Right, you’ve done the hard bit and defined your personal brand and created a toolkit. Now what?
Chances are you set out to create your brand in order to attract more business or interest from employers, peers and investors. Let’s reach out to these target groups and bring your brand to market. You will have to be where your customers are and the goal will be to be perceived as better than the competition.
Here are a few steps you can take:
- 1. Be the expert
Everyone wants to work with or buy from the expert in their field. This means the expert can pick and choose who to work with and they can set their own price. Becoming the expert is a long-term process but it starts with you making sure to know more than others. You should read blogs, books and periodicals, listen and discuss with industry leaders and fully immerse yourself in your subject matter. In addition to that, always strive to develop new ideas so that you are able to deliver eye-opening concepts to your audience. Look at Seth Godin, this man’s ideas are usually ahead of their time and I would venture to say that he reads and listens more than most of his peers. (Note: Being an expert is not a title that you anoint yourself with but is confirmed by the community you serve.)
2. Share your expertise
This is all about believing in the law of reciprocity and trusting that your hard work will come back to you. Although the obvious way of doing this is by blogging, there are lots of other ways you can offer free information, advice or coaching. The point here is that you want to be seen as a person that happily shares great advice with others and this will attract a need for your services as an up-sell. A great example of this would be Chris Brogan, who churns out quality content every day that ensures he stay at the top of his game. His up-sell are consulting services to major blue-chip companies, I suspect you wouldn’t mind being in his shoes.
3. Be well-connected
With the power social media it’s easier than ever to get to know people. Make sure you are active on Twitter www.twitter.com as this is where you can get a feel for what is going on in your industry. Using a combination of offline www.meetup.com and online networking tends to be very effective. Get to know the ‘big cheeses’ in your industry, it really not that hard – they are just regular people that have more experience than you. See your peers as colleagues and not competition, there is plenty of work to go around. Make sure you connect your contacts with other contacts, as they will do the same for you.
4. Work all angles
Avoid becoming a one-trick pony and risk boring people to bits. Mix things up a bit by writing and speaking about your hobbies, about your family and generally injecting a bit of personality in your brand. Don’t just be in ‘work mode’ when you are working and don’t just be in ‘chill-mode’ when you are not. Some of the most lucrative business partnerships ever have been formed outside of the professional arena, when it’s actually a great deal easier to fly in under the radar and create solid contacts.
5. Stay in business mode
The downside to promoting your personal brand is that you can easily get carried away. Taking on too many speaking opportunities, attending too many networking events or blogging too much are all symptoms of this. Your first focus has to be on sales and you have to stay profitable no matter what phase your branding exercise is in. Remember that success breeds success and you will only achieve monetary success by keeping your eye on the business first of all. Richard Branson has one of the greatest brands ever but the no. 1 factor that brought him there is his strong business acumen.
Bottom line
That’s the smoking hot tips for you today; these tips have worked well for others and will work for you. Just bear in mind that whatever you do has to stay authentic and above all consistent with your brand. If there is any discrepancy or discord in people’s minds, you risk doing more harm than good to your personal brand.
Jorgen Sundberg is a London based personal branding consultant with a passion for social media and blogging. He blogs at JorgenSundberg.net http://jorgensundberg.net and his company site is Personal Branding UK http://personalbrandinguk.com. You can connect with him on Twitter @jorgensundberg
Remember paper books? Those square-like objects that have a cover and a bunch of words inside? They are still around today, and can be pretty darn valuable to you. You might be thinking, “How can a book by someone else build my personal brand?“ Easy. The knowledge gained from a fantastic book will stay with you forever. The new thoughts that come as a result of an eye-opening read will have an incredible impact on your brand and your future.
