Personal brands are quickly becoming the future of marketing and sales. Customers want to know who they are working with, how they can help them, and why they are doing what they are doing.
People want to work with people they know and trust, and the best way for your ideal customers to get that from you is if you start a personal brand. So what is a personal brand?
A personal brand is how the public perceives you through the work you do, the content you create, and the messaging you share online and in person. Most people think this just applies to creators and influencers, but that is not true.
Everyone has a personal brand, and you can start to define yours by understanding what your expertise is, what your values are, and what your tone of voice is. By defining these things, you can start creating a brand image of yourself that teaches your ideal customers who you are, how you can help them, and why you are an expert in your field.
Creating a personal brand online does the following 3 things for your business and online presence:
By creating content about yourself, your services, and your personal goals, your customers will start to learn about you on a personal level which makes you relatable. Your customers want to work with service providers they know and trust instead of large faceless businesses that may not be a good fit for them.
A personal brand allows your customers to get to know you even before the meeting, and it allows you as a service provider to pre-sell them before ever meeting. By creating this bridge, you create trust and transparency.
As you create your personal brand, you will find core topics to talk about that relate back to your services or products. Creating content around those key topics will help you create authority and expertise.
As you build expertise in your industry, you will naturally attract new opportunities, partnerships, and customers, all by sharing your knowledge for free to help others.
As you grow your personal brand online, you will start to form relationships with other creators, business owners, and freelancers who are on the same journey as you. Connect with them, support their journey, and they will support yours in turn.
Build a network of like-minded individuals to help share your content, refer you customers, or to partner with to grow your business and brand online.
Together these 3 things are the core reason why you need to start building your personal brand, as it will help you scale trust and authority around your products and services.
Over the past 3 years, I have been growing my own personal brand, and it has 3X’d my business and helped me work with large companies like AMC Network and celebrity clients like Morgan Wallen.
Here are the 3 core ways my personal brand has grown my business:
In the last 3 years, I have not had to do any outreach, paid marketing, or sponsored posts to get new clients. All of my clients have come through organic referrals and partnerships with other freelancers and agencies.
I was able to create these partnerships through my personal brand by positioning myself as an expert in my industry and attracting others who needed my knowledge and services. In doing so, I partnered with agencies that fed me overflow work from big companies like Amazon, The NFL, and BET.
The best way to start having an organic flow of leads come into your business is to partner with other business owners who have large networks. Earn their trust and respect, and you can tap into their network of business owners and customers.
By creating content and sharing my work online, I attracted celebrity clients who loved my work and my message and wanted to work with me. In the last year, I was able to work with Morgan Wallen to design 3 tour posters for his 2022 Summer Tour.
I was contacted by his tour manager to design posters after seeing a geo-tagged post of mine on Instagram. By sharing my work online, I was able to get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase my work which I have leveraged into working with other celebrity clients such as Gas Monkey Garage.
Showcasing your expertise through a personal brand creates authority and trust, so larger clients will take a chance on you and your services even if you have a small following.
Through my personal brand, I am also able to educate other freelancers and business owners on my successes and failures. In the last few weeks, I develop a course, an E-book, and other resources that teach how to start a freelance business.
I am now making money in my sleep thanks to my personal brand that sells my products for me online through the content I create and the organic engagement I share on social media. By productizing my knowledge, my personal brand has created additional streams of income through coaching, courses, and digital products.
For myself starting a personal brand has been a game changer, and I am just at the beginning of my journey.
You can start to shape your personal brand online by defining how you want to be seen by your future audience and ideal customers. Start by defining your service, your values, and your expertise this will give you a strong foundation to work off of.
Next, take everything on your list and start looking for intersections between the three. Where your service, values, and expertise connect is where you will find your core topics to create content on.
For myself, it looked like this:
My services are: Design, marketing, illustration, and branding.
My values are: Helping others grow, building strong relationships, and focusing on solving core problems for my clients
My expertise is: Growing sales and marketing for lifestyle businesses and helping freelancers grow through my prior experience.
Looking at these 3 things, I can create content on freelancing, business development, and how to create creative content for small businesses. Having these topics defined, I can now go and create content and products that speak to my ideal clients.
Follow the exercise above to start building your own personal brand online!
Creating a personal brand for your business is vital to growing online now. By creating a personal brand, you can get ahead of your competitors by standing out. Let your ideal customers learn about you and how you can help them through your services, values, and expertise to start building relationships.
You can start creating relationships through your personal brand by creating content that speaks to your client's ideal pain points. As you build relationships, partner with other freelancers, business owners, and creators to expand your reach through their networks. Everyone has a personal brand, so it is now time to take yours seriously!
→This week’s action step: Start to create your own personal brand by defining your services, values, and expertise. Link personal experiences and stories to these 3 things to start creating content that solves your ideal customer's pain points.
Starting a successful online business starts with having a strong brand identity system. Whether you're new to business or you've been around for 100 years, you need a logo and branding assets to help you gain trust with your customers. I can help bring your business to life.
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