Transcription
Hey everybody, welcome back. In this video, we're going to talk about personal branding 101: understanding the basics and the fundamentals.
So personal branding has a lot of moving parts, and you may feel so overwhelmed by the idea of developing a personal brand that you're afraid to start. And if that sounds like you, here's my message to you: don't get discouraged, don't be intimidated. Personal branding doesn't have to be complicated. Here's a breakdown of the basics and the fundamentals of personal branding.
So first of all, let's start off with the definition of personal brand. A personal brand is the widely held perception of an individual based on their experience, their expertise, their competencies, their actions, and their achievements, either within a community or in industry or in the marketplace as a whole. Personal branding, on the other hand, is what you do—the actions that you take—what you do to build and establish that perception in people's minds. I like to call it building the three R's, which are: being recognized, being remembered, and being revered. Being recognized is the public awareness and building your credibility. Being remembered is being recalled in people's minds. And being revered, of course, is belief, trust, and faith in you as an expert. Okay, now.
So how do you start? How do you start building a personal brand? Well, you start with what you know. What do you know? What is your level of authority in something? What's your level of expertise in relationship to other people? Your towering skill set and also possibly your secondary skill sets. Remember, you don't have to know everything; you just have to know more than the people that you're intending to help.
Now next, you need to decide on who it is that you're going to serve. Who is your customer Avatar? What's their age? What's their life stage? What's their career stage? And also, what is their what we call need state? What do those people need that you can provide? Think about how you'd articulate how you would basically capture your Avatar's problem and the solution that you're going to provide them.
Now next, you want to think about your goals. What is it that you are trying to achieve out of building a personal brand? What are you going to get out of it? Are you going to try to build a community? Are you trying to make more money or get more clients? Are you just trying to expand awareness of yourself in the market? Are you trying to build your level of influence and credibility? Are you trying to expand your network or try to get speaking gigs or even media appearances? You want to think about what those goals are, because how you go about building your personal brand—where you show up, what kind of content you produce, what your actions are—those should all be driven by what your end result is, what your goal is, what it is that you want to achieve.
Now next, you want to give a little bit of thought about your visual identity. When you show up online, you're going to show up in photography and on websites and in social media. So you've got to give a little bit of thought to your visual brand design. So that's things like: Do you have a logo? Or a color palette? Or fonts that you always use? Or some sort of pattern or texture that shows up in your social media posts? Do you have a particular layout style of photography or iconography that you use? You want to think about what those visual elements of design are that are going to be associated with you and your personal brand.
Then you start building your digital presence. You have to think about this in terms of real estate. There's your real estate and other people's real estate. Your real estate is your website. Other people's real estate is social media platforms. And yes, you have to use both. You definitely want to have your own real estate that you own and you control—meaning your website—but you also need to be on social media platforms for that broader exposure. But remember that is other people's real estate, and social media platforms change all the time. So don't build all of your brand on borrowed land. Make sure that you're also investing in your own website and your own presence there.
Now let's talk about finding your voice. Now you're a person, and you speak, so you have a particular way of speaking and maybe an accent or a certain kind of vocabulary that you use. But you also have to think about what it is that you stand for. What's your point of view? What is it that you're going to be saying? What is your personal brand tone of voice? You want to actually put some thought behind that.
Then we want to think about how and where your voice is going to be heard. How and where are you going to show up? What platforms are you going to show up on? What kind of content are you going to use? Are you going to use audio, like a podcast? Or video, like on YouTube or Vimeo? How about graphics? Or possibly even written content, like a newsletter or blog? Or will it be personal appearances, like webinars or conferences? Then you want to create a calendar of where, when, and how often you're going to start showing up. You also want to give a little bit of thought about how you're going to measure your success once you start doing that. Is it going to be in subscribers or followers? Or possibly even new clients?
And the next step is to make that voice heard. So you want to start getting your message out there. So this is the hardest part for a lot of people who are building a personal brand: creating a little bit of content and then actually hitting that publish button. And that's where 90% of people actually end up not going forward with it. And if you can overcome that, you are ahead of ninety percent of the rest of people who thought they wanted to build a personal brand. Hitting that publish button for the first time is very nerve-wracking because you feel like everyone's watching and everyone's going to judge you. But I guarantee you, at the beginning, your audience will probably be pretty small, so there won't be a lot of people watching, and you're going to have the freedom to make mistakes and get over your nerves before you really start building that audience.
So the goal of all this is for you to become magnetic. You want to think about what is your unique attraction? Why should people follow you rather than someone else? What's your particular opinion? What's your point of view? And how are you going to deliver it in a way that's uniquely you?
So there are really three big goals in personal branding:
One is to capture the attention of your audience. You want to build a following, become the go-to person in your industry. You want to build an email list if you can and build up a subscriber and a follower base.
Number two is you want to engage. You want to engage your audience after providing that value. It's not over then. You really want to engage authentically and consistently, answer questions, get in those comments, and really engage with people. Find out what of your value that you're bringing is really mattering to them and make sure that you're adjusting what you're offering to what they really want and need.
And number three is you want to expand your footprint. So you want to start small, but then slowly, over time, you're going to be growing and expanding that digital ecosystem that you're showing up on. You're going to, over time, show up in more and more places and offer more things.
And if you do all this, you will grow. It's going to take some patience because building a personal brand does take time, but eventually you're going to want to scale beyond just you. You're going to want to do more and be in more places and post more often. And to do that, you're going to have to bring on other people besides just you—possibly a virtual assistant or some sort of team or an apprentice or a mentee to help you get there.
And over time, as you get more successful as a personal brand, you're going to want to scale your products and your services. You're going to expand into more channels of delivery, more platforms, offer a higher volume of content. You may even add on speaking or doing webinars or live streams or in real-life conferences or possibly even podcast interviews. You may get into paid coaching, meaning helping people actually one-on-one. And you might add in actual digital products or courses—things that you can actually sell.
And then finally, the gold standard: all of this personal brand building will culminate in your being able to monetize your influence. You're going to be able to monetize your personal brand. Your personal brand building is going to draw a lot of people to you; it's going to draw new clients to you. But you can also create multiple streams of income with the power of your personal brand. You can create paid communities or paid Mastermind groups. You can start to get paid for sponsoring companies or endorsing products. You can get paid for speaking opportunities. There's all sorts of ways, as you build your personal brand, to monetize it.
Now I want you to remember that building a personal brand can be one of the most beneficial things that you do in your career. Once you start to do it, you build equity and value in yourself over time. You become more sought after; your ability to make more money increases, and you command more influence in the category of business that you're in. All of the work that you put into it—and this is really important—it never goes away; it's all cumulative. Your personal brand belongs only to you—not your employer or the company or the agency that you work for, not your boss. You take it with you wherever you go in your career.
So that's it: personal branding 101: understanding the basics and the fundamentals. If you like this video, please hit subscribe and bang that notifications bell so you can get alerted when I post something new or when I go live. And if you need help building your personal brand, reach out to me at philipvandusen.com, and let's get you on the path to having this successful career of your dreams. And with that, thanks a lot for watching, and bye for now.