Why You Need a Personal Brand-Day 2

At this point, you might be thinking, Why do I need to build a personal brand? I’m not a big company. I’m not a Hollywood celebrity. Why do I need a brand?

Here’s the reality: every entrepreneur, coach, consultant, freelancer, etc. should be building their own brand.

It doesn’t matter if you’re not a big name or a Fortune 500 company.

If you are trying to build a business of any sort, it’s important to build your own personal brand. You don’t need to be a large company or a Hollywood celebrity in order to benefit from building a personal brand.

Let’s talk about some of the benefits of building a personal brand.

Personal Branding Allows You to Stand Out from the Competition

First and foremost, building a personal brand enables you to uniquely stand out from the competition.

Your brand, values, expertise, and story all set you apart from your competitors.

Your competitors can’t bring what you bring to the table.

They simply don’t have what you have to offer. You’re unique. Only you are you.

You have unique:

● Experiences ● Strengths● Beliefs ● Perspectives● Skills●Insights

…that set you apart from everyone else. These are incredibly valuable and distinguish you from your competitors.

You offer unique value that no other person can offer. No one else can bring to the table what you can. No one else has your unique combination of skills, insights, and experiences.

Building your personal brand allows you to highlight your uniqueness.

It allows you to capitalize on your strengths. It allows you to highlight the best parts of you.

And as you work to highlight your strengths, it distinguishes you from all your competitors. It gives you a distinct competitive advantage.

Think about Rolex and how they’ve set themselves apart from the competition. Because they’ve focused on being exclusively a luxury watch brand, they have set themselves apart from other watch companies, like Timex.

Rolex is the brand for those who want a luxury watch, while Timex is the brand for those who want a sturdy, relatively inexpensive watch.

By working relentlessly to build their brand, Rolex has distinguished themselves from every other watch company.

The more you work to build your personal brand, the greater edge you’ll have over your competition. You’ll stand out amidst the crowd.

Because you bring unique value to the table — value that no one else offers — you can charge a premium price for your services.

After all, you’re offering something that can’t be found anywhere else. Your services are only offered by you.

When you craft a strong personal brand, you can charge a higher price for your products and services because they’re exclusive to you. They can’t be purchased at another store or from another person.

The stronger your brand, the more people want your services. The more people want your services, the higher the price you can charge.

This is exactly why Nike is able to charge so much for their shoes. They’ve spent years building their brand into a powerhouse. Nike shoes have become a status symbol, and wearing Nikes says something about who you are.

This allows Nike to charge exorbitant amounts of money for their shoes. The Nike brand automatically equals higher prices for shoes.

You can take a page from Nike’s book. By working hard to build your personal brand and showing how much value you bring to the table, you too can charge a premium price.

Personal Branding Highlights Your Expertise

Remember, your personal brand is how you present yourself to the world.

This means that a significant amount of personal branding involves the content that you share with the world.

The more valuable the content you share, the more you demonstrate that you’re an expert who should be trusted.

With every piece of content that you share…

● Social media posts

● Blog posts

● Emails

● Videos

● Inspirational graphics

● Meditations

● Affirmations

● Audiobooks

● Podcasts

…you establish yourself as an expert in your field. As someone who really knows what they’re talking about. As a thought leader in your arena.

You are demonstrating your knowledge and insight to the watching world. You’re proving just how much value you offer and that you’re the go- to person in your industry.

The more you demonstrate your expertise, the more your audience will trust you and come to you to solve their problems.

The more value you share, the more it shows people that you know exactly what you’re talking about and should be looked at as an expert.

Personal Branding Allows You to Attract Your Ideal Audience

Being known as an expert in your field brings unique benefits with it.

When you’re known as the expert in your industry:

● It attracts your ideal audience — the people who need your help the most.

● You get more referrals from others in your industry and related industries.

● You can charge a premium price — the kind of price that only an expert can charge.

Tony Robbins is a prime example of this. For years, he has been sharing the same message of self-empowerment.

Everything he says, every video he puts out, every book he writes has the same brand message: you can develop into a powerful individual and I can help you to do that.

Over time, he has established himself as one of, if not the, go-to person in the self- development arena.

The results?

● He attracts huge audiences of people who want to fulfill their potential.

● Millions of people read his books and follow him on social media.

● He can charge a premium price for his services.

By consistently building his personal brand over many years, Tony Robbins now has people flocking to him for advice.

Do you want to experience the Tony Robbins effect?

If you want to be known as the go-to person in your industry, then it’s absolutely essential that you begin building your personal brand as soon as possible.

Personal Branding Puts You in Charge of the Narrative

As we noted earlier, your personal brand will evolve, whether you want it to or not. If you:

● Use social media

● Have an email list

● Have a blog

● Speak to groups

● Record and share videos

…then you’re already building your personal brand. Everything you put out into the world is part of your personal brand.

The question is whether you’re intentionally shaping the narrative of your brand.

In other words, are you carefully determining exactly what your brand is all about, or are you letting it happen in an ad-hoc manner?

Are you thoughtfully curating your brand or are you letting your brand “evolve” on its own? Are you the one crafting people’s opinions about your or are you sort of just letting things happen?

The beauty of personal branding is that it ensures that you’re actively shaping your own narrative.

You’re determining what others think about you, rather than simply letting them form their own opinions.

With every social media post you share, every blog post you put up, every email you send, you’re shaping the narrative of who you are. You’re in control of the story.

Personal Branding Increases Your Visibility

The more you build your personal brand, the more visible you’ll become.

● You’ll attract more fans on social media

● Those fans will share your content with their tribes.

● The more your content gets shared, the more fans you’ll attract.

● Rinse And Repeat

It’s a powerful cycle.

As your fan base grows, you can expect to be featured in the media.

Media outlets are always looking for experts to comment on particular subjects, and when you become known as the expert in your field, you’ll start generating media requests. The more you’re featured in media outlets, the more opportunities you’ll have to speak in front of crowds. Conference organizers are always looking for well-known media personalities to speak.

The truth is, building your personal brand and building your platform go hand-in-hand.

As your personal brand grows stronger, your platform will get bigger, which will then make your brand stronger.

Building your brand is a virtuous cycle that brings greater and greater results the more you do it.

Personal Branding Shapes What Content You Share

If you don’t have a strong personal brand, then you don’t have any guidelines as to what content you should share with your audience.

And so you end up sharing either nothing at all or whatever catches your fancy at any given moment. Neither of these strategies contributes to your personal brand.

When you have a strong personal brand, it guides you toward exactly what kinds of content you should share.

Simply put, you should only share content that aligns with and promotes the values of your personal brand.

A meme might be funny, but if it doesn’t add to your personal brand, you shouldn’t share it.

Personal Branding Connects You More with Individuals

The simple truth is, people connect better with people than they do with companies. It’s why Elon Musk and Richard Branson have more individual Twitter followers than the companies they founded.

The more you work to build your personal brand, the more individuals will want to connect with you, both in-person and online. People will be attracted to your values, personality, convictions, and the insights you have to offer.

The more connected you are, the more business opportunities will present themselves to you. More speaking requests. More media opportunities. The opportunity to partner with other like-minded people.

Building your personal brand connects you personally with potential customers and clients, which then builds your business.

Pia Silva puts it like this:

“With so much content and so many small businesses popping up online, a brand that connects to a person’s face is much easier to trust faster. It takes less time and effort to build a relationship with a personal brand as compared to a business brand.”

Personal Branding Allows You to Become an Influencer

The more you develop your personal brand, the more you become known as an “influencer”. An influencer is someone who significantly shapes the opinions of their followers and has a big influence on how they behave.

There are some significant benefits to being an influencer:

● Big brands want to work with influencers that have a large audience, which can result in more revenue for you.

● You often receive free things from companies who are interested in partnering with you.

● You receive media requests to speak at, or even just attend events.

If you want to get in on these perks, start working to develop your personal brand.

The Power of the Personal Brand

Are you starting to see the power of your personal brand? Your personal brand is what enables you to distinguish yourself from the competition. It allows you to charge a premium price for your services.

The more you focus on your personal brand, the more visible you become, and the more you become known as the expert in your field. The more you’re known as an expert, the more opportunities come your way.

And the more you build your personal brand, the more you connect with others, which in turn builds your business even more.

Kevin Stimpson says this:

“Having a personal brand is important for an entrepreneur because now more than ever, it’s important for CEOs and founders of companies/brands to come out to the forefront and connect with their audiences. People connect with people.”

It’s safe to say that there are few things more powerful than your personal brand. The more you focus on building it, the greater the results you’ll see.

Now, are you ready to start building your personal brand?