The Personal Brand is part of your identity as a person and professional with each action or communication you carry out. Personal Branding is the way in which other people perceive you due to everything you do, transmit, and express both in the offline and online worlds. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, defines personal branding as “what others say about you when you are not present”.
Likewise, Personal Branding is about considering oneself as a brand that should be strategically used to differentiate itself and achieve greater success in professional relationships. The main characteristic of building a Personal Brand is very simple: to differentiate yourself.
SHOW THE BEST VERSION OF YOURSELF
You should analyze your strengths and discover what your vocation is, what you are good at, and what you like. For instance, you may be great consulting only women or men, focusing on grooming or lifestyle advice. It is essential that your personal brand is closely linked to your strengths and the opportunities you find in your environment. Always show and give visibility of the best of you.
6-STEP STRATEGY TO ENHANCE YOUR PERSONAL BRANDING
Before getting to the specific points, here are 4 principles that must be taken into account when building a personal brand:
- Know in which places you must be present and in which ones you should not.
- Manage your resources to save time and be able to increase the influence and power of your brand.
- Have the right mindset to make the growth of your brand a daily habit.
- Understand that a great Personal Brand is a long-term benefit.
Analyze your strengths
Personal Branding bases its power on differentiation. Differentiating yourself is essential to highlight your Personal Brand. This is the first and most important step. It is essential to start from this point and be aware of its importance, among other things, because getting it right is a challenging process.
Maximize your strengths to build with certain aspects of your personality (which you already have) and professional skills (which you have acquired). Highlight and promote those talents that make you unique and work on the qualities for which you can stand out in your professional environment.
- What is it that makes you really happy when you do that job?
- What is your biggest quirk?
- What is it that makes you authentic?
- What makes you different and special?
With these questions, you seek to find your vocation and abilities, which help you differentiate yourself and work on your Personal Branding based on these elements. So, get to it and analyze your personality.
Determine your market fit
Now that you know what makes you different and authentic, analyze what type of market fit or community may be more in tune with your business and who may be interested in the service you are going to provide as a brand. It is the moment that you determine who you will address, those people who will believe that it is interesting to pay attention to what makes you valuable.
Answer these questions:
- Who needs and wants to buy my services?
- What problems does this customer have?
- What motivates them?
- In what social networks and communities does my business fit?
These and many other aspects are what you must take into account to determine in a very detailed way who is the market you are going to address and who should be your ideal client.
It is very important to discern what type of audience you are going to target and to know it very well, because depending on the characteristics of your target, you will be able to choose which platforms you will promote yourself on. Likewise, offer one type of content, improving your communication and expressing messages that exclusively attract your market fit.
Define your strategy
If you don’t have a goal, you will hardly be able to establish a strategy. You need to mark an objective for yourself so that your actions are more concrete and have a purpose. If your goal is clear, sooner or later you will find the path that takes you where you want.
Once you have a clear objective, you must think about the services that you will offer. There are three factors that everyone looks for in a product or service: useful, reliable, and visible.
Once you are clear about where you are starting from and at what point your Personal Brand is, because you have defined who you are and you know who to address, it is important that you mark the route to where you want to go. Set goals that are specific and achievable, which are in line with the rest of your marketing strategy or plan. Even if you are an individual, you should also have one. Setting goals is about taking steps forward toward a realistic objective.
Set your yearly goals to improve aspects with ambition and common sense. It is about wanting to reach your goal by believing in yourself, having discipline, and perseverance to achieve it. Try to get out of your comfort zone and exceed your limits in order to be more successful. Do not be afraid of trying. Another important aspect at this point is creativity when planning the actions that you propose to reach your goals. Part of the success you obtain with your Personal Branding will lie precisely in how ingenious or creative you develop and implement the actions that you want to carry out.
Create your own website and business cards
When you are clear about where you want to go, it is time to consider creating your own website. The most recommended thing is that your domain has your name and surname. There is no better logo than your own name or initials. It is also something that will accompany you throughout your life, so it is the best choice for creating your Personal Branding.
Make sure to write a blog on your website. The blog should be the strongest part of your personal brand on the Internet, since you will be able to demonstrate that you are a reliable professional.
Having business cards is key to building your Personal Brand. The cards continue to be a useful tool to make yourself known and practice networking. As for the design, keep in mind that it must be consistent with your image, your personality, your profession and the sector in which you want to succeed. The most important details that you must include in your personal card are:
- Your name and last name
- A concise, professional description with keywords
- Your mobile and email
- The address of your blog or website
Communicate well
Keep in mind that you need to build a Personal Brand strategy being visible and having a good reputation. So, go back to the analysis you have carried out on your market fit and examine which platforms they use most. This will help you determine where you need to be present, mostly online.
If you have noticed that your audience uses the most well-known social networks like Instagram, Facebook or Linkedin, you must create your profile on those networks. If, for instance, you have seen that the type of target you are addressing is concentrated in a very specific forum or only use email, then that is where you should make yourself visible.
At this point, not only limit yourself to being visible in the online world, but also take into account the offline sphere, since weaving a network of contacts in the physical world can also be very fruitful. Start making a list of the events and conferences you want to attend, where you can make a presentation, give a small talk where you explain what you do.
Optimize your business constantly
Working well on your identity, your market, your strategy, and your visibility is essential to achieve success. But this work would not be complete if you did not constantly measure what you are achieving with your work.
It is important that you measure your results to see if you are reaching your goals or, on the contrary, you are not achieving everything that you had really set for yourself. The great advantage that the online world provides is that everything is measurable and that almost all the tools have their own ‘Analytics’.
Above all, remember that:
- Networking opens doors
- Keep working hard and upgrading your services
- Take care of your image
- Be attentive with your clients
- Be generous and give back
BENEFITS OF BUILDING A PERSONAL BRAND
Create your own community
With a unique profile and image both online and offline, you will be able to connect with a community in accordance with what you offer and that shares your values. That way, you will have more resources and partners to grow your business.
Gain credibility
It will give you credibility because you show your authenticity, what makes you different. It will make you connect with those who are related to your own work philosophy and goals. Therefore, you will generate trust.
Be a benchmark in your sector
You will become a reference within your community, since maximizing what you do well will make you stand out from the competition.
As well, you will:
- Be recognized for your work and your branding
- Get new job opportunities
- Give classes, conferences, or talks
- Generate additional income with your projects
- Develop new skills, learn, and grow
- Increase your chances of long-term success
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Book a personal branding consultation at Style Konsult to get expert advice from an experienced image consultant, Jen Auh. Contact us at style@stylekonsult.com to book a personalized consultation in order to learn how to enhance your image, strengthen your personal brand, and grow your business.
If you have any questions, contact us at styiles@styiles.com.
