This blog post has been authored by Aino Horsma, Daily Creative
What is personal branding?
Personal branding is building a brand around yourself, developing and maintaining a reputation and an impression of you as a crucial part of your business.
This is critical, because of what we already know about reputations in general: it’s essentially impacted by what other people say about you behind your back. Think of it this way: what would you want your customers to say about you when you’re not in the room?
Why do you need a personal brand?
For three simple reasons: you lead more, you win more, and you earn more. Your customers have to “know, like, and trust” you before they buy from you. And a strong personal brand builds credibility, authority, and trust, so you’re more likely to attract more business.
Having a strong personal brand also helps you connect with your customers. When you share your story with your customers, those who can relate to it, will feel immediate connection to you and, as a result, to your business. And having a polished brand will help you feel confident and makes it easier to show up to your customers.
And finally, having a well thought out personal brand will make you “marketable” in a sense that in the branding process you’ll create different kind of brand assets — some visual and some copy. All this is something you need for marketing. So, in the process you’re making your business and yourself easier to sell and market.
How do you start building a personal brand?
1. Tell your story
Focus on telling your story — your expertise and experience, your values, and what makes you different and stand out. If you’re a service provider, this is nothing new to you.
But if you sell products this might be a bit more foreign to you. You may have gotten used to talking mostly about your products instead of yourself. But everyone has a story to tell, and especially if the products you sell are designed or made by you, you are likely going to have a very interesting story.
I highly recommend you build a personal brand, because people best relate to other people. And building your authority and telling your story, as it relates to the story of your products, is a very powerful way to connect with your customers.
2. Have your headshots taken
A part of the process is also building the visual brand. There are many visual assets that goes into this part, for example your logo and colors, and so on.
But, hands down, the most powerful visual branding element you have are photos of yourself. You can’t build a personal brand without fully “showing up.” Your customer needs to know who’s talking to them, they need to know the face of the brand.
Photography is a very powerful tool for telling your story. In addition to using photos of yourself, you can also occasionally include photos of your significant other or your kids or dogs and so on — anything that helps you tell your story as it relates to your brand.
3. Share your wisdom
Personal branding is also about building authority, so that your potential customers can begin to see you as an expert. When they trust you’re an expert, they’re more likely to listen to you and buy from you.
One of the best ways to build authority is to share your knowledge on the topic of your expertise. This might happen through a blog, a podcast, or a YouTube video. Again, for a service provider this may come more naturally, but for those who sell products — handmade or otherwise — creating content around these products might feel more challenging. But it doesn’t have to be so.
Essentially, you just need to figure out “what do your customers have to understand and believe in order to realize they need your product?” Let me give you a concrete example of this.
If you sell high end, ergonomic beds, your customers need to believe that good sleep has significant impact on their well-being. Otherwise, they’re not going to make the investment. As a result, you might end up sharing your expertise on how important sleep is and all the aspects of the importance of good sleep.
So, what do your customers need to understand in order to realize they need your product? Answer that question, and you got it.
4. Curate your image
Through your personal brand, you have the opportunity and duty to curate your image. Only share things that are relevant to your brand and your business.
There’s definitely the case of oversharing. And for different brands it looks different. It all depends who your ideal customer is and what they would consider oversharing.
If you’re unsure, ask yourself “why would anyone care?” If you can answer that, and you know why your ideal customer would care about your hemorrhoids, then by all means: share away. That might just be the connection your customer needed.
I’m Aino. I’m a brand strategist and designer with a decade and a half in the industry. I’ve worked in branding agencies in San Francisco and in Finland, and learned from some of the world’s top creative minds.
With 15 years of experience I’ve seen it all. I’ve designed and managed brands for huge businesses like Autodesk, Microsoft, and Ericsson. And I’ve also worked with individuals developing personal brands, like voice actors and realtors