5 Tips for Building a Personal Brand

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTPeople invest in people. You need to be your absolute, true and authentic self. People want to see you, not a carbon copy of someone else. You are the thing that sets you apart from everyone else. Be you!It’s important that your audience can see your face. This is how someone will connect with you on a different level.When you’re growing a personal brand, you need to show an element of your life. What you share will depend on how comfortable you feel. How can you help others understand who you are? People will remember the details such as how you enjoy cooking, rather than your years of experience.Consistency is key. People need to know that you’re going to keep showing up day in and day out before they connect.It is best to choose one or two social media platforms and kill it! Don’t try and take on too much. Work incredibly hard on the platform you choose. You want to be able to focus on your platform, adding content that is valuable and worth reading. You can’t do this if you’re strapped with too many other platforms.THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…Building a personal brand means putting yourself out there. Share your knowledge with others and your audience. The more you get out there, the easier it is for people to get to know you!HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSBe you, not someone else – 06:40Tip #1: Show your face – 09:47Tip #2: Think about how to show your authenticity to others – 13:37Tip #3: Create consistent content – 16:24Tip #4: Find your social platform and work hard – 18:20Tip #5: Get in front of other people’s audiences – 19:49LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODEEp. 22: The Importance of Creating Consistent ContentTranscript below Hello, and welcome to Episode 26 of the podcast. So good to have you back with me again. Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are having a great day, and continue to have a brilliant and successful week.This week I have recorded the first of my podcast interviews, because up until now, as I've talked about before, I have done all of them on my own, and that was purposeful. I went to an event, Traffic & Conversion in San Diego back in February, and I met John Lee Dumas, who is a podcasting king, and he suggested that before I interview anybody, I get really good at doing podcasts on my own, and I have lots of practise of doing the podcast on my own, so that's exactly what I've done.Then it's given me the time and I guess position, in order to go and get some really good guests, so I've recorded my first one this week, and I loved it. I found the experience completely different, obviously, to how I record it on my own, because normally like now, I'm sat in my office, it's quite early in the morning again. As I always say, I do these in the morning, because then the house is quiet, and obviously I talk to myself for about 45 minutes, then I edit it down, and then there's the podcast.Whereas actually, it was so lovely to have someone to bounce off, someone to talk to, and also someone who is phenomenal at what they do, and they can give you their advice and their suggestions on how to do it really well. So I am super excited to share with you who I've got coming up.In the next couple of weeks, I've got another two interviews coming up, and I'm actually going to start these interviews with four or maybe five back to back, so week on week, there will be interviews for at least four or five weeks, and you are going to love them, and not want to miss them.I think they're going to start at the beginning of September. I say all these, "I think, I'm not sure," just because I want to make sure they're all in the bag, I've got them all recorded, and I'm confident they're all ready to go before we hit the button, because I really want this to be an amazing launch into this interview side. Then going forward, it's going to be a mix of interview and then sessions like this where I'm on my own, and I just talk tools, and tips, and tactics.So yeah, I'm super excited. I can't wait for you to hear, I can't wait for you to see who I've got, which is going to be amazing. I'm ... yeah, really excited about it. Anyway, onto today's podcast episode.Now, I was out networking yesterday, which I haven't done in a really long time. When I first started the business, I used to network all the time, and if you are just starting out, I would suggest networking is a great way to meet other people, to meet ... I've met loads of friends from networking, but also to get your name out there and get some customers. I have had customers from networking, although on first look, you might think, "No one here is going to buy my product or use my service." Networking can be really, really useful.It made me think about building a personal brand, and how often people think of building personal brands is only really applicable if you're a consultant, or a trainer, or you are your product. Actually, I was thinking about this, and I don't think that's the case at all. I think if you are the face behind a business, if you are selling something, whether it be a product or a service, people like to buy from people. People invest in people.In fact, I can't think of any product or service that I don't use because I don't like either the person that I deal with or the people behind it. In fact, I know that there are products and services out there, this is me and my stubbornness, I can be quite stubborn, and unfortunately, I carry it over from my mom, but I know that there are businesses out there that I won't use, because I don't like the people behind it, or I don't think they're of similar character, or we gel, or whatever.For me, it's all about the people. Often when people think about digital marketing and they think about the digital world we're in now, they feel like it's made us further away from human beings, and I get it. When I sit down every evening, and if the stepchildren and my daughter are ever in the same room as me, which is rare, because they go to their bedrooms, but they're all on their phone.They don't have friends around like we used to. When I was younger, summer holidays meant we were out with our friends all the time, and that just doesn't seem to happen. They're on FaceTime to them all the time, but they don't appear to be spending that one-to-one time with them.I get why people think that technology has made us further apart, but from a business point of view, I actually think it's even more important that we show that personal side, that people crave to see that personal side of business. Today I'm going to talk about personal brand, and like I said, you might be sat there thinking, "Well, I'm not a consultant, I'm not a trainer, I'm not selling a membership or a course. I don't need to build my personal brand."But I would urge you to listen to this, and just think about actually, if a few more people knew you, knew what your thoughts were behind the business, knew what motivated you or drove you to do that business, how many of those people might then come and buy from you or use your service?What I'm kind of saying is, I don't think this would hurt. Some of these tools and tactics I'm going to give you, I don't think it will hurt for you to take on board some of these. Give it a listen, and see what you think.Be you, not someone else Before we get started on the actual steps behind how you start to build a personal brand, and some key things that I would suggest, I want to make it really clear that you need to be your absolute true authentic self. That is step number zero. This is the first thing you need to make sure you're doing before you do anything else.What people want to see is you. They don't want to see a carbon copy of someone else who's really good. They don't want to see two Gary Vees or two Pat Flynns. They want to see you and who you are. In my industry, there are a million social media people, millions of us, but the only thing that sets me and them apart is me; is my history, my experience, my character, my personality, how I like to do things. It would be a complete disservice to myself if I tried to be someone else, if I didn't come out and be the authentic me as I am.Now, don't get me wrong, there are parts of me that I choose not to share on a business front, so I can be really silly, and I like to laugh a lot and do stupid things, and I know that when it comes to social media, I'm a little bit more careful about how much of that stupid side I show. Also, I want to look good when I'm on social media, so again, I'm not as authentic as say someone like Jenna Kutcher, if you've ever seen her Instagram. I love it. She cracks me up. She will come onto Instagram and do an Insta Story, and will say, "I've just woken up."Now normally, what this means on Instagram, is when someone does an Insta Story and says, "I've just woken up," it means they got up about two hours earlier, had a full hair and makeup done, and now they're putting themselves on Instagram. Not Jenna. Jenna looks like she has just woken up. She looks like a hot mess, it's hilarious.Now, I would love to be that authentic, and that honest, and vulnerable, but you know what? I am not comfortable with showing you the mess I look when I wake up, because you would be shocked, I am telling you now for nothing. However, I feel like I show a very honest version of myself, and in doing things like the podcast, and videos, and talks, it's very hard to