PERSONAL BRANDING: NO B.S GUIDE TO BUILD A SEVEN FIGURE BRAND
By: Martti Ponda
Tags: Social Media, Personal Branding, Branding, Content Marketing, Brand Strategy

Benefits of building a personal brand

Trust and authority:

Having a personal brand helps to build trust with your audience, and position you as an authority and a thought leader in your industry. Get featured in media:

Having a personal brand makes it easier for you to pitch and be found by media (online publications, magazines, television, radio, podcasts, etc.). The media is in constant search of experts that can share their insights with their audience. Build your network:

When you have a personal brand that clearly articulates who you are, what you do, and how you help others, it makes it easier for other people and entrepreneurs to see value in connecting with you. You can leverage your personal brand to build your network, both online and offline, quickly and effectively. Attract more clients:

Building a personal brand that positions you as the go-to expert in a specific industry or niche helps you to attract more of your ideal clients. When you’re positioned as an expert, it’s also easier for people to refer clients to you. Premium pricing:

Having a strong personal brand helps justify charging premium prices for your products and services. Without a brand, you become a commodity that competes on price. And there will always be competitors that can beat your price.

Create a lasting platform:

Over time, your business will evolve. You may even start multiple businesses in different industries over the course of your career. Your personal brand stays with you as you move from one venture to the next.

Seven steps to craft your personal brand

Building a brand is like building a house you have to take one step after the other. You will need a plan of the house , the materials and start doing the work.

Step One: Self Awareness

The first thing before anything else on building your personal brand is to take a deep self examination. The most problem people make is to claim themselves to be something they are not which is a difficult journey and self denial. Every person is unique and there will be no one like you in this world this is what makes personal brand.

What personal brand needs is authentic persona not unauthentic persona. You can’t be like Donald Trump and you can’t be like Elon Musk or try to be like Oprah Winfrey. When you try to do so you will be considered as an unauthentic which is a killer of personal brand. Be true to yourself and be who you are and accept your flaws and use them for your advantage and people will like you.

Planning your brand foundation:

Before you start building your brand you need a strong foundation that will make it withstand any storms and be strong and authentic. When digging yourself there are three areas to extract that will make up your brand.

Your skills and credintials: what skills have you acquired in your life, qualifications you have obtained, the trainings and awards you have received through out your life?

what skills have you acquired in your life, qualifications you have obtained, the trainings and awards you have received through out your life? Your passions and interests: what are the industries and topics you are interested, what hobbies do you have and what passions do you possess? These will help in building your authenticity.

what are the industries and topics you are interested, what hobbies do you have and what passions do you possess? These will help in building your authenticity. Values and beliefs: Here you look up on what you believe in, your important core values, what you stand against and what you stand for. These are what influence you in your decisions.

Key activities for your brand foundation:

Once you’ve identified your brand foundation planning, the next step is to start bringing together the key activities of your brand foundation. These will help guide your decisions as you build your personal brand:

Brand vision: What do you want to be known for? If you became known as the world’s go-to expert on XYZ topic, what would that be?

Brand mission: Why do you want to build a personal brand? What is your purpose? Who do you want to influence? What do you want to accomplish?

Brand message: What is the key message you want to communicate? What message do you want to consistently reinforce in your content and in your marketing? If you could only give one piece of advice to your audience, what would it be?

Brand personality: What are some of your personal characteristics and traits that you can weave into your brand? Do you want to be perceived as very polished and professional, or perhaps more quirky and adventurous?

Step two: Target audience

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as you build a personal brand is trying to appeal to everyone. In reality, not everyone is your ideal client.

In order to attract your perfect clients, you must be willing to repel those who you do not want to work with.

This means identifying a specific target audience and building a brand that is attractive to them.It may seem counterintuitive, but if you try to be liked by everyone, you will attract no one. You must be polarizing in order to stand out. Not everyone that is exposed to you or sees your message will like you or resonate with you, and that is perfectly fine. You don’t need to reach everyone to build a successful business. You just need to reach your perfect clientsThe best way to define your ideal client is to create your client profile persona AKA client Avatar.

You can dig deep this person and know all his or her details focusing on these three areas.

Demographics : what is their age, gender, education, relationship status, income, profession, etc.?

: what is their age, gender, education, relationship status, income, profession, etc.? Desires and aspirations : what is their desired future? What are their dreams, goals, and aspirations?

: what is their desired future? What are their dreams, goals, and aspirations? Pain points and challenges: what are they struggling with? What is preventing them from achieving their goals?

Step three: Create a killer offer

In order to build a profitable personal brand, you need to have something to sell to your target audience. You need an irresistible offer that helps your audience solve a specific problem or achieve a specific result.

A lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of creating a product or service that they want, only to discover that no one else wants it or is willing to pay for it.

This is why identifying your perfect client before you create a product or service is so important. When you know exactly who you want to help, you can create an offer that is the perfect solution for them. Every person moves in these two sides either away from pain or towards pressure then you find out which direction is your client going. The answer to this will give you a clear perspective on what you have to offer to solve that specific problem.

How to create an offer your clients will love:

The first step to creating an irresistible offer is to position yourself as a specialist and not a generalist. Promise your clients a very specific outcome, and design a specialized offer to help them achieve that outcome. A generic offer with a vague promise is definitely not irresistible.

Next, find the overlap between what you love, what you do best and what your ideal clients want most. Then create an offer that sits at the intersection of these criteria. We call this the Irresistible Offer Formula.

Irresistible Offer Formula:

What you love to do + What you do best + What your audience wants most = Irresistible offer

Once you have an irresistible offer, you need to be able to articulate it clearly to your audience. Here are two questions that you need to be able to answer clearly and succinctly:

What do you do? Your answer to this question is your value proposition. What is the value that you provide to your clients in exchange for charging them?

How do you do it? Give your process, product, or service a unique name. When you give it a unique name, it immediately stands out from any competing.

Step four: Optimize your online presence

Having a personal website is an important component of building a personal brand. Having a strong presence on social media is important too, but you do not own or control any of the social platforms that you establish a presence on. Your website is a platform that you own and control, and in many cases, visiting your website will one of the steps your target audience takes towards becoming your client.

How to create an optimized website

Branding is key, regardless of your website’s focus. It doesn’t matter if you’re running a blog, an online store, or a service site – your brand will play a significant role in the way visitors perceive you, so it’s important to start developing it as soon as possible. That’s where a personal branding website comes into play.

With a powerful brand, people may begin to recognize your content simply by seeing your logo or your site’s other imagery. This kind of recognition is fantastic because it means that your audience knows and trusts you. As a result, you’re likely to have fewer problems attracting conversions.

In this part, we’re going to talk a little about what online branding is and the role your site plays in it. Then we’ll cover some tips for building a personal branding website . Let’s begin!

What an online brand is (and how your website plays a key role)

Your site’s logo, tagline, colors, and style are all pieces of its ‘brand’. In other words, your online brand is a combination of all the elements that people associate with your website and other presences (such as your social media profiles).

If you think about it, most popular websites have easily-recognizable branding.

Take this photo example.

We’re willing to bet you know exactly what service this icon represents, even without seeing it in context.

A powerful online brand can make your website more memorable and engaging, which is crucial for building an audience and driving conversions. Of course, branding alone is not enough – you’ll still need to create and publish engaging content if you want your personal branding website to succeed. If you pair both of those elements together, you’ll have a winning combo on your hands.

Five tips for creating an effective personal branding website

Branding, in most cases, is all about implementing a few key elements. In the next several sections, we’ll talk about what those elements are, and how to use them to develop an effective personal branding website.

1. Design a unique logo that reflects your brand

When it comes to online branding, your logo is the element that stands out most. A unique logo can set you apart from the competition and make your website and content easier to recognize. Not taking the time to create (or commission) one is a wasted branding opportunity.

The problem is that not everyone has the design chops to create a stylish logo. In some cases, hiring a designer to do this for you will be your best option. Of course, you’ll need a decent budget if you want a logo that doesn’t look like it was put together in five minutes.

Whether you decide to design a logo on your own or hire someone to do it, there are a few things you’ll need to keep in mind:

Your logo’s concept should reflect what your site is all about.It should be easy to read and/or understand quickly.It should include your brand colors (we’ll talk more about this element in a moment).

To play it safe, we recommend that you commission multiple logo variations, so you can weigh your options and choose the one that represents your brand perfectly. While you’re at it, you might also consider developing a tagline that describes what your brand is about, as this is an excellent complement to a strong logo.

2. Choose a color palette for your website

In some cases, users learn (usually subconsciously) to associate specific colors with a particular site. When you think about Facebook, for example, you can probably picture the exact shade of blue the company uses throughout its website and other materials.

That’s not a coincidence, either. That association forms because those sites make color a deliberate part of their branding strategy. To do the same, you’ll need to choose a color – or multiple hues – and incorporate them into as many elements of your site as you can.

Choosing a palette where each color complements the others can be tricky. However, using a color wheel can make the process significantly easier. For best results, you’ll want to stick with somewhere between one and three primary colors.

As for which elements to use your brand colors on, there are plenty to choose from, including:

Buttons and Calls To Action (CTAs)Navigation bars and footersDividers between sectionsFeatured images

Those are just a few places to start, of course. You can get pretty creative when it comes to incorporating your brand colors into your designs. Just keep in mind that consistency is critical, which brings us to the next section.

3. Keep your branding consistent throughout your website

For a personal branding website to work, it requires a high level of consistency. That is to say, your branding elements should appear throughout each page, and should look uniform.

To give you an example, you wouldn’t want to use two different logos within the same website, since that could easily lead to confusion. The same logic applies to all other aspects of your branding, from the colors you use, to which elements you apply those colors to.

This also means that if you use a particular color for CTAs on one page, it’s best to do the same on other relevant pages. The goal is for users to become acquainted with your brand’s core elements, so they’ll recognize them more easily over time.

4. Add social icons to your website

These days, just about every website needs a social media presence. Moreover, those social media accounts should also represent your online brand. That means using the same logo, colors, and tagline, as well as writing in the same style as your site’s content.

Keep in mind that you don’t need social media accounts on every platform, just those that are relevant to your audience. Then you’ll want to link those accounts to your website, and the best way to do that is by using social icons.

5. Create an “About Us” or “About Me” page

If you want people to connect with your online brand, they need to know what it’s all about and what you or your business stands for. The easiest way to share this information is by adding an “About Us” section or page to your website:

“About Us” pages don’t need to be overly complicated. In most cases, a few pictures of your team or headquarters alongside a brief introduction will do the trick. The idea is to give visitors enough information that they know you’re more than just a personal branding website, and there are real people behind the content you publish.

There are plenty of ways you can go about creating an About Us page in WordPress. Some themes include pre-built sections or pages that are perfect for these purposes, including several of our own. So you may want to check those out and see which one is a good fit for your site.

Step five: Create content strategy

Creating and distributing free content is one of the most effective ways to build your brand and earn the trust of your target audience. Instead of trying to convince your audience that you can help them, you create content that actually helps them. This builds trust and helps to position you as an expert and an authority in your industry.

There are several ways on how you can create and distribute your content to build your personal brand with content marketing.

Once you have a list of topics to create content on, the next step is to decide which type of content to create and where you will publish that content.

Common content types:

Text / articles

Videos

Podcasts

Webinars

Online courses

PDF guides, checklists, worksheets

Infographics

Slideshows

Case studies

Common content mediums:

Let’s look on it;

Write an Ebook

One of the best, fastest and most effective methods to build a personal brand with content is to author a book.

Writing a book shows off what you know about your industry and niche. Through your extensive writing, you have an opportunity to share valuable, personal insight, as well as your own voice and perspective.

Book authorship is a powerful form of content marketing. Publishing a book boosts your credibility, visibility, and authority, and can also help grow your community.

A book calls attention to you, since it’s an accomplishment that not many have achieved. Additionally, writing a book sets you apart as the person “who wrote the book” on a topic, which can make you the expert. It’s an excellent marketing tool, not just for building your personal brand, but also for attracting leads and clients.

Writing a book may seem overwhelming and out of reach, especially if you’re short on time or don’t consider yourself a good writer. Don’t worry, you have options - and you don’t need a book publisher.

If you have a lot of blog content, consider compiling your most popular posts into an eBook.

Are you a better speaker than writer? Use your slide notes from a previous presentation, or jot down notes about your topic. You can even record yourself talking into your computer or smartphone. Outsource the transcription, editing, and formatting of your recording so that it’s ready for online or print publishing.

2. Blog weekly

One of the best aspects of our digital world is that you have the ability to publish content with the greatest of ease.

By regularly blogging on relevant topics that interest your target audience, you build a community, and position yourself as an authority. Over time, this can help you become a trusted resource for information on your niche.

To build a personal brand with blogging, focus on topics that you know about, and which pertain to the audience you want to attract. Talk directly to your reader, and share personal stories, experiences, and anecdotes. Offer valuable information with the goal of educating, entertaining, and motivating your readers.

It’s important to publish consistently since it takes a long time for blogging to reap benefits, especially when it comes to search engine ranking, visibility, and authority. Writing only a few blog posts on your website won’t have the results that regular blogging offers.

What about blogging on other platforms? Having your own home base (aka your own website domain) is preferred when it comes to online real estate and blogging. You don’t want to build a house on rented property, however platforms such as Medium and LinkedIn offer content publishing and increase your chances of getting noticed.

But beware, you don’t own these sites, so if they go away or change their policies, your results could be negatively affected.

You should also consider guest blogging on authority and industry niche sites to reinforce your personal brand’s credibility and authority. Writing for these websites gives you access to their wide-reaching audiences and provides additional social proof.

3. Post consistently on social media

Whoever your target market is, it’s likely that they use social media. To stand out, and attract the attention of your ideal audience, post content that represents your personal brand’s values in a way that educates, entertains, or motivates people. This type of content should also maintain an informal vibe, which people prefer in their feeds. Your consistent effort with targeted content will entice the appropriate people to you and grow a community.

Pay attention to your goal of building a personal brand through your content. Since you’re packaging and marketing yourself as a brand, think of social media in those terms. Although you may shy away from being front and center, you're the CEO and leader of your own brand - so act like it through your content.

Don’t be afraid to publish posts or photos of your everyday life. Take advantage of the casual tone to publish more personal content, including your opinions and unique thoughts relative to your industry. These practices position you as a wise, but relatable thought leader and innovator in your niche.

4. Start a podcast

If you’re unsure about video, podcasting is a good alternative. You don’t have the pressure of showing your face on screen, which makes podcasting less unnerving, and people will still hear your voice on a podcast, which is almost as good as video when it comes to humanizing yourself and building trust.

5. Appear in Guest Interviews

There’s a reason celebrities appear on interview shows in tandem with their movie releases - it’s a way to promote their product in a more conversational manner. At the same time, it gives movie executives the chance to capitalize on their celebrity star power (aka their personal brand).

When you appear on people’s blogs, podcasts, and video shows, you’re gaining more reach and higher exposure for your personal brand. Interviews give you access to other people’s tribes, and introduce you to new audiences.

One of the biggest advantages is that you gain immediate influence and authority through association. In the process of being interviewed, you'll be viewed as a legitimate expert in your field by the interviewer’s community. In other words, there's a trust transference that occurs from the interviewer to you as result of the interview.

Interviews are also a networking opportunity. You foster relationships and increase rapport with industry colleagues and leaders, which further promotes your personal brand.

Final thoughts on content marketing : You can also publish your content on other sites like Quora, reddit, slides are and many more.

Step six: Build your tribe

Instead of trying to build a large and broad audience, shift your focus to becoming a leader of a community in a specific niche. Define your target audience, and build a community for them to interact with each other, share ideas, support each other, and reach out to you directly.

Here are a few ways you can build a community around your brand and business:

Facebook Groups: Create a private Facebook Group for your audience and/or clients. This will give you the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations with your audience on a daily basis, and just as importantly, give them an environment in which they can interact with and support each other.

Live Events: Host live events so your audience and/or clients can spend time with you in-person. Casual meetups, private dinners, workshops, retreats, and mastermind groups are all great ways to solidify long-term relationships with your audience.

Membership Sites: Create a membership site where in exchange for a nominal monthly fee, your clients can have access to exclusive content, live calls and/or webinars with you on a regular basis, and the ability to interact with each other via a members-only forum or group.

Step seven: Build your Brand

There has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur. Thanks to the internet and technology, the barriers to entry to entrepreneurship are practically non-existent. Anyone can build a brand and an audience online, and create products and services to sell to their audience.

As a freelancer or entrepreneur, you have competitors. As a personal brand, however, you don’t. When you build a personal brand, there is no real competition. Sure, there might be other people and companies selling similar products and services as you, but they are not you. In fact, there is no other person in the world that is exactly like you. As an individual, you are 100% unique.

This is why building a personal brand is so powerful. When you build a personal brand, you immediately differentiate yourself from your competitors because YOU are different than your competitors.

Final thoughts

Building a personal brand is an ongoing process that you do every single day. Crafting your brand can be so tough to make yourself visible. What you can do is to find a big brand whom which you admire and copy what’s working for them and applying it on your brand. That’s a sure short wat to the road of your success.