Hey, you could just head out and apply for a job at Mickey D’s.
You want to dance to the beat of your own drum though, don’t you? Typical isn’t your style. Good for you!
Here’s a few tips to get your personal brand building efforts started (and completed) right:
1. Build your platform.
If you are going to have a personal brand you’ll need a website in order to create the platform for your brand. It should be your name or the brand name you’ve chosen. You’ll also need social media accounts that represent your brand. Use those platforms to share your voice.
2. Identify your uniqueness and your strengths.
Think about the characteristics and strengths you’ve built in your career. Don’t get hung up in the paralysis analysis game. What’s one thing that people consistently tell you that you have a knack for doing better than other people. If you can’t think of anything on your own, start putting feelers out. Blast your friends and family with emails asking what they think you’re good at. Hit up your old employers even — who better to tell you what you’re good at and what you’re not?
3. Own your space.
This is numero uno circa 2015 and beyond. Everyone and their grandma seems to be firing up a podcast or YT channel to share their thoughts and try and cash in on all those adsense dollars. Once you’ve identified your uniqueness and strengths, perfect it. Become the foremost expert in pet training, weight training, stock trading — whatever. You can never stop learning. Own your niche and decimate your enemies (the competition that is!)
4. Share your knowledge.
Watch 20 minutes of CNN at any given time of the day and you’re likely to be exposed to at least 3 experts of some kind, sharing their knowledge while gaining valuable exposure for their brand in the process. Fire up a YouTube vlog and find established vlogs you can guest on. Same for all other media sources: blogs, major websites in your niche, social media, join sharing networks that help spread your content and put you in touch with other experts willing to do interviews on your media channels in exchange for the exposure. Share, share, share.
5. Insist on being you — using your unique style.
Find your own style. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing and just follow the crowd. Use your style and uniqueness to attract the jobs and clientele that you desire. When I think of this tip I’m always reminded of Gary Vaynerchuk and how he build is brand by doing videos sharing wine reviews and tips. No one else was doing and now look around hundreds of people are following in his footsteps. Find your own style and create new set of footprints for others to follow in.
6. Identify your values and set your priorities.
It’s important to have a clear picture of your personal and professional goals, both short and long term. This will help you in not only identifying the most important things to spend your time on, but will also have something to align new projects with. Use your values and priorities as a compass that guides you both in action and your decision-making process. This will ensure you stay on track.
7. Craft your personal brand persona.
This will really help to create your brand. Your persona can be created by asking yourself the following questions:
- Your emotional appeal: What are your personality features? This can be as easy as saying you have a crazy sense of humor or that you are obsessively organized. Take a few moments, why do you think people are attracted to the brand of you?
- Describe yourself: To yourself. When it comes to your brand who are you and why do people enjoy working with you?
- Identify your specialty: What do you do and what do people want you to do for them?
Use the steps above as a primer anytime you want to create and launch a new brand into the world. At least for the time being, you’re going to be eating, exercising, showering, sleeping and dreaming it 24/7. After you’ve launched one or two, you’ll find that like most who’ve done it before you, that much of the work can be farmed out to outsourcers and expert service providers in the given industry you’re looking to dive into. For now, as a newbie, you have to be hyper-vigilant and sadly, do most of the work yourself.
So suck it up Sally!
It’s going to be a hard and very rewarding reward. Here’s rooting for all of you!
