I seem to be bombarded daily with SEO, branding and marketing offers, can you relate to that? It is always valuable to remember that people do business with people. No matter how good your corporate brand is, your personal brand is also vitally important.
If people don’t relate to you and trust you, selling them your goods or services is very difficult at best. I have put together three quick ideas to help you when thinking about building your personal brand
1. Why and WIIFM
Why! You need to get clear in your mind why you are building your personal brand. Are you trying to demonstrate that you are the best in your field, the most trustworthy in your field, or do you do things from “left field” to stand out? As with marketing your business, who is your target market and what message do you want to get across?
WIIFM! The message in your personal brand should also answer that most important question, what’s in it for me? Endless cat videos or jokes about little Johnny on Facebook may not necessary make me think, hey I need this guy’s services. The message you spread with your personal brand should reinforce to other people that they need to speak with you.
2. Be authentic
While I love the idea of modelling successful traits of others, it is vital to build your own unique style. Make sure you portray confidence. Be sure to avoid appearing arrogant, this can turn a lot of people off very quickly.
It is important to build your values and beliefs into your personal brand, people normally see through a fake rather quickly. It takes time and effort to build a positive personal brand, and next to no time to destroy it.
3. Invest in yourself
As with your business, if you are not growing and evolving, you are stagnating. Your most important asset will always be yourself, so you deserve investment. Yes, you will need to spend money, but spend it wisely and you will get a good return.
Here are a few suggestions on how you can invest in yourself.
• Help could be as close as a good book or blog article.
• Engaging an editor to proofread content.
• Hire a good graphic designer that understands branding.
• If you need more confidence, hire a speaking coach.
• You may need a business or lifestyle coach to help you understand your values and beliefs.
Conclusion
The idea of personal branding can be daunting, but well worth the effort. With an increasingly digital world we now have more avenues for building our personal brand.
These tips are a starting point to begin building, or rebuilding a positive personal brand. If you need help with these ideas feel free to contact me. In fact, I would love to hear any ideas you have on building a personal brand.
