Branding Tips from a Business Coach for Female Entrepreneurs

When I started my business in 2016, I had no idea that the thing I struggled most with would become my superpower.

That's right! I really sucked at branding in the beginning.

Not only was I super unclear about what was required for a solid brand foundation, but I also lacked an understanding of my story and found myself lost in what other people were doing and creating.

I think we can agree, that blending in is kind of the opposite of a strong brand.

Fast forward months after starting to build my website and I discovered the beauty of brand storytelling, emotional branding, and human connection. Needless to say, this understanding made all the technical elements of branding so much easier.

Now, I'm regularly featured as an expert in branding and brand storytelling and today, I'm sharing some of my recent branding resources with you. You can also check out an entire guide I have on my website here if videos aren't your thing.

Now onto the good stuff. Here are 5 resources on my favorite topic ever...branding!👇

PERSONAL BRANDING: 6 TIPS FROM A BUSINESS COACH

Watch Time: 14 mins​

Personal branding strategies can feel overwhelming when you're trying to do it yourself so in today's episode I'm sharing 6 tips to improve your personal brand as a business owner. It's time to brand yourself and use this proven strategy to increase your income and impact.

Watch: Personal Branding

EMOTIONAL BRANDING

​Watch Time: 5 mins

​In this video, we’re talking about what you need to know when it comes to emotional branding including the power of emotional branding, what you need for it to work, how to find your emotions, and how to go even deeper in your branding

Watch: Emotional Branding

5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BRAND MESSAGING

​Watch Time: 13 mins

​Your brand messaging is one of the most important parts of the branding process. Why? Because your messaging impacts everything that happens with your marketing. Brand messaging is kind of my love language. And the reason for that is because it combines both of my passions and both of my areas of expertise, branding, and marketing.

Watch: Brand Messaging

HOW TO PERFORM MARKET RESEARCH FOR YOUR BRAND

​Watch Time: 20 mins

​Market research is essential when building the brand foundation for your new business. In fact, everything you'll create from advertising to content and programs will rely on what you learn in the market research stage.

Watch: Market Research

HOW TO TELL YOUR BRAND STORY THROUGH YOUR BRAND IDENTITY

​Watch Time: 19 mins

​Did you know it's possible to share parts of your brand story through your brand identity?! Find out how in today’s video.

Watch: Brand Identity

You can watch all of these videos in my new Branding for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners playlist here.

Don't forget to drop me a comment on your favorite video so I know you watched it!

P.S. Have you gotten your hands on the Content Planning Blueprint, yet?

I created this blueprint to help you become an organized, productive, high-converting content machine that gets their brand seen and paid consistently.

As I was creating the CONTENT PLANNING BLUEPRINT, I knew I wanted to give you a tried and tested approach to planning 90 days of content for your business so you can create data-driven content topics, and show up consistently.

Without a clear system in place for finding content ideas, organizing your content ideas, optimizing your workflow, and creating a weekly rinse and repeat system for time management, your dreams of consistent and converting content just won't happen.

I've seen it time and time again.

The key is harnessing the power of a weekly content workflow, the art of repurposing, and utilizing SEO research so you can master your content creation strategy. At the center of a successful marketing strategy lies your content.

Check out the Content Planning Blueprint now!

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Find Your Brand Voice [Personal Branding]

How to Find Your Brand Voice [Personal Branding]

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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If you've never tried hard kombucha before, I highly recommend it. If you're a kombucha fan and you also like to consume a beverage from time to time with alcoholic content, the shizz is amazing. 

No, this is not what this post is about, obviously, but hear me out.

Today, I want to share with you my top tips for finding your voice through personal branding. 
But, why is this so important? Let’s dive in.

My favorite company for hard kombucha is called June Shine. This small San Diego-based business has built a product that has expanded over the last year to nationwide delivery. Their success has been so fun to watch.

While I love the taste of the product, what has made me a loyal fan is their brand. Because of their clear brand, the company voice and their knowledge of their ideal customer, their marketing are exceptional. I see myself as their ideal customer in everything they do.

It’s one of the reasons I bought and their voice continues in their customer service as well, from their emails to their text messages you clearly understand their brand and the ultimate vibe they want to portray.

Everything you do in your business and your success ultimately comes down to your brand.

All the growth that we see, the loyalty, the brand affinity, as I've shared multiple times on my podcast, it all comes down to the work that you do on a branding level. 

I hope by now that you have watched my free training called Build a Better Brand Method. If you have, you are familiar with that method. 

I shared that method with you on the podcast. If you want to go back and listen to episode 10, the Better Brand Method, you'll learn my six-part framework for building a better brand.

One of those pillars is your brand voice.

Today I want to dive into why this is so important, how you find it, and some of the key things that I teach my clients that support them in finding their authentic voice.

BRAND VOICE GUIDELINES

Now, I will say that finding your voice and refining your voice is a process. It's kind of like what we talked about a few episodes ago around visibility and showing up with confidence. 

It is through the act of getting visible that you increase your confidence. 

It is through the act of showing up and sharing your voice that you refine your voice. 

You will learn what feels good and what doesn't feel good as you show up and get visible. 

But where do you start? 

How do you know what your voice even is? 

How do you create a voice from the beginning that feels very much like you and who you are and how you want to show up and isn't heavily influenced by others in your industry or mentors? 

This is something that I had to catch myself with when I first started my business. 

When we talk about authenticity and especially your authentic voice, this is where the relatability piece shines. 

Your voice is ultimately how you're showing up. This is how you're positioning your content. This is how you talk about your offer. It's the little quirks and little things that you do on your videos, on your podcast. 

One of the things that I do and I don't know if you've noticed, maybe it drives you nuts I don't know, is I don't edit my podcast. 

My husband will add some intro, outro music, fancy it up a bit, but I'm not cutting out things that I say or if I misspeak or anything like that. 

That was a choice that I made early on because I want to show up as my true self, without filters, without edits, without all of those different things. 

That's one of the elements of my authenticity. That's important to me. Yours might look a little bit different. You might be a very polished person.

Maybe you come from a very professional background and that is in fact who you are, not a front, not a mask, not a facade. That's who you are. 

When you put your work out in the world, of course, it makes sense to have a nice edited and polished piece. 

That's not who I am. 

And I hope this story reminds you that just because I show up this way, doesn't mean you have to show up that way. It doesn't mean you should show up that way. 

You should be showing up in the way that is most authentic to you. 

If we're creating a personal brand in which we're offering products or services based on something that has happened in our life, based on our story, or based on our experience, we are the center of the brand so the voice is our own. 

Even as I expand into more of a company here at Brandmerry, I'm coming from a full personal brand where my voice and my story are the center. 

As I'm moving into this transition of building a company with additional levels of support and team members, specifically inside of my program Brandmerry Academy, it's about taking those elements of the brand voice, me, and what that impacts in terms of values, mission, messaging, etc...the pillars that have already been created for Brandmerry, and then how I move them over and we communicate them as a company and as a brand as a whole.

It still had to start with me!

When you're just starting, it's you. 

Don't try and fancy it up. 

Don't try to make it all complicated. 

It is you, it is your voice. 

So let’s talk about how your voice specifically fits into personal branding.

TWO QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU FIND YOUR BRAND VOICE

There are two questions I want you to think about when we first dive into this. I'm also going to share with you a few key points I want you to identify that are going to help you in actually creating your brand voice. 

IDENTIFY YOUR FEARS AROUND SHOWING UP

The first thing that I want you to do is to identify the fears that you have around showing up as your most authentic self. 

A couple of things might come up for you when I say that. 

One, “Who is my most authentic self, Michelle? I have no damn idea.” 

This is why I'm a big fan of the story work that I teach in all of my programs because through the story work, I am giving you prompts and encouragement to uncover elements of your story that have impacted who you are and how you show up today and the work that you're doing.

It's through diving in and doing those pieces that you're able to start to determine who you are authentically. 

When I first started my business, I created an entire brand that was not me. It didn't look like me, it didn't sound like me. It wasn't me. And that's because I didn't know at the time what story work was. 

Story work and how I teach it is a framework that I created through my discovery. 

So when I was making that transition to figure out how to rebrand my business, because I identified that what I had created wasn’t me, I dove into the story work. 

If you're at that place where you're I just don't know, then I would encourage you to check out some free resources on brandmerry.com on the blog, around storytelling, as well as my YouTube channel.

But the next level, that is what I teach inside of You! Branded. That is what I focus on inside of my intensives. Depending on where you're at in your business, your level of investment, and your eagerness to figure this shit out, those are some options for you. 

If you don't know who you are, you’ve got to figure that out first. 
So, let's just assume, for our purposes today, that we've all done story work and now it's about how you want to show up and squash the fears that come up around being judged, looking unprofessional, not being polished, etc…

I still had those fears when I was starting, because I was looking at what everyone else was doing and thought that if they wear blazers, take pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower, they have these perfect backdrops behind their live stream, no kid running around, etc that I had to do those things too. 

I had to face those fears and say, "Are you afraid that those things mean that you aren't going to be successful?" 

Of course, they don't. 

And we know that one of the best things that you can do is stand in your authenticity to stand out online. If I were to adapt or mold to what all those people were doing, I would look and sound like everybody else.

Now, I know you aren’t here because you want to look and sound like everyone else. There's no way. You wouldn't be here. And we know that that's a bad marketing move overall. 

The first thing you want to do is identify the fears that you have around showing up as your most authentic self and then start to work through those fears and rationalize those fears. 

Is this ultimately true? 
What is this telling me about myself? 
How can I use this as a damn momentum driver to show up and share my voice?

Use Emotion In Your Brand

The second thing you want to do is attach a little bit of emotion to it. Now I know I always say keep the emotion out of marketing. Make your marketing decisions based on data but listen, branding is all about emotion. 

The whole concept of branding is emotional. So what better way to feel connected to yourself and how you are going to show up than thinking about how you showing up as your most authentic self would make you feel?

How would you feel creating content as your most authentic self? 

How would you feel sharing your website when you knew that it was a true reflection of who you are? 

How would you feel going on video and not worrying about all the little things that you have made up in your head that have to be a certain way or sound a certain way?

I can tell you from experience, it feels damn good. Even though the video was the main platform that I decided to focus on with visibility, this is something I talked about in episode 12, I still had a ton of fears around it. 

I was worried that everything had to be perfect. 
It had to be silent in my house. 
I couldn't be interrupted. 

And while I don't recommend that kids are running all around when you have a live stream, this is the reality of it all. It was the first live stream I did with my son because it was either show up with him or not at all, that I realized that there was so much power in me showing up as my true self.

- QUICK STORYTIME -

In 2016, I was hosting one of my very first challenges and for me it was huge. I think I had 50 people signed up. It was a big deal. 

I had already left my 9:00 to 5:00 and I was hosting this challenge during the middle of the day, rather than the evening as I had done before.

Back then it was just my son and me at home during the day and I thought I had positioned it right around nap time. 

Well, it doesn't always work out that way. And my son would not fall asleep before the video. 

After pacing back and forth and seriously questioning what I was going to do and freaking out a little bit, I ended up putting him in our baby carrier on my back and I just started the live stream.

I remember it was the first time I'd stood up on a live stream, typically I’d be sitting in a chair. And I remember saying to my audience, "Hey, listen. Here's what it is. I'm a working mom. I'm building my own business. My son wouldn't lay down. He's on my back. If you see hands, feet, a head or hear crying, that's what's up." 

I just laid it outright in the beginning and I delivered the entire live stream. 

He ended up falling asleep because I was swaying back and forth. And I kid you not, it was the first time that I had received such a tremendous response from a live stream where I got comment after comment after comment.

"Thank you for doing this.”
“Thank you for showing up.”
“Thank you for giving us permission."

I was selling a program on the back end of this challenge, it was a branding program, my first ever. I had multiple people tell me that they ended up joining because of that live stream. 

Could you imagine if I hadn't shown up because I was worried about the fears of what people would think of me? 

When you make an intentional choice to face those fears, to put them in perspective, and honestly, to lead with the emotion of how amazing it would feel to do this thing as your most authentic self, you can potentially change the entire course of your business. 

So before you dive into the tips and tricks, you need to consider these first two questions.

7 KEY ELEMENTS TO IDENTIFY YOUR BRAND VOICE

Now let's talk about some of the key elements that I have found that help my clients in identifying their voice. 

We're feeling confident and yeah, we're going to do the damn thing. 

Now, how do we do it? 

Know Your Audience

Number one, and as with all things in branding, you have to know your audience. This is huge. And I don't think people realize what role this plays in your authenticity. 

But let's say you are coming from corporate America. I've worked with so many clients who come from a very heavy corporate background, high-level corporations, where they have been their whole life, who leave the 9:00 to 5:00 grind for starting their own business. And some of them end up working with corporate individuals, that's amazing, but a lot of them don't. 

When they come in and start writing copy and thinking about showing up, they get really obsessed with this whole corporate train of thought. “But this is who I've worked with. This is what my boss would say.”

When I ask them who their audience is. They'll tell me and then I ask them: 

What does your audience do every day?
What's your audience wearing?
Why is your audience interested in the topic that you're sharing?
Do you think your audience actually cares about what you told me previously?
Typically the answer is No!

If you know your audience, it can take a lot of the pressure off how you SHOULD be showing up. 

It's not that we're molding ourselves to fit our audience's expectations. But if you're coming in with these high expectations of how you should be performing, sometimes it can put it into perspective for you. 

When you realize…
Wait, actually my audience cares about transparency. 
Wait, actually my audience cares more about connection. 
Wait, my audience is a bunch of moms who are also juggling X, Y, and Z so me showing up will be a great way to show both of those. 

That's one thing that I have found has been tremendously helpful for my clients, especially my clients who are coming from more professional backgrounds.

Why Do You Like Your Favorite Brands

The second tool that I love to teach is one that we have to tread a little light around. 

Now, I'm going to share this with you but I'm not recommending that you go hunt down all your favorite brands and stalk their websites and their copy and so forth. There's no room for that. That is the opposite of authentic. 

What I want you to focus on are the brands that you gravitate towards. The brands that you feel connected to and why. 

You don't even have to look at these brands. You just have to think about that brand and your interactions with them. Think about the content that you've consumed from them and write down why you feel good when you see their stuff. 

How does it make you feel? 
And why do you think it makes you feel that way?

Then on the flip side of that, I want you to think about brands that you don't like seeing and don't like interacting with. 

When you hear that name and you think to yourself, "Ugh," why is that? 

This is going to tell you how you want to show up in the world. 

We're typically drawn to things that feel most authentic to us so if you can identify some of these pieces that draw you into other brands, you can replicate those feelings but in your authentic way with your brand.

Use Everyday Language

The next tip that I have is one of the most simple, yet most difficult strategies in the book but it is going to help you so much with not just your copywriting in general, but also your storytelling. 

And that is to use everyday language. 

Start to identify some of the things that you love to talk about or some of the quirks that you have. One of the exercises that I have in You! Branded is to list out some of the most popular words that you typically say a lot and then carry that over into your messaging or ask some of your friends and family, people who know you on a very intimate level to name three quirks that they find that you always bring to a conversation.  

We can kind of survey people closest to us to pinpoint things that we don't see in ourselves because the everyday language, ultimately speaking in your true voice is really what this is about. 

So why not identify that before you ever start creating content or showing up?

Be Conversational

This is also a great way to improve your copy and your storytelling. 

When you are thinking about creating content, showing up on a video, or creating a podcast like this, imagine you’re having a conversation with your audience.

When I recorded this podcast I pretended I was speaking to you as if we were sitting on the couch, drinking kombucha together, talking about your voice and personal branding. 

Be conversational. This is what people resonate with. 

One of the greatest tools that I learned was to pretend I was writing emails to a friend. This completely changed how I wrote emails to my audience when I was starting.

This is why tip number one, identifying your ideal customer, getting to know who they are, is incredibly important. It will allow you to give them a persona and use that when writing your copy. 

If you're writing an Instagram post and you were writing a letter to them, how would you write it?
It would be descriptive. 
It would be conversational. 
It'd be funny. 
You'd have emotion in it. 

It wouldn't be like, "Hey, I have this free thing and I want you to get your hands on it. It will be great. Here's what you'll get." 

You sound like a damn robot. 

But if you're conversational and you're like, "Hey, are you struggling with this right now and it's driving you up a damn wall and you can't stop thinking about it? How would it freaking feel if you didn't have to worry about that anymore and instead you could focus on X, Y, and Z? I want to share this with you because I'm so excited about it. And it's my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." 

Big difference. 
One feels like a friend, one feels like a robot. 

You tell me which one you gravitate towards?

Put Keywords To Your Voice

I love getting clear and specific and having a framework for things. One of the things I love after you've gotten to this point is to put some keywords to your voice. 

For instance, one of the things that I teach inside of You! Branded is all about emotional branding and identifying the emotions that you want your audience to feel. You can use similar words when you're trying to describe your voice. 

Maybe you use exclamation points a lot when you write and it's playful. 
You love to use gifs and emojis to keep it light.
You might say that your brand voice is playful, compassionate, and constantly excited. 

With this tip, you’re ultimately giving your brand voice an identity. 

If you’ve done the emotional branding work that I teach, there will be crossover and it can help in brand consistency from a brand voice and brand emotion (aesthetic) standpoint.

It will give you a marker for self-assessment as you continue to show up. You can reflect every 30 days and ask yourself, “Oh, does this sound like my voice? Does this hit the three characteristics that I established in the beginning when I was thinking about my brand voice?” But then also as you move into sharing your brand with others, hiring people to come on your team to share your brand, create graphic designs or promotional pieces, you can share these pieces with them as well so they understand how you want to be presented online.

I was just bringing on a new graphic designer, which I'm so excited about over here at Team Brandmerry, and we're trying to figure out what design we like. I’m able to give really thorough feedback and say things like, "Okay, less bright, moodier. Less playful, more grounded."  

I’m able to share these keywords because I know my brand voice and it ultimately will help them in the creation process.  

Once you’ve identified your keywords then put those on a Post-it and always check in with yourself to make sure that you're following your own criteria. The criteria you've determined.

Identify Your Values and Mission

Identifying your values and your mission plays a really big role in your voice and how you show up online. 

If you haven't created your brand values or your brand mission, make sure you go back and listen to some previous episodes that we did on the podcast. 

Episode one was all about creating a mission-driven brand and episode three was all about identifying your brand values. 

Doing that work can help you tremendously in solidifying your brand voice and really understanding how you want to show up in the world.

The Art of Brand Containers

Now the last thing that I will leave you with as we close up talking about your brand voice is the art of brand containers. One of the ways that I recommend my clients get started in choosing how they're going to show up online, organizing their content, and playing with talking about different things, is brand containers. 

As I mentioned in the beginning, the playing and the doing are all part of the solidifying process. 

As you show up and you get visible, you will figure out your voice way faster than if you're not actually creating content and putting anything out there. 

So with brand containers, I typically recommend having five. You can do anywhere from five to seven. Five to seven containers that you can ultimately create content around.

For instance, my brand containers are branding, marketing, travel, productivity, mompreneur, and systems. These have changed and shifted over the years based on my interest, but they’ve mostly remained the same. 

So those are all elements of my voice. Those are all things that I love to talk about and things that I know connect with my audience. 

I know my audience is here for branding and marketing and those are the things I “sell” in my business. 

I also know that my audience loves productivity and systems and is an extension of the work I do and things I’m super passionate about. 

Most of my audience wants to travel and love when I share my experiences with them and some of my audience are moms or maybe planning for it in the future. It's not that your audience has to connect with each piece of it, but try to find the ones that offer your ability to show up as your authentic self and connect with your audience in some way.

Think about answering this question, “Who am I? What are the things I love to talk about? And how can I create that brand experience for my audience by sharing those things?”

Your connection pieces have to be about more than just what you sell. You can't constantly be pitching your services and your products. Your audience is going to get tired, unfollow, and unsubscribe. 

Spice it up. 

CONCLUSION

As you're thinking about these different pieces I share today, as you think about how you want your audience to feel, your everyday language, the three words to describe your voice, pulling in your values and your mission, don't neglect also thinking about some of the things you genuinely love to talk about and how those can ultimately support your clients. 

It's one of my favorite exercises that I teach entrepreneurs who don't have a consistent content strategy as of yet, as a great way to get started in refining their voice and finding what their audience resonates with.

The connection piece is key and everything I shared with you today will allow you to first identify who you are and how you want to show up in the world and then build that connection with your audience.

I wanted to take a minute to remind you to grab that free ebook that I've put together for you, where I am sharing The 15 Lessons to Propel Your Online Business. 

It's the ultimate guide of shit I wish someone would have told me. I talk about a lot of the elements that I see holding entrepreneurs back from reaching the income level and the impact that they desire.

And as you can probably imagine, I made the same mistakes. 

Whether you're just thinking of starting your business or you're three or four years into it, I recommend that you head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free ebook. 

Because even if you get one little golden nugget from this ebook, I know it is going to support you in achieving your goals. 

Head to brandmerry.com/lessons to download your free ebook today.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Boost Your Confidence and Increase Brand Awareness

How to Boost Your Confidence and Increase Brand Awareness

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

LISTEN ON SPOTIFY

LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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As I wrap up creating 90 days of content both for Youtube and the Brandmerry Podcast, I started to think more about visibility and showing up online.

You can watch an entire vlog I created about the process here.

The thing with visibility and creating content is it’s not easy, and it took me months to build up the confidence to even show up online to promote my business.

But, this confidence is absolutely essential if you want to not only build an online community of warm leads, but also lead your audience through the buying process so they become a paying customer.

Today, I want to talk about getting visible, and how you build up the confidence to show up. 

I've been doing this long enough and I work with a lot of new entrepreneurs, people who aren't super familiar with social media or don't feel comfortable with social media or afraid to use video or don't want to look stupid in a reel or don't want to send an email because it's not perfect. 

There are so many things that are keeping us from showing up and growing our audience, but more importantly, nurturing our audience and making the sale, that we can move through.

However, I know you can move through those beliefs and I’m sharing five ways to do that with you today. 

5 WAYS TO BOOST YOUR CONFIDENCE AND GET VISIBLE

I made a list of five things to share with you on how to boost your confidence and start getting visible online so you can make that money. 

Make the money, make the impact, go out and get it, because visibility is a non-negotiable. 

You’ve got to show up.

Number One: It's Bigger Than You

When it comes to visibility and showing up in marketing in general, you have to understand that it's bigger than you.

When I was first starting, I kept asking myself, "But why do people care? What if I sound like an idiot? What if this is not correct? What if nobody shows up?" 

I kept saying all these different things like, "What if, what if, what if, what if?" 

Then one time, when creating content, I sat down and thought to myself, What if this is not actually about me?

It was at this moment that my branding shifted, because for a long time I thought branding was 100% about me and what I did, and we know now that it's not. It is about your audience. It has to be about your audience. 

You are in this to make money. You are in this to make an impact. If you're just talking about yourself all damn day, your audience isn't going to be able to resonate with you. There's going to be no connection. 

Everything you share, even when you're sharing stories about yourself, you must ask yourself the following questions:

• Who is this for?

• What will my ideal customer get from this?

• How is this going to support them?

Otherwise, you're just showing up to show up and talk about yourself and that won’t move your business forward.

So one of the first things that I started to ask myself was, "What is the bigger picture?" and that, I think really ties into your mission. In the first episode of the Brandmerry Podcast, I shared with you a mission-driven business.

You can go back and listen to that episode and get really clear on what the mission is behind your business. It's always bigger than you. It's the impact that you are ultimately going to make. So the first step is identifying the mission. 

The second step is really switching your focus, switching your thinking when it comes to visibility. Remove you from the equation. 

You are the vessel, right? 
You are the one that is delivering the information, carrying out the mission.

That's it. 

When we start to recognize that it's so much bigger than just us showing up, and it's about the message and the mission and the impact that we are going to make, that will give you the motivation to show up and increase your visibility. 

That's number one, big picture. 

Number Two: Have a Plan

Now, notice I didn't say be prepared because I think this whole idea of being prepared fluctuates and can be different for every single person. 

For those of us, who are recovering perfectionists, working on it every damn day, you're never prepared. You're never prepared because of perfection. It's a vicious cycle, so it's not about being prepared and having all your ducks in a row. 

You can never have everything perfectly lined up and perfectly ready to go. You need to record videos, and you're like, "Ooh, I need this perfect background, and I gotta paint my wall, and I gotta have wallpaper, and I’ve got to get the perfect outfit, and I have to have this perfect boom mic and this perfect ring." 

No, you don't need to have any of those things, so it's not about being prepared because your ratio of what is prepared could be crazy compared to what is actually required. 

But it is about having a plan. You’ve got to know how you're going to show up and when you're going to show up.

This is going to allow you to actually do the damn thing because you will keep postponing it over and over and over and over again if you don't plan for it. Something will always come up. It always does. There will always be an obstacle or an objection or something that you're like, "Oh, can't do it today. No, today's not the day. No, I'm not ready."

Create a plan. 

When are you going to post your first blog post? 
When are you going to create your first video? 
Have you been thinking about reels? 
Have you been saving reels to your phone and you just keep waiting and you're like, "Oh, I don't know"?

Put it on the damn calendar. 

Create a plan of action. If you’re in your first year of business it feels like you’re throwing spaghetti at a wall. Shit, I'd argue your first, second, and third year, too! It kind of feels like that. 

It's like we're just throwing stuff and seeing if it sticks, but even though that's like a really good analogy, there still has to be a plan in place. 

What the hell are you throwing on the wall?

What are you wanting to stick? 

You've got to know these things. Otherwise, you really are just mindlessly floating around the internet. So having a plan will actually support you in getting visible and being confident in showing up. 

Knowing what you're going to talk about on a video before you hit live or record, will take the pressure off. It doesn't mean you have to have the perfect script, it doesn't mean you have to have the perfect microphone, but have a game plan and get it scheduled.

If you’re looking for my tips to create a plan for your content calendar, watch this video here.

Number Three: Choose Your Platformu

When it comes to visibility, showing up, and nurturing your audience, you want to choose one platform and one medium to start. 

We know with niching down, especially the more specific you are, the more streamlined you are, same with your offers, the more specific you are, the less you have when you're starting out, the faster you will grow. Because your attention is not pulled in a million different directions. 

When you're just starting out and you're really struggling to just get started and just get the confidence to go do something, don't stretch yourself so thin. Start with one area.

When I was first starting, Facebook was super comfortable for me because I spent all my time on Facebook back in the day. I'd never run a business there, I never had a business page, but I was comfortable with the platform. That's why I decided to start there. 

I also love video so I decided to just create a lot of live videos as this was something new Facebook was offering at the time. 

I did frequent challenges. I would do multiple videos a week sometimes, and that is what I focused on, and that is how I signed most of my clients. 

Then, I started to get a little bit more confident and decided to venture to Instagram. I hated it at first, it felt like a lot of pressure, but I was also excited about it and knew I had the capacity to take it on. So, I practiced, I refined, and I figured out what worked for me. I got good at writing captions and so on and so forth. 

You don't have to do it all at once. A visibility plan doesn't mean that you're showing up everywhere under the damn sun.

If you're really struggling to gain confidence, then pick a platform where you know your ideal customer is, pick a medium, and really focus on that. Now, as you start to expand, of course, there are ways that you can repurpose your content, which is still something that I do today. It's a huge staple inside of Brandmerry Academy. 

With a repurposing plan, you can start to find your main core medium, and then kind of push your content out from there. 

For me, it's still video, all these years later, so I really encourage you to simplify, strip it down, think about the main platform and the main medium that your audience is on. Practice. Get yourself out there. Do the work.

Find what works. Find what doesn't work. Really dedicate your time and energy to it, because you're going to get confident as you do it. That's the secret. You get confident the more you do it, so why not laser in and focus on one thing, get really confident on that, and then watch that snowball?

I used to tell my clients that it is literally like a snowball rolling down a hill, right? It starts really, really small, and then it starts to get bigger, and the momentum picks up, and that's essentially what visibility is. 

You're going to start small, it's going to feel really, really slow, it's going to feel insignificant, and you're going to start to pick up momentum the more that you do it and the more that you focus on where your reach is going to expand.

Number Four: Identify the Value

This kind of circles back to number one, where we discussed the point of showing up. Why are you doing this in the first place?

This particular point is about each individual piece of content. So before I record a live video, I always sit down and identify what I want my audience to walk away with.

Before I record a podcast, I sit down and identify what I want my audience to walk away with.

Before I create a social media post, I'm like, "What the hell is in it for my audience?" 

If you can identify the value before delivering the content, it's going to take the pressure off of you. 

Your mindset starts to shift and you start to realize…
...This isn't 100% about me. It doesn't matter how I look. It doesn't matter exactly what I say. As long as I deliver the value piece, we’re golden. 

So make sure that you're taking the time to identify that. 

Now, I recommend that a lot of my clients do that in the content planning process, but you can absolutely just sit down right before you hit record or right before you write the post and connect back to the value and what you want to provide with that piece of content.

I'm telling you, it seems incredibly simple, but it's a game-changer.

Number Five: Practice

That leads us to number five, which I already kind of told you, but we can still hang out here and talk about it a little bit more...practice. 

If you listen to any entrepreneur, public figure, athlete, they will tell you that they boost their confidence and skill set by continuing to do it over and over and over again.

I had an amazing client inside of Brandmerry Academy the other day and she asked, "How did you get so confident on camera? How are you able to just speak really fluidly?" 

My response was that I’ve done so many videos. That was the medium I chose in the beginning and I wanted to do it as much as possible to become incredibly confident at it.

I remember when I recorded my first podcast episode, and my husband can probably attest to this, I re-recorded it over and over and over again because it just didn’t feel like enough.

Now, I've recorded a lot of episodes and I just sit down and record it. Mistakes and all, I'm here for it. 

The confidence comes by doing, and I think that's the irony of the entire thing. People wait, and maybe you're waiting, to be confident to get started, but you're only going to get confident by getting started.

 Think about it.

Your confidence will grow the more you do it, and that's why all these things build on each other. 

CONCLUSION

I know there is something you’ve been waiting to do, or holding off on until you’re ready. YOU ARE READY NOW.

Go through this process and tips I’ve just outlined, because visibility is non-negotiable as a business owner, and it's so fun to connect with people as you grow your business. 

Show up, share your value, and connect with your audience. That's the fun part for me about content creation. 

Yes, I love new leads. I love when people discover me and my brand, and that's part of the equation, but more than anything I love when people are like, "Watched last week's video and loved it."

"Watched this week's video and it was amazing. Love listening to your podcasts."

That's why I'm doing it, and because we're business owners, you're also going to make more money. Let's not sugar-coat it. 

We want to see you. 
We want to hear your message. 

One of the things that I said really early on, on a podcast just by accident, and it has stuck with me ever since, is “Someone, somewhere needs to hear your message!” 

So just remember that. You're just speaking to someone, just one person, that's it. If one person gets your story, gets in touch with you, you did your job.

If you’re looking for more support with your marketing, I suggest you check out my free training. I’m teaching you how to master your marketing without social media and you can sign up here to access it. 

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

What is Branding and How To Build A Personal Brand

What is Branding and How To Build A Personal Brand

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

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LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS

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If you didn’t already know, at Brandmerry, we focus on two key elements for building a business, both branding and marketing. And today I want to share with you a snippet from my free on-demand training called the Build a Better Brand Method. 

Inside of this free video training, I share with you the signature framework that I have used to support hundreds of entrepreneurs in building a scalable brand that just feels really f*cking good. 

It feels like them. 
It's a strong personal brand. 
They get to show up and do their thing online in a way that feels amazing.

This free on-demand training is available for you to watch if you go to betterbrandmethod.com, but I thought it would be really fun to give you a little teaser. 

I'm going to share with you what personal branding is. 

I'm also going to break down my signature branding framework. This is the six-part framework that I teach inside of my program You Branded. Inside of the training, you are getting the entire framework step-by-step, plus what happens at each level and how each level builds to the next. 

After you dive into this blog (or listen to the audio above), I encourage you to go to betterbrandmethod.com to sign up for this on-demand training because in addition to what you're hearing today, you are also going to get some amazing content on the training around storytelling, writing your brand messages, doing ideal client work and more. 

WHAT IS A BRAND

I want you to start thinking about the brand as the ultimate experience that you are creating for your potential customers. 

It's made up of the feeling and the connection that someone has about the experience that you've given them online. 

It's made up of the stories, the emotional connection, and different experiences as a whole. 

If they watch a video from you, if they see an Instagram post from you, if you have a business, then personal branding allows you to create a deeper, personal connection with your audience that will build trust. 

It ultimately goes deeper than just a product or service. Yet, so many people make the mistake of branding around a product or service when they start. 

I don't want you to do that because things are going to change within your business over time and you don’t want to have to shift your branding as a result.

Your product or service is not a brand. 

A brand needs to be about the business as a whole, the company as a whole, you as a whole showing up as your true self because as we'll learn, purchase decisions are made based on human connection. 

They're not made because of that product that you're selling, because I bet you, someone else has the exact same thing. 

We all know it's true. 
We know what our industry looks like. 

But you can stand out and you can become profitable when you focus on building your personal brand. 

Think about your brand as the beating heart of your business. 
Without it, you won't have anything. 

In fact, Richard Branson said, “The way a company brands itself is everything. It will ultimately decide whether or not your business survives.” 

So, remember it's essential.

WHY YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IS IMPORTANT

So why is your personal brand important? 

We've talked a little bit about it, but let's break down some of the key pieces. 

REASON #1 TO CREATE A PERSONAL BRAND FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Your ideal customer is shopping around, right? We all know that. Let's not pretend it's not happening. 

It is part of the client buying process. 

So why would they choose your product or service over someone else that offers the same thing? 

Your brand. 

There was a study done by Harvard University that found that we make purchase decisions based on an emotional connection that we feel. So, although we think it is because we list out how many modules are in something, or how many videos they get, or how many calls, someone's made a decision by that point. 

That logistical information might help them to commit today, but they've already decided based on a connection. 

That's why creating a personal brand is so essential. It allows you to share more story, it allows you to build connections, and they ultimately will move through the buying process faster.

REASON #2 TO CREATE A PERSONAL BRAND FOR YOUR BUSINESS

Branding also impacts every single element of your business. 

You cannot have a website without a solid brand. 
You cannot show up on social media without a solid brand. You won't know what to say. 
You won't know what aesthetics to choose. 
You won't know what you're ultimately leading people to. 

You can't have a solid marketing strategy without a solid brand, because so much of your marketing strategy relies on your ideal customer and your messaging. 

You can't advertise without a solid brand because you won’t know who to target or how best to communicate with them. 

Your copy will suck if you don't have a solid brand because your messaging will be less than mediocre and you will not stand out and will not convert. Your content creation will fall flat.

In fact, many entrepreneurs who have had their business for a while come to me because they're having trouble staying consistent with their content. 

When we fill the holes in their brand, suddenly it all works and makes sense again. Your brand impacts every element of your business.

WHY DO YOU NEED BRAND STORYTELLING?

So what role does storytelling play in branding? 

I've talked about storytelling a lot on the Brandmerry Blog. 

When you integrate story into your content, it is 22 times more likely to be remembered. This includes copy on your homepage, email, advertisement copy, social media, all of it. 

That is because storytelling has major effects on the brain. Inside of your audience’s brain, there's dopamine firing, there's neuro coupling happening. 

I think just this stat in and of itself as an entrepreneur always spoke to me because if I'm going to take the time and the energy to create content, which we all are because it's important when you're building an online business, I want to make sure that people actually remember it.

In addition to the power of storytelling, 86% of consumers say that authenticity is a key factor when deciding what brands they like and support. 

Now, this comes down to being your true self online and building a brand around that rather than something you think people might want. 

81% of consumers said that they need to be able to trust a brand in order to buy from them. 

This again is where storytelling and personal branding comes into play. Storytelling is such a great way to build connections so that people feel like they know you and they can trust you. And as we mentioned before, it's oftentimes the reason someone will make a decision between two very similar products.

If you Google photographers near you, you're going to have a lot of options. 
Why are your ideal customers ultimately going to choose one over the other?

It's going to come down to trust and an emotional connection. 

And to close out my statistical rant, 64% of consumers around the world said that they would buy from a brand or boycott it solely because of its position on a social or political issue. 

Your story, your values, and your mission are the foundation of your brand and will help you communicate these things with your audience, stand your ground, and speak up on the things that your audience cares about most.

BRANDMERRY 6-PART BRAND FRAMEWORK (STEP-BY-STEP)

All right. Let's dive into this six-part framework, that we call the Build a Better Brand Method. 

Phase One: Story

At this stage, the emphasis is on identifying your strengths, your transitions, things that you've gone through in your life, different paths that you've taken, and experiences to ultimately define your niche and create your profitable brand story. 

This is when you're really getting in touch with who you are as a person and the different things that you want to provide, the mission, and your values so that you can ultimately carve out your little pocket inside of your industry. 

Remember, a lot of us are offering the same exact thing. 

I'm not oblivious to the fact that there are other people offering branding work and supporting people with their branding but I found based on my story and my experiences, my little pocket, and then from that am able to create a really profitable brand story.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Profitability comes from your specific niche and by using your story from the get-go to define your expertise and your strengths, you'll easily incorporate it into your brand as a whole. Many people make the mistake of saying this is my niche, because they're like this is the product that I want to sell, and then that's their niche. 

You can niche down based on your credentials, your expertise, your experiences to give you a leg up in your industry. It's one of the things that I did when I was starting out as well. 

So this is the first stage. You need to understand and get super clear on your story before you can move on to the next piece and at the end of this phase, you're ultimately going to know your specific niche and how you're really going to use your superpowers to stand out in your industry.

Phase TWO: Your Customer

That leads us to the second phase. Phase two is all about your customer. 

Once you've identified who you are, your strengths, your story, and those experiences that you want to share, now we move into who you're talking to. 

Who do you ultimately want to attract to your brand? 

Now at this stage, the emphasis is on identifying deeper layers of your ideal customer. This is ultimately who your brand will be supporting and doing the research to better understand who they really are is essential. 

Too many people skip this step. You might be one of them. I was. I did it. I skipped the step in the beginning and guess what? I didn't make any money. 

So when you get back down to the customer market research, you are able to really know your ideal customer, which is going to play a role in everything that you are going to create moving forward. And yes, it's going to take a little bit of time, but I promise it's going to be worth it in the end. 

In fact, the knowledge that comes from deep ideal client market research will impact your overall messaging, your overall copywriting, the words that you are going to use on your website and social media and your overall marketing strategy. 

Because how do you know where to show up and market if you don't know who you're trying to attract? 

The second phase is going deeper into really understanding who your customers are. I'll give you a little hint on this one. It's not just the demographics that everybody stresses about. 
What is their age? 
Are they married? 
Do they have kids? 

No. We're going deeper than that. We're thinking about what their struggles are. 
What are their weaknesses? 
What are their strengths? 
What keeps them up at night? 
What do they ultimately want? 
Why do they want it? 
What's standing in their way?

Those are just some examples of the questions that we need to be asking ourselves when it comes to phase two of the branding framework. 

Phase Three: Your Messaging

Phase three is your messaging. How do you communicate and tie those pieces together to bring in and attract your ideal customer? 

At this stage, the emphasis is on consistency. It's one of my favorite words. 

Crafting messages that really represent your brand as a whole, not just the individual offer. 

You will notice, I haven't talked about a single product or offer yet. Because we're talking about the brand as a whole, we're talking about the experience. How are you ultimately supporting your ideal customer to go from where they are to where they want to be? 

This is important because a consistent presentation of a brand has seen to increase revenue by 33%. Look, we can all get every little bit that we can, right? 

The messaging consistency will make sure that your overall brand message never gets confusing and is super clear to your ideal customer, meaning that the brand as a whole solves the problem and then the individual products or services go into the logistics of how you do that. 

Phase three is focused on communicating your strengths, your expertise, the experience that you're providing with what you know about your ideal customer, what they want, what's standing in their way, all of those things and crafting it into messaging for your brand as a whole.

Phase Four: The Offer

That leads us to four, which is crafting your signature offer. 

Now at this stage, the emphasis is on building your core offer and signature framework. I know it's really tempting to start off with a million offers out of the gate. If you're just starting off or you're having trouble selling what you currently have, strip it back, become known for something, build a reputation around something, get results around something, and then add more offers down the line. 

So inside of You! Branded, I specifically tell my clients, we are focused on one thing right now. Let's get good at that one thing and then scale. 

At this stage, you want to determine the pillars, the phases of your offer, much like the one that you're seeing right now. And that will allow you to monetize more consistently. This is really important because part of the branding process is figuring out what you're going to monetize. 

But many people either do it too early and then they've got nothing to back it up, or they figure out their brand and then they create their offer and then their brand and the offer aren't connected. 

It only makes sense to craft a signature offer that can scale with your brand over time. Don't do it backwards or you're going to find yourself very confused with communicating your offer and your brand and all the different things. 

Phase Five: Your Voice

We cannot create a personal brand without talking about your voice, the voice of the brand, the voice of the company, how you're going to show up.

So at this stage, the emphasis is on defining the authentic voice of the brand, of the characteristics to make sure that your true personality is coming through online. Many of you are most likely starting out as solopreneurs, meaning it's you with a business idea and a plan in place and you're going forward with it. 

Showing up and sharing your story and building that trust is going to be incredibly helpful. That's how I started as well. 

Even though my company Brandmerry isn't my name Michelle Knight, I'm still able to build a personal brand because again, we're focused on personal connection. I know that someone is ultimately going to decide to work with me or maybe purchase my services because they have felt a connection to me over somebody else that may offer the same thing. 

This is the stage where you want to identify your brand values as we talked about in the beginning. How you want to be perceived and your mission.

Then you'll be able to use those to communicate with your audience, not just through your copy in your messaging, but also with your aesthetics. This is important because authenticity matters. 

81% of survey consumers said that they need to be able to trust a brand in order to buy from them. That's a pretty big number. 

Defining your authenticity from the start will allow you to show up 100% as yourself online and maintain and build deeper trust with your audience. 

Phase Six: Connection

And that leads us to phase six, which is all about connection. Now in this stage, the emphasis is on building an emotional connection with your audience. Studies show that we make purchase decisions based on an emotional connection. So you want to determine this while branding so that it flows not only through your copy, not only through your aesthetics, the visuals, the photos, the colors, the fonts but also in your marketing efforts as well. 

This is a very, very, very important part of the process. 

Many branding mentors, coaches, educators, course creators do not teach the importance of emotional branding. This is something that I have become known for in my industry. And as we know, purchase decisions are based on an emotional connection so it is important. 

It's not enough to have a great product. It's not going to lead to consistent revenue. Your audience needs to feel something from you.

There are a lot of different ways to do that. Through understanding color psychology, to choosing the right fonts for your brand, to choosing photos that build better brand affinity. These are all pieces that when someone lands on your website, boom, they know what you're about and they know how they feel in that moment. 

So again, this is important because choosing colors, choosing fonts, choosing photos, and choosing elements can feel really overwhelming. In fact, many of you are probably sitting in that right now where you'll pick out a bunch of colors and then two days later, you're like, “Oh, actually I want this color instead.” And you're spinning your wheels for a really long time. 

But all of those pieces are rooted in emotion and when you start with the emotional piece first, then you can choose your branding aesthetics. 

Conclusion

So this is the six-part framework that I teach my clients called the Build a Better Brand Method. 

Think of it as building a new building. In order to add stories and increase the height of the building, you need to take the time to construct a solid foundation. If you don't, the building will not stand.

The same is true for your business. If you do not have a solid foundation, you're going to notice you can't go very high. Things start to crumble. Things start to slip. Things won’t fit and you’ll always feel like something is missing.

So now you know. This is the brand roadmap in this exact order. Now, you should be able to look at this and identify what you’re missing or where you need to start.

You know I'm all about the action so make sure you sign up for the Build a Better Brand Method. 

This might have been a small sample of that free training, but there’s more in-depth information on storytelling, ideal customer and messaging within the class. 

This is a free on-demand training teaching you how to completely elevate your brand and business. You can learn more at betterbrandmethod.com.

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- FREE GIFTS YOU'LL LOVE -

DISCOVER YOUR BRAND STORY IN UNDER 5 MINUTES

START HERE ↠

LEARN HOW TO WRITE AN ‘ABOUT ME’ PAGE THAT CONVERTS

START HERE ↠

MAP OUT 30 DAYS OF CONTENT IN UNDER AN HOUR

START HERE ↠

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- READ THE LATEST POSTS -

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.

How to Build Your Personal Brand

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.

You can read more about growing your email list in this blog.

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.

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MEET MICHELLE

Hey there, I'm Michelle Knight and I an online branding and marketing consultant for female entrepreneurs.

I believe in the power of storytelling and using that superpower to brand and market yourself online...oh and to set yourself free.

I'm obsessed with living a life of freedom, so much so, that my family and I now travel full-time while running my business from the road.

This blog serves as a home base for all things branding, marketing, content creation and more.