Your Brand is What People Expect From You
By: Frank Mckinley
Tags: Marketing, Writing, Business, Entrepreneurship, Productivity

Your Brand is What People Expect From You

Here’s what you can do about it

Photo by Nadine Shaabana via Unsplash

When people first meet you, they don’t know what to expect.

So they start judging you by your name, your profile picture, and the title of your blog post.

If you’re a writer, people will probably meet your words before they meet you.

What are your words saying to them?

I’m a nice person.

I know what I’m talking about.

I have a B.S. in History.

Of course, you can’t just say those things and expect us to believe them or be impressed. It’s better for you to prove it and let us draw these conclusions ourselves.

When we read your words, we’re after something. Maybe we’re bored and we want you to give us a distraction. Maybe we want an edge and we need your advice to raise our status. Or maybe we are interested in what you’re talking about and you happen to share our worldview.

You won’t automatically have our trust because we agree with you. But it’s a nice start, and perhaps the best route to get trust quickly.

The best way to gain trust is to keep showing up.

I’ve learned this lesson the hard way. There have been times in my life when my freelance work sucked all my time away. When that happens, I feel like I can’t be as generous with my words.

When you disappear, people forget.

Who was that guy who was so good? Yeah. What happened to him?

Hey, have you heard about this new writer? He’s hot. He knows stuff I never dreamed anyone could know. It’s like he can read my mind.

It’s amazing how fast that can happen.

Show up. Every day if you can. At least once a week. Find a regular rhythm and stick with it. And if you really want to dig deep, write twice as much as you think you can.

But what if it isn’t perfect?

It never will be, so quit worrying.

Your best today won’t be your best next week, next month, or next year. It’s your responsibility to push yourself. Stretch a little every time you write. Dig a little deeper than you did last time. Write something that scares you a bit more. Take a stand, and don’t back down.

In a world with millions of voice vying for attention, it’s the bold and committed that stand out.

Be you, always.

You have some control over what we expect.

It’s your choice to deliver the same thing again and again. Or maybe you ruffle our feathers a bit each week. You’ve got more room to play around in the beginning. But as your audience grows and gets more familiar with you, you need to be consistent.

What will your message be?

How will you deliver it?

Will your personality be friendly or businesslike? Will you challenge our assumptions? Will you draw us a better map? Will you take something confusing and break it down so we can understand it?

Being you means you do online what you’d do in real life. Spot the trends if you like, but approach them with your own style. When you’re fake, everyone will know.

Don’t chase dollars. Chase change. How will you leave your reader better than you found her?

In time, your audience defines your brand.

You set the first impression.

Your audience sets the expectation.

Wait a minute, you say. You just said I set the expectation for people.

You do, at first.

Then once it’s set, people expect you to live up to it. Mess that up, and years of trust can be lost in a moment.

So tread carefully.

If you want to change your message because that’s your conviction, go for it. Don’t do it because the trends say you should. If you get in the habit of chasing the latest thing for attention, you might as well chase the wind.

Here’s the part of the market you should pay attention to.

What does your audience want from you? If your message meets a need a lot of people have, that’s probably not going to change overnight.

Take writing for example.

For generations, the way to make it as an author was through books. If you published one or more, you were somebody. But you had to compete for the opportunity. You’d probably get rejected most of the time. Because publishers need to make money, they bet on what they thought would sell.

Today, anyone can write and publish a book. So, the problem the previous generation of writers faced is flipped. It’s a lot harder to get noticed in the market when your book is one of millions of choices.

So, writers blog and make money instead. Books are now email magnets and manifestos. If you have a large following, you can command a higher price for your work. Otherwise, price low and be glad to get your message out so you can charge more later.

If you don’t like the expectation you’ve set for your market, work to raise it.

There’s nothing stopping you.

It will take work. You’ll lose some people along the way. But you’ll gain more who are devoted to the same thing you are. It doesn’t take a huge audience to make it. It just takes an audience that is pleased enough to tell other people about you.

Be authentic. Serve others first. Be generous. The more people you can, the better your future will be.

Now go build a brand that matters.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +406,714 people.

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