When you start out on any endeavour or entrepreneurial you need to think about how you communicate yourself to everyone else. Branding has been a growing topic on the minds of many people aiming to start something either online or offline. When we explore branding on a deeper level, we begin to understand how important it is to everything that you do. Would it surprise if I said that you have been displaying your brand ever since you were born. The stereotypes, prejudices and judgements people make of you if based on how you portray yourself, or at least how you express your brand. In the more recognised sense, I will go through different aspects in order to improve your branding for business or project.

 

1. You are your brand

Everything you do signals a message either in a magnetising or non-magnetic way. The way you speak and what you speak about says a lot about what you are passionate about, and what value you could give to someone else. Be an example of what you expect your brand to be like if it was human. Do you have business cards that you could offer, a mailing list, or a book you can share and talk about with people you meet? Being your brand is relevant when you are at networking events, are you the nervous one in the corner, or the person forming solid relationships through captivating conversation?

I would go as far to say that branding is also the clothes you were, the values you hold and the attitude you carry. How you treat others will associate a judgement of your personal branding. Put yourself in a position where you portray yourself towards higher values that represents the core of your brand. If you want your brand to look clean, professional and warm, then you need to dress that way, speak that way and present yourself that way.

 

2. Purpose-driven action counts

As soon as you create the idea for your brand, everything you do must align towards the purpose of your brand. This means that your actions need to be in conjunction with the principles and concepts that you want your brand to carry. If you are a personal development coach, you need to emulate the qualities of a personal development coach i.e show integrity, due-diligence and maturity when dealing with life’s problems. Your purpose, passions, and core beliefs need to be apparent when performing acts of daily living.

 

3. Become a content creator

As we have heard this many times before “Content is King,” and this means that you need to be able to deliver strong content to people on a regular basis on time and to the right audience. Think about platforms your audience uses and deliver that content to them regularly. By default you need a website, one that you can develop via WordPress, and post your articles or posts on this website, distributing them to your audience via email, social media platforms and other avenues online. Make sure the topics you write about are relevant and aligned with what your brand is about. People love visuals, so develop videos and pictures that captivate your audience. Content creation is hard work, but with planning can make you stand out from the competition. Create a content calendar schedule specific days to produce content for the week. I have found that when you produce content regularly, you inadvertently get to know and understand your audience better because you begin to get feedback and comments, that you had never received before. You could also create a survey, however, you don’t want to just send this to friends and family, you need alternative perspectives position you towards higher value to your audience.

4. Clarity is everything

When you are clear about what your branding is, it makes the process so much easier. Start by researching your competition and see what they are doing in the market. Think about the following:

• The look and feel of their brand
• The products and services they are selling
• Their partners and association
• Their audience

Once you get this information for at least 5 – 10 other brands, think about how you want your brand to come across and be clear about what your USP (unique selling point) is. This is research is more important than creating a worthless logo. Understand how you position yourself in the market and then make a decision to think about the aesthetics want to pursue.

 

5. Create a Branding Presentation

Now I have done this for two of my brands, one of them developed by a professional, and the other one by me. What I can say is that watching the professional do it has opened my eyes to how important this process is. It does the following:

• Makes you look serious when showing others your brand
• Designers can get a better understanding of what you are looking for in a product design
• It creates absolute clarity in a definitive way of what your brand is

This branding presentation includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Brand Title
• Brand caption
• Vision statement
• Value proposition
• Key beliefs
• Target Audience
• Competitive advantage
• Brand Logo in different formats and colours
• Text sizes and formats
• 3 – 6 colour palettes with hue and colour code information

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a starter for you to get going with yours. The more professional looking the better. The brand through this presentation really does come to life!

 

6. Your Presence Online is important!

Your online presence is extremely important because it means that you leave a trace. I am not only talking about not having negative or embarrassing things online, I am also referring to how you present your information to the world. I would suggest that if you have a website, make sure it is up-to-date or taken down. Make sure is functional and appropriate for your audience. In addition, if you have social media, fill out all sections of your profile so that it communicates a storng message about who you are. You need to be ok with sharing your information, but also be aware of social reconstructions trolls can make on the internet. I would suggest that basics including having strong stock images if yourself that you can use from time to time, good clean quality videos of you performing a task aligned to your brand, and content that describes what you are about in a positive light.

Hopefully, this blog post has given you a strong idea of what a personal brand entails, and how seriously you should take it. Re-read these principles again and think about how you can make a stronger presence online and offline.

Why not check out 100 other ways to stay motivated via this link. I hope you have found value in this article, especially as they are not the most conventional ways the common person employs. Follow through with these ideas properly and I promise, you will be more motivated to take action!

To further develop your understanding of these principles check out my self-published book Understand Reach Expand: 15 Super Effective ways to Manage your Mind out now on Amazon via Kindle and Paperback.

If you want more check out my FREE video series, 5 Models for Success Mastery!