5 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand

Who are you and what’s your value?

Those are the two questions that consumers most often ask when stumbling onto a new brand. They want to know who you are as a company or business, and they want to know the value you bring to them. In marketing, it’s not about you. It is about how you can bring value to the lives of your consumers. So, what is a personal brand you may be asking? According to PersonalBrand.com, a personal brand is the effort to communicate and present your value to the world.

Now that we know what a personal brand is, let’s look at how we can build a one that markets your company best to your consumers. We can do this in five easy steps…

1) Know Your Audience

It has been said in marketing and PR that the smaller your audience the better. We don’t have an audience of one. If you try to market to everyone you will market to no one. Rather, scale down your target audience to a few niche targets that you can best infiltrate and influence. By toning down your target, you can better communicate with them and know who they are, what they want and meet their needs. Remember your brand is only as good as you are, so don’t take on the world. Take on your portion of it.

2) Be Visible

Marketing and PR don’t happen in a cubicle from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Marketing and PR happen outside the walls of normal business. They also happen on a 24-hour news cycle. One of the best things you can do for your brand is to get out in the community and with the consumers you want to serve. Let them see the face behind the business and know that you really do care about meeting their needs.

3) Be Relevant

You are in marketing. If you are positing yourself as a content expert, you should be the smartest person in the room. If you’re not…there is a big problem. Your consumers should look to you as a expert in your niche area. You should be viewed as a knowledgeable and trusted source of information. To be stagnate is to move backwards and no one trusts a content expert who is not up to date on their field. Keep the conversation going and always look for opportunities to better yourself, your brand, and your business.

4) Have a Message

Heard of the elevator pitch? Have one! In fact, have several. Know what your business does so well that you can sell it on the spot. It’s your brand. No one knows more about it than you do. And it’s ok to brag on yourself. People want to work with successful people. If you are the best at what you do, be ready to tell it…more than that, be ready to show it. In the world of the personal brand, showing goes a lot further than simply telling. This is how you gain more business, how you stay relevant and how you continue to grow your brand.

5) Keep Moving

There is only on direction you should be going in business and that is forward. When you create a personal brand and begin to sell your business based off it, you generate momentum for your brand and your business. Like I said earlier, to be stagnate is to move backwards and to be left in the dust of other peoples’ brands. Keep moving forward and keep engaging with your consumers so they know you are still here. It is easy to get left in the dust but you don’t have to go down that way.

Sir Richard Branson once said, “Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.” Are you ready to be successful? If so, jump on that personal brand today!