I want to talk to you about the importance of a personal brand and why everybody should be intentionally defining and growing their own personal brand in this new economy and this new world.
This applies even if you’re not looking to build a monetized personal brand, be an influencer or be an expert or grow something that you would traditionally associate with a personal brand. Think Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk and Lewis Howes, people like that. I still firmly believe that we should all be intentional about growing our own personal brand because the personal brand now in this new decade. In this new world and economy, post pandemic, is going to be increasingly about personal brands. The stories, the bio, the things that somebody stands for are going to be huge decision points on whether or not somebody ends up working with you or not.
It doesn’t mean you have to be a business owner or entrepreneur. This could be in a traditional setting as well. I think the reputation is now the personal brand. I was taught this a little bit by a friend of mine and a brand strategist of ours, Rory Vaden, this idea that reputation precedes revenue. Reputation proceeds income, reputation proceeds opportunity. When we think of reputation, we think of somebody’s background, their expertise, what they’re known for.
A personal brand takes that to new levels. It takes that to a new level of understanding. When I think of a personal brand, I think of the values and principles that somebody stands for. Their aesthetic, what they’re putting out into the world, how it looks and feels, right?
The thoughts and the emotions that it conjures when I encounter that personal brand, that person. It’s connected and interwoven. And it really tells the story visually, in words, emotionally of someone.
I’ve been very diligent about growing my own personal brand over the last two years. But actually more so over the last six years as a luxury real estate agent and team owner, but more so in my public work and my multimedia company, coaching clients, writing books, as a podcast host. Growing more of my personal brand out there in the public have been very intentional about what goes into it, the choices I make, the people I surround myself with. Even with the colors and the feel of things for my social media profile, to my marketing collateral, websites, social media and blog posts. How they look and feel is important.
I want to counsel and give this advice that even if you’re not looking to build a monetizeable personal brand. One that’s going to really be generating revenue for you based on your personal brand and reputation. It’s still a good idea to think about this, which is thinking about not just building upon your reputation, as a professional and as a person. Think about this as a traditional brand would, what are the things that go into it? And here’s a couple of steps or recommendations on how you can start thinking about this differently because it’s a little bit foreign and it will be a little bit foreign initially when you start to kind of go down this path.
Get creative about your brand
Sit down with a piece of paper and write out what is your vision for the future? What is your vision for your career? What is your vision for your legacy to impact you want to have? How you want to show up in this world?
Then spend some time and write a little bit about your values, your principles, things that you live by, that you espouse, that you adhere to. What are those? Then think a little bit about who would be the ideal people that you’d like to associate with and work with in a professional setting. That could be the company or the culture that you end up working with in more of a traditional corporate environment. Also the volunteer associations that you end up giving your time to.
Who are your ideal customers? If you’re in a sales role, medical sales, real estate, information, product sales, consumer product. What is your ideal client look like? And if you’re running a small business or an entrepreneur like myself, who is your target ideal client? Get really clear and build clarity and a finiteness to understanding and describing this person, this customer, this individual. That’s going to help you be more intentional and effective in creating material and collateral. And communications that speak to this person. That speak to this group that resonate. That address the pains, the problems, the challenges, but also the aspirations, the hopes and the ambitions of that person. Once you get this, then you’re going to start to take that a little bit further.
Then you’re going to start to be more deliberate and intentional about how you’re creating your personal brand aesthetic. How are you showing up on your social media profiles? What are your pictures looking like? What type of content you’re posting. Is it educational, informative or entertaining? Really try to gain some clarity around this.
If there is no clarity, create some
What do you want to be known for? Where do you want to stand out? What do you want to be an expert in, and how are you going to rise to the challenge of that role?
So these are just a couple ideas of how you can take your reputation to a new level in this new decade and this new economy and new world. A personal brand is not just for an entrepreneur business owner or an influencer or somebody in a public capacity. I firmly believe that our reputation now is much more than just that. It’s everything we stand for: our values, mission, vision and impact. It’s how we show up in the world and our relationships and our work and in our lives.
So if you got value from this, please let me know, drop a comment or a line, share this with somebody who could also benefit from hearing it again to your success, happiness and freedom. We’ll talk to you next week.