Before jumping into how to build a personal brand, let’s establish what it really is.
Your personal brand is basically you being the face of your company with your values and your ways of doing things. It’s how you show up, and how you make people feel.
I was recently watching a video, where Marie Forleo was interviewing Seth Godin, one of my favorite marketers. Seth breaks everything down to the basics and states the facts just how they are, raw and real. There is no fluff with him. In this specific episode, they talk about the practice of doing your work and how essential consistency is. (“The Practice” is also the name of his new book. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s probably as brilliant as all of his other work.)
Doing anything regularly is a big part of building a personal brand.
Next they talked about authenticity, which most likely is something that pops in your mind when you think about a personal brand…which make sense, but Mr. Godin puts a different perspective on this idea. He says that the only time you are authentic is when you are a toddler, because you don’t have any executive functions, but beyond that you are busy calculating what you would do as a civilized productive contributor to society.
Within this idea are the golden nuggets of what you should deliver to your audience.
an authentic experience that they can consume. Hallelujah.
So, although authenticity might come to mind when talking about personal brand, it’s really a calculated experience on how you want to show up. It’s about learning along the way how you want to be and how you don’t want to be. When you do that enough times, without being influenced by or desiring to impress, but instead doing what you believe is true, that’s when you are establishing your personal brand.
How do you make it happen? Well, that is simple, but not that easy.
You do uncomfortable things, until you do them well. Then you rinse and repeat.
You do things and then take a step back to evaluate if that is how you would do it again.
It’s about looking inwards and then really listening to your truth. It’s a constant growth process, but as time goes by you start gaining clarity on what feels right and how you’d like to show up.
Then, you incorporate those values and ways into your business and “all of a sudden” you have built a personal brand. The neat thing that comes with all that work is that you are building a business that also stands out, because you are doing it your way.
I hope this gives you more clarity on what a personal brand is and how to create one.
