, it’s to probably try to promote or sell something at some point in the future.
And my advice here is to stick with one clear and compelling offer.
So make it really clear what you do, who you do it for and how they can buy from you.
Don’t confuse and don’t overwhelm by going with too many different themes and too many different offers.
You’re just gonna lose people.
Because when you become for everyone, you really become for no one.
And lastly, one channel.
And what this means is really doubling down on one social media channel and mastering that before moving on to other areas.
The last thing you wanna do when it comes to social media is sporadically post on about a dozen different channels.
Rather, you want to find where your strengths are, and where you’re unique and deliver your message from there.
Once you’ve got that nailed, you can start leveraging other channels.
But start with one.
The next step in building your personal brand is to publish.
You see, when it comes to building a personal brand, people are going to need to understand what you stand for.
And the best way to do this is to publish valuable content.
Just like I mentioned in the last step, you wanna stick with your one theme and your one offer and your one channel.
So make sure to create content specific for that.
If you can create daily content, that’s fantastic…
But weekly content should be okay to get you started.
Just don’t let it go too much further than that.
Creating monthly content is not a great way to build a personal brand and certainly not quickly.
So focus on creating content that best resonates and best communicates your message, and it’ll help to secure and build that foundation for your brand.
And the last and final step is consistency.
When it comes to building a personal brand, everything matters:
What you wear, what you say and what you do; all of this contributes to forming your overall personal brand.
So you need to be consistent.
You need to be clear and you need to maintain it across all of your different touchpoints.
If you don’t do this, well, anytime someone comes across your content, they’ll have to relearn what you’re about or they’ll have to try to figure out, “who is this?” “is this the person that I saw before?”
And they’ll basically lose all the previous brand recognition that you’ve worked so hard to build.
Not only that, but when you’re clear and when you’re consistent across all of your branding, people will start to learn what to expect.
You’ll either attract or repel different parts of your audience, which is exactly what you want.
So be clear and be consistent all the time.
Because again, everything matters.
