The 4 steps to build a personal brand that increases your sales

Cheat Sheet for 4 Steps to Build a Personal Brand

Introduction

People buy from brands they know and trust. Personal connection is key when it comes to making purchasing decisions. Whatever you’re doing in business you need a strong personal brand.

Your personal brand:

  • Tells people who you are
  • Is the face of your company
  • Defines your reputation
  • Sets you apart from others

Get ahead of it, get organized, and take charge of what aspects of your personality you show the world.

1. Identify who you serve

  • Who is your audience? You need to know as much about your audience as possible.
  • Know you audience’s demographics, socioeconomics and values and behaviours
  • Pay close attention to your audience’s needs, problems, and questions.
  • Find out what’s troubling them so that you can offer solutions.
  • When identifying your audience, you should be as specific as possible.
  • You’ll be able to create an authentic connection with “your people”

 2. Define your brand identity

  • In order for branding to work, it has to be consistent.
  • If there’s a break in direction, this can cost you your audience’s trust.

Branding statement and tagline

You can use this tagline as a quick summary in your marketing. The statement tells people in simple language what you do and why you do it. Here are some ideas to help you brainstorm:

  • What, why and how do you do what you do?
  • Make your statement:
    • Unique
    • Bold and memorable
    • Authentic
    • So simple that a child could understand what it means
  • How do you help people?

Branding and visual identity

  • Elements of brand design include colour palette, font, logo and headshot
  • These design elements will immediately let your audience know it’s you

Tone

  • Things to consider include formal or casual tone, level of reading difficulty, guidelines for slang usage, words to use or not use and type of humour
  • Create a style guide and it will help you to clarify for yourself and others

3. Create content that expresses your personal brand

Your content will help you build trust, demonstrate authority, gain exposure and generate leads.

Create content for the audience you identified. Solve their problems.

Content ideas:

  • Write a blog post or article that addresses a problem and offers a solution you know works.
  • Create a case study or testimonial on a person you have helped
  • Create webinars or courses for step by step teaching
    • Tell your story
    • Make content personal
    • Post new content regularly
    • Focus on offering value – don’t promote
  • Create with your personal branding goals in mind.

4. Communicate your brand message where your audience will hear it

Where and how you publish depends on

  • Your audience’s tastes – You’ll discover what they prefer
  • Your capacity to publish – You’ll know how much you can create

Personal branding through your blog

  • You need to at least have a blog.
  • A blog allows you to publish regular articles, is a place to engage and helps to attract new people through search engines.

Spread the word on social media

  • Build an engaged audience and get to know them
  • Interact with them and let them know when you’ve published something new.

Don’t forget multimedia

  • Consider publishing audio, video, and visual content.
  • Attracts wider audience who enjoy other formats

Expand your audience as a guest

  • Write guest posts and get interviewed by other people with personal brands.
  • This lets you share your expertise and helps reach a new audience.

Publish books to establish your expertise

  • Establish your authority by self-publishing books in your niche.
  • This also adds to your reputation because you’re a published author.

We identified four key steps for building your brand in this report so you can increase sales. 

Make your personal brand work by:

  • Deciding who you want to reach
  • Presenting your chosen image,
  • Creating your content
  • Posting it where your audience will see it.

Want to learn more about how you can create a personal brand that builds your reputation and your business? Head over to the personal branding archetype quiz.