The 3 R’s of Personal Branding
If you don’t know what you want to be well known, well paid and wanted for, you are wasting your time and money on marketing.
There are 3 vital factors to build a personal brand first, so you can promote you and your services the right way.
These are the 3 R’s of Personal Branding.
Recognition, Reputation and Respect:
- Recognition:
Becoming recognised as the go-to specialist in your niche, makes it simple to naturally attract the right clients without having to convince anyone. Your personal brand is more than just being recognised in the street, it’s about the brand personality and brand culture you infuse into everything you do. Strong personal brands like Richard Branson who once said “I’ll try anything once” has a reputation as Mr Yes. His brand is positive, innovative, risk taking. He attracts entrepreneurs who admire and uphold these brand values for themselves. The human brain likes what it knows and having a consistent personal brand is vital to generate a recognised and trusted brand, especially in a very cluttered space. In the 1970’s the human brain was being exposed to about 500 branded images each day, that’s closer to 5,000 today, so you need to be instantly recognised to even be seen.
Tip #1: Decide today, what do you want to be instantly known and recognised for?
- Reputation:
Jeff Bezos of Amazon once said “your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room”. When it comes to providing a professional service, reputation is everything. It sets you apart and defines the kind of referrals you get.Word of mouth is your best form of marketing, because it’s free, 3rd party endorsement that lasts forever and spreads like wildfire, so you need to be clear about what you want people to say about you. The human brain loves a story, it’s the most natural way to to share information, knowing the story will be retained and retold to others. What is your brand story? What is the start, middle and end? What lesson do you want people to learn from it?
Tip# 2: When you think about what you’d like to be wanted for, what comes to mind first?
- Respect:
A personal brand sets your ‘trust currency’ because the level of respect people have for your expertise correlates directly with how much they are prepared to pay for your services.We are living in the age of the authentic brand and you must deliver what you promise, in fact over delivering is even better!Writing books, sharing podcasts and video blogging are all helpful ways to earn respect, however the #1 thing you can do is follow the lead of strong personal brands like Gary Vaynerchuk who are constantly giving. Consciously give your advice, tips, tools to others, speak at events, post helpful comments in Facebook groups, share action steps in LinkedIn articles, post how do videos on YouTube.
Tip#3: What really valuable tools, action steps or cheat sheets could you give away?
The biggest mistake professional service providers make when they think about personal branding, is that they should focus on promoting themselves, rather than promoting the transformation they deliver for their clients.
Let’s get 100% clear, personal branding is not about how much you know, it’s about how much you know about your ideal prospect.
The most important topic your ideal clients want to know about – is how can you help them.
The brain interacts with brands using memory and emotion. What emotion does your brand generate?
The human brain, albeit a complex mechanism, really does want things simple. The confused mind will not buy, so make it easy for your prospects to engage with your brand and give them an emotional reason why they should choose you.
How do you want people to feel once they’ve interacted with your brand?