How to Build Your Personal Brand

BrandingMarketing Tips

Jul 19

Written By brandmerry

How to Build Your Personal Brand

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Today’s episode is all about personal branding.

As a Personal Branding Consultant and Marketing Strategist, it's one of my favorite topics and something I support my clients with daily. I have spent the last five years teaching entrepreneurs how to personally brand themselves online so that they can build scalable businesses.

The information that I'm sharing with you today isn't just based on my experience. It's based on my clients, which includes hundreds who have gone through my program, You! Branded, or worked with me as a 1:1 VIP client.

What I’m teaching you today will shift the way you think about branding forever and fill in some of the gaps in your personal brand as well.

WHAT IS PERSONAL BRANDING

In this context, I am talking about personal branding as it applies to business owners. So, you're looking to receive money and funds for your products or your services online.

With this in mind, how does personal branding impact that?

Personal branding is based on the experience that you are creating for your ideal customer, with you being the person behind the brand.

Whether you sell a product or a service, personal branding can help you create more connections with your audience. We've also found that personal branding helps with client retention.

When a customer shares a connection with a brand, connects with shared values, is on board with their mission, feels taken care of, is connected to their story, we know that client retention improves. This is why personal branding is so important no matter what you sell online.

At the end of the day, if you're not leading the charge with your personal brand, if you aren't choosing what messages are being shared and what is being said, other people will create the narrative for you.

We don't really want that.

So, it is important that as a business owner you are focused on the person, or the people if there's more than one, behind the brand, and sharing that through the art of personal branding.

When we watch videos or read most blogs on personal branding, they’re typically focused on social media only. I want you to think of that as an avenue for sharing your personal brand, but keep in mind you can also share your personal brand through video, blogging, or email marketing.

There are a lot of different ways to showcase your personal brand online.

For our purpose I want to dive deeper into what personal branding is made up of, not just how you share your personal brand.

How do you actually figure out what your personal brand is, so you can use those marketing avenues to attract your ideal customers, promote your products and services, and build a deeper connection?

To figure out what our personal brand is, we've got to start at the very, very first step, which is understanding who you are.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 1: UNDERSTANDING WHO YOU ARE

When it comes to figuring out who you are, the person behind the brand, it's important to start thinking about your story.

Now, story work is something that I specialize in, over here at Brandmerry. No matter if you work with me on branding or marketing, we're always focused on the art of storytelling.

I talked about storytelling in this video right here. If you want to check it out, that is going to be really helpful for you in understanding why story is so important.

But some of the things that you want to identify in the beginning is:

Who the heck are you (or the people behind the brand)?
What has ultimately led you to create this product or this service?
Why do you want to solve this problem for your ideal customer?

We know that to be successful as a business owner, we need to solve a problem.
If there's no problem, people won't pay for a result. They won't pay for a solution.

So, you want to get clear on why you chose to do that? What has ultimately led you here?

One of the elements that I teach inside of Module One of my program You! Branded is focusing on the three transitions. What are three pivotal moments in your life that have led you to this moment today? It’s also something I share in this recent podcast episode here.

This is also incredibly helpful in writing your brand's story, which is often one of the things that we do when we are first launching our business out into the world. Also, at this phase, you want to pay attention to identifying your brand values and your brand mission.

If you need additional help with this, episode one and four on the Brandmerry Podcast talks about both of these pieces, so you can dive into the logistics on each of those over on iTunes or Spotify.

The goal at this stage is to be super clear on the person/people behind the brand, otherwise, it's going to be really hard to communicate who the person behind the brand is, which is the art of personal branding in a nutshell.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP #2: WHO IS YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

The second thing that you want to do is get super clear on who you want to attract to your brand.

There are two sides to branding. There's you, the personal brand. The stories that you're ultimately going to share.

Then we also have to understand who the brand is designed for because it's not for you (you can’t buy your own services and products and keep your business afloat). You are the person behind the brand, the person building the connection. But who are you wanting to attract?

This is where understanding who your ideal customer is is incredibly important.

You need to not only get very specific on who your product and your service are ultimately for, but also get down to the nitty-gritty details around who they are.

This is going to help you tremendously as you start to show up on social media, as you start to enhance your email marketing, and as you venture into blogging or creating video.

Who are these pieces of content for? This is going to make the entire process of showing up and marketing your business so much easier.

It's also going to play a role in the types of stories that you share online and the types of photos that you create because you're doing it to attract an ideal customer. You want to make sure that you take the time to identify who that person is.

Here are two little things, and three questions, that I want to share with you on ideal client work.

IDEAL CLIENT WORK: TIP #1

Get super clear on specifically who this person is. This is where some of those demographic pieces come into play. I'm not going to tell you that you can only work with women, or you can only work with men, or you can only work with business owners.

But start to think about those demographics that they identify with most, because that's really going to help you when you are writing copy, creating messaging, and choosing those visual pieces for your brand.

IDEAL CLIENT WORK: TIP #2

The second thing that you want to be able to answer are these three questions:

Where are they at currently?
What are their struggles?
And what is standing in their way?

This is kind of like a two-for-one. Struggles and obstacles.

If someone has a problem, they can clearly tell you, "This is my problem. This is what I'm currently experiencing in my day-to-day life. This is what I'm trying to move away from."

But if they haven't moved away from that yet, what is standing in their way? That can be where you really get clear on the obstacles.

The last piece is where do they ultimately want to go? If you solve their problems if they have a solution, what will that allow them to do?

Now again, I want to be super clear, this plays a role whether you have a product or a service. I actually teach a little secret sauce to ideal client work in my free class, Build a Better Brand Method. Visit betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for free.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 3: UNDERSTANDING WHO YOU ARE

The third step in the personal branding process is your messaging.

Let's just recap to see how this fits in.

We know who you are, right? You are the person behind the brand. You're the one that's ultimately showing up on these platforms, sharing your expertise, sharing your knowledge.

We understand who you're speaking to and who you want to attract. That's your ideal customer.

Now how do we do this in a very consistent and fluid way? That is where messaging comes into play.

I teach a strategy called Core Brand Messages, which you can watch in this video right here, where I recommend that my clients get super clear on their brand messages for their brand as a whole, not about a specific product.

In fact, I think a lot of entrepreneurs limit themselves because they brand a specific product or a service rather than focusing on the overall personal branding from the beginning.

This looks like identifying some of the obstacles your audience is facing, sharing the struggles that you fix or solve, sharing the desires of your ideal customer and how you, and your brand, ultimately get them from struggle to desire using your techniques.

This is where creating those messages right from the start can really help with consistency in showing up on social media and in the content that you're creating on the different pages on your website.

When it comes to messaging you want to make sure that you're incredibly focused on consistency.

We know that if someone, a consumer, has a break in consistency, they have a break in trust.

So, it's important that if you're showing up on Instagram, and you're showing up on Pinterest, and you have your website (what platforms you ultimately choose), that you are really consistent with your messaging, with the aesthetics, with all those pieces on every single platform.

Don’t break trust with your audience, it's an incredibly bad thing to do as a business owner because we know that people buy based on trust.

Zig Ziglar once said, "If someone likes you, they'll listen to you. If they trust you, they'll do business with you." So, don't break that trust.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP #4: EMOTIONAL BRANDING

Tip number four is my specialty and it is called emotional branding.

Sometimes when we're thinking about showing up online, we get super logistical. We're always thinking about what we offer and why it’s helpful. And while those are VERY important pieces of information to identify, we know that people make purchase decisions based on an emotional connection.

So, emotional branding is incredibly powerful, and it's the focus of Module Six inside of my course You! Branded. We know that when you're super clear on how you ultimately want your ideal customer to feel, then you can create messaging, and you can create the aesthetics, and the visual components and the overall experience to make them feel that way.

I created a video for you right here. It's one of my most popular videos, all about emotional branding.

When thinking about your personal brand make sure that you focus on building a connection because that is what personal branding truly is about. It's about sharing these stories and creating an experience for your audience so that they purchase from the brand and stay loyal to the brand for years to come.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 5: BUILD A COMMUNITY

Tip number five is all about your ideal customer yet again.

I know we initially think about personal branding as just the person behind the brand, but I hope you realize that that's a small portion of it. To improve your personal brand online, you want to get in front of the right people.

So, this step is all about making sure that you're consistently increasing brand awareness and attracting your ideal customer.

One of the best things that you can do when creating your business is building a community around your brand. This is also going to play a huge role as you expand your brand down the line, maybe offering live events, a podcast, or releasing a book.

My favorite way to build community is through email marketing. Making sure that you are growing your email list so you have a way to stay in contact with your brand community members, to share stories with them, to share educational content, to share knowledge, to share your products and your offers.

Not only is having this online community really going to help with the evolution of your brand, but it's also going to help you make money.

So, as a business owner, it's important that if someone is intrigued by what you're saying, that they are interested in your products and your services, that you get them into your inner circle, that you capture their name and their email address so you can continue to nurture that relationship.

PERSONAL BRANDING STEP 6: CUSTOMER SERVICE

The last tip that I have for you is all about that connection piece. It's what we talked about in the very beginning. Personal branding really is about the experience. It's about building a connection with your audience. It's about sustainability and longevity.

So, my last tip for you is to take care of your customers. Take care of your clients.

We put too much emphasis on getting people in the door, getting people on our email list. But I challenge you to put the same amount of emphasis, if not more, on taking care of the customers and clients once they're in the door.

This is what is going to lead to your recurring clients, to your referrals, to your word-of-mouth. Some of the most powerful pieces in building a strong personal brand online.

I am really incredibly proud of my client retention rate because I make it a goal to make my clients a top priority.

These are the people who have invested in your products and services. Show up for them, take care of them, and they can be the best advocates for your personal brand.

This looks like making sure you have a clear client onboarding system so they feel taken care of from the moment that they invest. It can look like making sure that you're checking in with them, that you have ways for them to provide feedback, and you're honoring that feedback as well.

One of the things that we have done inside of my course, You! Branded, is to receive feedback from clients on why they purchased, and feedback on obstacles that they've run into as they've gone through the course, or if they would have liked something changed.

We take that feedback to heart and we improve the program for all.

At this point, it's not a guessing game anymore. People will ultimately tell you how you can care for them the best. And if you listen to that, I promise you that they will be the best advocates for your personal brand.

CONCLUSION

I hope that these six steps to improve your personal brand were really helpful for you.

If you want to dive into personal branding and building a better brand, I invite you to watch my free class, the Build a Better Brand Method.

You can check it out with the link below, or go to betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for this on-demand class.

You're going to learn my six-part framework for building a better brand. I talk a little bit more about building those core brand messages, your ideal customer, and the power of story.

You also will have a chance to join us inside of my course You! Branded when you are ready to join us. This course will completely give you everything that you need to build a strong personal brand online.

And, if you want to read a bit more on the blog about personal branding, check out my Personal Branding Guide here.