In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you how to brand yourself.
No, I’m not talking about tattoos, but rather how to bring YOU forward in your brand, and brand as yourself because you are the most important asset in your business.
Regardless of whether you are a personal brand (ie. your business name is your name) or not, I think that this is a really important conversation for us to have.
Let’s dive on in!
At the end of the day, the most important factor that makes me want to create this podcast episode is that humans are craving connection with other humans. This is especially prominent in our buying experiences – we want to buy from other humans.
Never before have we seen so many advertisements on TV and on social media that dial up the whole human-to-human connection.
‘Brand yourself’ written on note in keyboard – how to brand yourself in business start-up
Banks want to reassure you that you’ll be able to speak to a human, not to a machine. Soooo many businesses are moving away from automated processes and creating that deep human-to-human connection.
Regardless of whether you decide to brand your business as your name or not, YOU are the most important asset in your business. YOU are the human face of your business, the human element in your business, and the human that we (as your audience) can connect to all of the time in your business.
When I say all of the time, I mean that you are the underlying human element of your business – whether you are the person speaking to someone or not on your help desk, or whether you are the person replying to direct messages or not.
Ultimately, YOU are the person who started this business, and YOU are the person behind this business.
You are the common thread in your business – you’re the decision-maker and you are the one who runs the show.
Therefore, we want to make sure as much as possible that if you’re able to bring yourself forward in your brand, that you’re doing it in a way that’s going to feel good for you and also increase that conversion by increasing connection.
Here are my four key tips on how to brand as yourself…
1. Show up and share
Show up, talk about what you do, share what you know, teach us something, and provide some value.
Regardless of whether you’ve got your messaging completely sorted out, whether you know exactly what you want to be teaching, or whether you’ve still got some niching to do, the most powerful thing you can do today is just show up and start sharing.
The more you show up and share, the more you’re going to be able to work out:
- What the right fit is for you
- How you want to talk about your work
- What the right words are to use
It’s also the perfect opportunity for you to practise showing up, sharing your face, sharing your voice and sharing your unique perspective on the work that you do.
The best way to do that is to show up and share.
2. Get to know yourself
If you see one of those personality quizzes or something that gives you the opportunity to really get to know yourself a little deeper, understand more about your personality, what comes forward and what lights you up, do it.
I find that’s really helpful in me establishing how I’m going to show up in my business, what the right model is for me, and also how to bring more of me forward in my brand.
Really get to know yourself more.
Don’t see those opportunities for self-reflection, self-understanding and self-knowledge as frivolous, but instead see it as a powerful part of your marketing in your business.
The more you know yourself, the more you can make decisions about how to bring that forward in your business.
3. You don’t need to be a caricature
I see this quite a bit when people first start branding as themselves. They share one time that they love penguins, and then all of a sudden they feel like they have to be the penguin-loving person always. Or they share once that they love cookies, and then every second photo they post is them with a cookie.
I understand that there are certain parts of your personality that you want to bring forward, but just be mindful that the more you caricature yourself, the less human you will actually feel to us.
There is a fine line. There’s a bit of a balance between finding those things that you want to bring forward, WITHOUT making them your personality.
The fact that you love lasagna does not make you a human being, and it’s not the core of your personality. The fact that you like to go on walks or that you meditate may be part of who you are and what you do each day, but it’s not a core foundation of your personality.
It’s simply something that you enjoy doing.
Resist the temptation to overly caricature yourself, and instead share more of yourself in the human way, rather than trying to turn yourself into a character.
You may love dogs, but does that mean you need to hate cats? No. You may love meditating and walking on the beach, but does that mean that everything we see of you needs to be done on the beach, or every photo we see of you is in meditation poses? No.
It’s just about understanding that a human is a complex and dynamic creature, not a character that’s two dimensional.
As much as possible, bring more diversity to the things that you share about yourself, and try not to slip into being a character… instead, be a real human.
That can be a tricky one sometimes, but again, it just takes a little bit of practise.
4. Connect with what the feeling is that you want people to experience when they find you
When I’m thinking about my brand, how I show up online and who I am, I want people to feel like they’re safe. I want people to feel like they are heard. I want people to feel empowered and inspired, but I also want people to feel like they’ve got the answers, and they’ve got some insight that this is a really practical space that gives them some really solid advice.
When it comes to that feeling that I want to create for my audience, it’s not just inspiration all of the time, it’s not just that feeling of human connection or kindness, generosity and gentleness, there’s also a big element of knowing how to move forward.
The feeling that I’m creating there is almost like the sense of confidence – the sense of groundedness – that this isn’t just a space for inspiration and feeling loved up, this is also a space where you can come to get advice that can be implemented very quickly.
Have a think about what the feelings are that you want to elicit for your brand and in your business, and how can you bring that forward as the human element of your business as well.
Hopefully, you’ve found these four tips a little out of the box, but also very helpful for bringing you forward in your brand, and therefore capturing your most important business asset and making sure that that shows up not just in delivery, but also in your marketing.
If you are looking to build your personal brand to show up and be of service, and you’d like some extra support to get your work in front of more people that will become your paying clients, I’d love for you to come and check out my free resource.
It’s called Fast Track Your Startup.
You can access this free training here: CLICK ME
As always, if this has brought up any lightbulb moments for you or you’ve got follow up questions, come on over to the Heart-Centred Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook community, use #podcastaha, let me know you’ve been reading episode number 266 and let’s continue the conversation there.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
