How to start building your personal brand
By Bec Sands, Personal Brand & Thought Leader Coach
Your personal brand is, in a nutshell, what people think of you when it comes to your expertise and how you can support them. It’s your reputation and is often the deciding factor about whether your potential clients know you, trust you, and want to work with you.
In fact, it’s often the deciding factor in choosing a service provider – particularly when you are the face of your brand in the business.
Think of it this way. People can’t read your mind. They need to see your message, what you stand for, and how you stand out.
To be well known and sought after, you need to become visible for the work that you do. Otherwise, how can people know if they want to work with you?
Having a great personal brand can help you in your business by…
- Expanding your audience and building relationships with people that need the services you’re offering
- Showcasing your skills and knowledge and positioning you as a leader in your field
- Helping you become more sought after for your work
- Attracting aligned opportunities – if people already know of you and your reputation and expertise, you don’t have to do the ‘hard sell’ – your personal brand does the work for you
- You’ll have a bigger network to refer you or create more opportunities for you
- You can charge more money because you’ll be more in demand
- You can accelerate your business growth
- As you build your personal brand, you’ll also build your confidence!
Five steps to get started building your personal brand
Before you get started building your personal brand, it’s important to have a plan (which is simply what you’re going to do vs what you’re not going to do when it comes to personal brand-building activities).
To put together this plan, so that you know things like what channels you’re going to communicate on, who you’ll be speaking to, and the message you’re sharing, consider the following:
- CLARITY. Get clear on who you are, who you support with your work and what you support them with, and what you want to be known for, as well as the key messages you are going to communicate.
- UNIQUENESS. TIP: make sure you build into this what makes you and your work unique! That’s going to be your biggest differentiator.
- STRATEGY. Create a strategy to stand out. It can be as big or small a task as you want it to be, but it’s likely to fall off the agenda if you don’t have a plan, schedule it in, and prioritise the tasks you’re going to act toward building your personal brand
- CONSISTENCY. Start with the things you enjoy as well as a realistic amount of activity – and be CONSISTENT
- VALUE. Come from a place of providing value. It’s about them, not you.
Ways business owners can start building their personal brands
- Being featured in media / PR
- Speaking at events
- Hosting workshops
- Being featured in front of others’ audiences through podcast interviews, live video interviews, submitting blogs, etc
- Building your own membership site where you are the trusted leader
- Writing books
- Hosting your own podcast
- Being a trainer and source of information on your topic in others’ courses or on their platforms
- Hosting your own weekly show or podcast
- Newsletters and emails
- Sharing on social media
- Creating a Facebook group where you share topics relating to your area of expertise
- Networking and meeting new people in your industry
- … And many more!
One of the biggest challenges my clients come up against is a lack of confidence around visibility, imposter syndrome, and fear of being seen. This often shows up in our lives as procrastination around the tasks that will really move the needle forward in your business, or excuses around a lack of time. Often, personal brand-building activities get pushed to the back of the list because usually, no one else is demanding they get done – it’s totally up to you!
How you can start moving through imposter syndrome or the fear of being seen
- Start small and build from there. You don’t need to show up every single day on social media – three times a week is great!
- Get clear on what you’re wanting to say, and keep practising and honing your message
- Come from a place of adding value – it’s about your audience, not about you!
- Take action and repeat consistently
- Get support from a coach or mentor who will hold you accountable and help you to push yourself a little further out of your comfort zone each time.
For more tips on building your personal brand, download the Building a Personal Brand Guide from your business toolkit, and feel free to join Bec’s Facebook group The Thought Leadership Club.
About the author
Bec Sands is a personal brand and thought leader coach, PR consultant, and online business owner. Using the power of the personal brand, Bec helps CEOs, professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs stand out in a crowded world so they can build careers as industry leaders or businesses that attract a steady stream of clients.
After 12 years in corporate PR and communications as an award-winning consultant, Bec launched her online business as a coach and consultant and stepped into it full-time in mid-2019. She replaced her six-figure corporate income within 18 months and has created consistent, diverse income streams in a freedom-based business, working less than 30 hours per week. She loves helping her clients do the same.
Bec holds a Bachelor of Media in Writing from Macquarie University, majoring in PR and journalism, and is a Certified Beautiful You Coaching Academy life coach, an approved education provider with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) – global leaders of coach education.
Connect with Bec on the Gem Directory here.
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