How to Create a Personal Brand that has a Lasting Impact
What does your brand say about you?
What type of message are you trying to share? Does your brand match that message?
When you are confident, and have clarity in who you are and what message you want to share with the world, you will see an increase in your overall impact, your ability to grow, and your income.
But before you can do that, you have to perfect your personal brand.
Elyse Archer, personal brand strategist, has worked with a variety of elite individuals in the entrepreneurial space such as bestselling authors, Top 100 podcast hosts, and entrepreneurs earning eight figures in their businesses. She knows how to create the perfect brand and wants to help you too.
Here are her top tips for creating a brand that will give you the confidence you need to rock your business!
What is a personal brand?
We hear the word branding and usually think: fonts, images, logos, color schemes, but we want you to think bigger; dive deeper. Branding is about so much more than that. You need to dive into the meat and potatoes of your product or service. You need to find out what is going to attract customers to you so that when they find you they are ready to purchase what you offer.
Everyone has their own definition of what a “personal brand” is, but simply put, a personal brand is what people think of when they think of you. We each have a personal brand, but the question becomes, how intentional are you about cultivating it?
Are you known for the thing that you want to be known for? Or when people think of you, do they think of something else?
At the end of the day, we don’t own our personal brand - the world does.
The power of a personal brand is impact
In Marketing 101 you learn that in order to be successful, you have to be known. So in order to reach the masses and spread your message, you need to start marketing yourself aggressively. Once you start marketing yourself, you’ll find that people will start reaching out to you because they see your consistency on various social platforms and they have trust in you and your brand. People know you, they trust you, they way to work with you.
From there your business is able to grow exponentially.
Your customers are out there - and they need you
Don’t be afraid to promote your business. Not doing so is a disservice to your customers because they don’t know you are out there - and they need you. Without you, they could end up settling for a product or service that isn’t as good of a fit for them, or they could work with someone that isn’t as qualified as you. They might end up having a poor experience, all because you were afraid to put yourself out there.
It takes time to build up your confidence levels, and that’s okay. But if you constantly work at it, you will be able to develop the confidence needed to take your marketing to the next level so that you can spread your message and reach more people.
Create a brand blueprint
So many entrepreneurs think that in order to start their business they need to create a logo, build a website, and start an Instagram account. They spend a lot of time and money on all of those things without putting much thought into their brand, their message, and what problem they are solving.
It’s like going to build a house without having a blueprint.
It’s not that you wouldn’t be able to build a house without a blueprint, but instead that you would most likely have a lot of tear downs, wasted time, and money.
So before you start to build your business, you need to create a plan. You need clarity around what your brand is all about. To start, ask yourself these six questions:
What problem do you solve?
What are you passionate about?
Why are you qualified in that field?
What do you do better than anyone else in the world?
How are you going to make money? What’s the first thing someone is going to buy from you?
What business do you want to be in?
Let’s break each of these down.
What problem do you solve?
Remember, your personal brand is not about you. It’s about the problem you solve for other people. Try to sum up what problem you solve with one word. For example, for Dave Ramsey it is debt. So ask yourself what problem you’re going to solve and be specific.
What are you passionate about?
The truth is, after asking yourself what problem you solve, you probably came up with about a hundred options. So I want you to ask yourself, what am I truly passionate about? What do you find yourself reading about all of the time? What could you talk about for hours and hours and not get sick of it?
It can be passion, it can be positive, it can be whatever lights up your heart and soul.
It can also be something that ticks you off. Either way, it’s important to pick something that gets you fired up and excited to talk about.
What makes you qualified in that field?
Maybe you went to school and studied it. Maybe you’ve read a million books on the subject. Or maybe you have a certification in certain areas.
You need to ask yourself what results you’ve gotten using your method, system, or product. There are so many business owners out there selling courses or products but haven’t actually used them themselves and don’t have results to back up their methods.
What do you do better than anyone else in the world?
What’s your superpower? Think about what you’re passionate about, what you’re qualified in, and what problems do you solve? Now take all of those things and ask yourself, what do you do better than anyone else in the world? Maybe you’re great at engagement on social media. Maybe you’re a Facebook Ad wizard. Maybe your copywriting skills are incredible. Whatever it is, take those skills and lean into it. Use it to drive your business forward.
The first four questions really comprise what your brand is going to be about. The last two questions are all about your business model:
How are you going to make money?
What are people going to buy from you?
To help answer those, here are five unique ways you can get paid.
Products
Ads and affiliates.
Courses, memberships, eBooks
Brand deals
Services
What business do you want to be in?
It’s easy to look at the many services or products you offer and think, “Wow, I have so many options!” But the truth is, you need to look at those options as ask yourself, what kind of business do you want to be in? If you’re a speaker, do you want to be on the road for the majority of the year? Or do you want to be a freelancer that is able to work from home and has flexibility on your work hours?
You can’t think short term, you have to think long term.
Traveling around the world might seem appealing to you right now, but maybe you’re in your early twenties, unmarried and without kids. Will traveling still sound appealing when you are married with little kids? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Whatever your answer may be, you have to remember that whatever you choose needs to be a sustainable decision.
You also have to ask yourself, with anything you’re creating, is it digital, automated, recurring, evergreen, and scalable. If you knit clothing items for an Etsy store, odds are what you’re doing is not automated, and it’s not digital. The question remains, can you scale it? You might if you’re able to pick a couple of easy items that you can make in a variety of colors to stock, but those items might be lower ticket items. You may rely on custom orders that bring in more money to sustain your business. But how would you scale that?
The bottom line is you won’t have all of those features in a business model. Some of them work together, and some of them don’t. But the more you have, the better.
Define your audience
Once you have clarity on who you are, what your product or service is, and what your brand looks like, you need to get clarity on who your ideal audience is. You need to ask yourself, “Who is my target audience?” And that comes back to your product or service. Are you a copywriter who writes incredible email campaigns? Maybe your target audience is entrepreneurs or business owners. Maybe you’re a pediatric sleep consultant and your target audience are parents with children under the age of two. Whatever your business, start to get an idea of who you want to reach.
Then you need to ask yourself, “Where are they?” If you provide a physical product or service, maybe your audience has to be located within a certain mile radius of where you live. If you offer virtual services, determine if you’re going to work with all individuals in your target audience, or if you want to only provide services to individuals in the same country as you.
Once you have a good understanding of who your audience is and where they are located, you need to figure out how you are going to reach them. Are they on social media? Do you need to create physical advertisements? When you truly understand who your target audience is, it makes it easy to determine how you will reach them. Once you know how you will reach them, you can create a strategy.
It’s okay to reinvent your brand
So many people think that once you’ve created your brand, you’re done. But the truth is that even if you’ve owned your business for ten years, it’s always okay to reinvent your brand. As you grow and change, so will your business! So if you’re reading this and thinking, “I need to refresh my brand,” then do it. Take this time to pivot, recalibrate, and don’t be afraid to change. By focusing on what you really want to do, you’re going to be able to grow your business in ways you never thought possible.
A great way to evaluate your business is to do a revenue streams assessment. Look at the various areas in which you make money and ask yourself how long it takes you to do each of those things. Then ask yourself how much money you made in the previous year with each thing. Did you enjoy providing that product or service? You need to determine if it is life-giving or soul draining. Then you need to evaluate if it has future potential.
From there, rank everything in order of enjoyment, the first being something you love doing and the last being something you hate. Once you have that you can evaluate if you want to keep that product/service or remove it from your offering entirely.
The bottom line is that it’s okay to admit that something about your business isn’t working and then take the opportunity to refocus and redefine what you want to offer. It’s okay to make a change - change is good!
Brand strategy comes before launch
It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of growing a following and getting your name out there, but if you create a website and share it without having a call to action your content will become stale. If you start utilizing social media but don’t have a way for your followers to join your email list, you won’t be able to directly communicate with them - which is huge!
Social media is all about algorithms, and if the algorithm changes (as it often does) then you risk losing visibility and thus a way to communicate with your current and future audience. The takeaway is that it’s critical for you to create a strategic brand launch that isn’t just about having a social media platform, but revolves around how you are going to take the conversation off of social media to encourage your following to stay with you.
How do you do that?
Do you have a freebie? Something you can give your audience just for following you. Do you have a great lead magnet? Do you have a short video course or training? Create items that drive your audience from your social media back to your website, or blog, to hopefully get them to join your email list - where the real magic happens.
Again, it’s not about the instant reward of new followers, but about driving them back to your website so they join your email list and have a long-lasting relationship with you.
You have to be confident in your offering
No one is going to believe in you, if you don’t believe in you.
It’s normal to feel nervous about the future. It’s normal to have imposter-syndrome and feel like you have no business being in the space you’re in. But in those moments you have to remember the core of your business, that message you want to share with the rest of the world. Someone out there needs to hear that message and it would be a shame for you not to share it because of your own self-doubt.
The first step is to stop comparing yourself to everyone else, especially on social media. It’s so easy for other business owners and influencers on social media to only share their highlight reels. So you have to remember that you might only see the tip of their iceberg on social media, and the truth is they probably battle just as much self-doubt as you. You are not alone in your feelings, but that doesn’t mean your business isn’t worth sharing and building.
The only person that is going to hold you back from success is you. So stop doubting yourself and get out there and share your business - the world needs you!
Go build your brand
Now that you have a better understanding of how to build your brand, it’s time to go do it! Start by getting clear on that problem that you are going to solve for others. Then answer these questions:
What are you passionate about?
Why are you qualified in that field?
What do you do better than anyone else in the world?
How are you going to make money? What’s the first thing someone is going to buy from you?
What business do you want to be in?
Then create a strategy for saving money. Have savings to help get your business up and running, knowing that it may be awhile before you start seeing a profit in your business.
If you already have a business but are trying to refocus and recalibrate, maybe ask yourself what you’re not doing that you want to be. Do you want to speak more or get on podcasts? Maybe you want to do more FB Live videos, or share more on IG stories.
Once you have answered all of those questions and are getting ready to move forward, consider asking someone else for feedback on the answers to your questions and your strategy. Use their input to help you create even more clarity in your business. Plus, the more you share your business, the easier it will become to pitch your business. So get some feedback. Ask a friend, a family member, a colleague, or even hire a coach!
Whatever your next steps are, know that your business is needed and that you’re doing incredible things to make changes in your business and your life.
Now get out there, build your brand, and rock your business!