7 Step Personal Branding Strategy- how you can market yourself to potential employers and clients.
What is Personal Branding?
You might have heard a lot about a company’s branding and its importance. But have you ever thought about your personal branding?
That’s right. Every one of us has a brand- how the people around us perceive us and think of us. It is what people say when they talk about you when you’re not around.
A personal brand is your identity. It’s how you project yourself to the world- your values, your aspirations, your strengths, and your capabilities.
Your personal brand is who you are.
Why is Personal Branding Important
Building your personal brand is a way of making yourself known to the world. It is how you let the world know who you are and what you are offering.
So if you are an entrepreneur seeking customers, an employee looking for job opportunities, a freelancer, or a self-employed person searching for clients, you need to proactively create your brand in order to remain in the competitive market. Here are some of the reasons why personal branding is important.
1. It allows your potential clients to know who you are and what you have to offer. Personal branding helps people know how you can help and what value you can add to their lives.
2. Personal branding makes you stand out. It makes you unique from other people offering similar services. Without brand identity, nobody will remember who you are.
3. It builds trust between you and your client. People fear the unknown. When you clarify your values and expertise to people, they will prefer your brand over others as people like to buy from a familiar brand.
Step by Step Personal Branding Strategy
- Develop Your Self-Awareness
The first step in any personal branding strategy is developing your self awareness.
Before you start building your personal brand, you first need to ask yourself: Who are you? What do you value most in life? What are your goals and aspirations? Your strengths and weaknesses? What is it that you bring to the world? And most importantly, what makes you different from others?
Learning about yourself is no easy task. It’s one thing to know who you think you are and another to find out who you actually are.
How to Build Self-Awareness
Here are some of the ways that can help you discover yourself:
- Take self-assessments such as Myers-Briggs personality styles or Big Five personality test
- Get feedback from your boss, coworkers, and clients and compare their answers for common themes
- Ask others about your strengths and weaknesses– what they think you’re good at and where you lack
These strategies would help you gain insight into your personality and provide the framework for your personal brand.
- Create Your Personal Story
Once you get to know yourself, you can lay it all out to create your personal brand story.
There are three central elements to every story: context, complication, and resolution. When you’ve thoroughly analyzed yourself to determine each element, you’ll be able to tell the whole story.
How to Create Your Personal Story
First, you need to form context, the starting point of your story. Frame the situation that led you to where you are today. For instance, imagine you faced difficulty finding a particular service in your city. Now your goal is to bring that service to your city so people like you in need of that service can benefit from it. Your goals are the foundation stone of your story.
Next, you identify the climax or complication in your story. It could be the challenges you encountered while pursuing your goals, or any setbacks or failures you faced in your journey.
Finally, your story should end in resolution of the complication. It would outline the action you took to solve the problems you faced. It should tie in with what you’re doing now, the services you’re offering currently as a result of the whole context and climax of your story.
- Let People Know What Contributions You Can Make
After you lay out your personal story, the next step in your personal branding is to tell people what you are offering. Articulate how you work and what difference you can bring to people. Identify the problems in people’s lives and explain how you can help solve them.
- Be Authentic
While building your brand the last thing you want is to lose your client’s trust. That is why you must remain authentic throughout your journey. Your story must come off as genuine- based on believable life circumstances so it can resonate with the audience. Instead of forging a fake story, tell the truth. Be honest and open with your clients.
- Maintain an Online Presence
Today the best way to deliver your personal brand to the world is by creating your online presence. Establish yourself on social media. Set up a website for your services. If people can find you online they can get to know you well and will be more likely to trust you and, as a result, connect with you.
- Be Consistent with Your Brand Identity
Once you establish your personal brand, you must remain consistent with it. Your brand style and tone must remain the same throughout. On the contrary, if you keep changing your style, you will not be able to maintain an identity. All your activities and interactions must reflect your brand voice and must revolve around your core values and goals.
- Don’t Build Clients, Build Relationships
Last but not least, build relationships whenever you interact with clients. Don’t just look out for your own benefit when dealing with clients. Instead, build connections based on authenticity, respect, and goodwill. Treat them as people rather than paychecks. This will really help you establish a loyal clientele with relationships that last. However, be careful not to get too personal. You must remain mindful of your professional boundaries.