What's up brand builders! Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in
this video you're going to learn about personal branding
and personal brand strategy so you can manage the perceptions
that is your personal brand and develop an asset
that will open doors for years to come.
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands through strategy
psychology and creative thinking then you're in the right
place hit that subscribe button and the notification bell and you'll be well on
your way now the old saying goes brand or be branded
and your personal brand is actually an
asset that you can develop now whether you know it or not whether
you realize it or not you actually have a personal brand at the moment so with
your friends you have a brand with your acquaintances
you have a brand maybe even with your exes
you have a brand but essentially your brand is your reputation
so if you understand that your brand is your reputation
and you know that that is a reputation that you can manage
well then when it comes to your personal brand you can actually develop an
asset that will facilitate your success for years to come
so in this video I'm going to give you an eight-step process that you can use
to build your personal brand that can shape perceptions
and open some doors step number one determine your goals
now this is going to be different for everybody maybe you're in your 40s
and you've developed a business brand and you want a personal brand
to help you build that business brand or maybe you're in your early 20s and
you're starting out in your career and you want to build a
personal brand that can help you open doors in your 20s and your 30s and
later on in your 40s it really depends on the individual but for you yourself
you need to know what your goals are what is it that
you're trying to achieve when are you trying to achieve it by if you have
clarity in the goals that you want to achieve well then that will facilitate
how you develop your brand now the beauty about a
personal brand is that your goals can change anything that
you decide that you want to achieve now can change you might achieve your goals
in five years time or ten years time and then pivot
and decide that you want to do something different that is the beauty of a
personal brand it is flexible but it is really important that you have
some goals starting out so you have that clarity and direction
step number two uncover your audience now you do this in a very similar way
to the way you would uncover your audience for a business brand but
it's a little bit different with your personal brand you're not necessarily
uncovering who your audience is for a product or a service what you're trying
to do is you're trying to determine exactly
who you want to help who is it that you want to add value to
what are those people's lives like and what problems do they have
if you understand what your goals are and why you want to build a personal
brand then that will help you to uncover who it is that you're trying to help who
it is that you're trying to add value to step number three analyse your peers now
in business branding this section is all about analysing who your competitors are
these are your direct competitors your indirect
competitors those who would take your would-be customers away from
you but when it comes to personal branding you
need to look at this differently these are your
peers now these people might already be helping the people
that you want to help but that doesn't mean that they are your direct
competitors or your indirect competitors when it
comes to building a personal brand it's all about relationships
and if you're able to build relationships with those would-be peers
who would otherwise be seen as your competitors then that can facilitate the
growth of your own brand so the advantage here
is that you're building relationships your
extending your network and that association
with these other influencers with these other people who are helping
those who you want to help is good for your brand it elevates your brand it
elevates your personal brand profile step number
four define your difference now within business
branding your differentiation strategy is the reason that you would give your
audience to choose your brand over your competitors brand but again when it
comes to personal branding it's a little bit different your
differentiation strategy is all about why your audience would listen to you
that doesn't mean that they need to listen to you
instead of other people it's just giving them a
reason that they would listen to you and this is all about how you deliver your
content what is your unique perspective your unique
personality your unique voice and this is your
differentiation strategy as a personal brand your unique voice
how is it that you deliver content how you deliver your unique perspective
if you just go out there and blurt out the same thing that
everybody else is blurting out then there's nothing unique
about you and you really need to take the time with this when you
define a differentiation strategy for a business brand you find something
that is unique and you go out and develop your message
around that unique point but when it comes to defining your own
differentiation strategy as a personal brand that takes a little
bit of work you really need to work on yourself you need to find your own
perspective you need to find your own personal opinion within your
marketplace and you need to develop your personality you need to
take time to develop out that personality and be
confident being you so this step is all about defining why your
audience would listen to you and that is all about finding
your unique voice and your unique perspective step number five
identify attributes and lean in now when it comes to business branding
personality is big and it's becoming even bigger and
there's a reason for this and that is the understanding now from
business brands that people do business with people they
relate to other people through human characteristics and they relate to
brands now through human characteristics consumers
are demanding more from brands to speak to them like a
human so that's why you're seeing business brands now evolve
into these brand personas and human entities but
when it comes to your own personal brand your brand personality is not something
that you create out of thin air you're not trying to create something that's
not there because that's inauthentic and you really don't
want to be inauthentic today people can spot bs a mile away so you
really need to work on being yourself so this really is
about developing out your own personality and really taking
the time to be more comfortable with who you are
and the attributes that you have so you need to define the attributes
that you see within yourself that will appeal to who you're trying to help
and then lean into those attributes and develop those attributes out
and be more comfortable delivering those attributes
step number six work towards being your most authentic self
now this is a big one brand personality and
brand authenticity is becoming more and more important because
we don't like phonies and fakes and people who put on a facade we don't like
it on a day-to-day basis with the people
that we meet and we don't like it within business or within brands either we
relate to people and we gravitate towards people
who are themselves who really show themselves and
show their true authentic side so if you're able to show that you're a real
person then you will be more relatable people will
gravitate towards you more now this again takes a little bit of work
like everything in personal branding it takes a bit of work being more
comfortable with who you are because it's yourself that you need to give
to other people you're not trying to create something that's not there
you're really trying to be more comfortable with who you are
and then delivering that in an authentic way so
as I said this does take a little bit of time and
you know you give more and more of yourself over time you don't just
go and give 100 percent of yourself straight away so even
today if you think about if you have a boss you will be
maybe 60 to 70 percent authentic with your boss but when it comes to your best
friend maybe you're 99 percent authentic so there is a level of
authenticity and you need to find the right balance
for you and that's only going to come with time you're going to start off
with a lower percentage of authenticity the more confidence and conviction you
build the more that will start to clock up and
you need to find a balance of where the right level of authenticity is
for your personal brand so your audience can feel who you are
and they can relate to who you are step number seven give value so
this step as I said it's all about giving value so forget here
about sales techniques and marketing funnels and calls to action
Gary V wrote a book called Jab Jab Jab Right Hook and that's about the idea
that you give give give and then you ask but this step is all
about giving it's not about asking it's not about calls to action it's not about
saying hey DM me for this if you want to build
your personal brand then you will do that by people seeing you
being valuable so go into your marketplace go onto social media go on
to those groups where these people that you've
identified are that you want to help and start giving value start helping
them comment on their posts tell them how you can help them give
them strategies of what they can use and really go out
there and give your experience and give value so this step
is really all about those jobs it's all about jab jab jab jab forget about the
right hook forget about the ask forget about the DM just
go out and help people so deliver value comment like share and give value as
well through articles through videos through social
media posts interesting carousels really take the
time to understand what it is that these people
that you want to help need understand their problems and go
out and help them with those problems and step number eight collaborate with
your peers now this is truly unique to the personal branding
side of things you're not doing this on the business brand side of things you
don't take a list of your competitors and then start reaching out to the ceos
and developing those relationships at least on a
general basis that's not what happens but when it comes to
personal brands that is exactly what you want to do you want to take a
list of all of those people and start getting to know them now this
does not mean you take a list of those people
and you start cold emailing them and reaching out and saying do you want to
be friends or do you want to collaborate no this is all about
identifying who they are identifying their social channels
and looking for their content commenting liking
sharing their content and over time what will happen is they will see your name
time and again they might even start to engage with you on the comments on their
posts and they will start to feel like they know who you
who you are now they might not have ever met you but
when your name comes up they will know who you are you will
start to build that reputation and as I said your reputation
is your brand so take the time to develop out
these individual relationships and when the time comes for an opportunity to
collaborate you won't be a cold lead you won't be a
cold person they won't be seeing you for the first time they'll feel that they
know who you are and they'll feel that element of
trust and they will be far more likely to do business with you now the best
time to start a personal brand was last year the second best time to
start a personal brand is right now and if you are thinking
about starting a personal brand if you were thinking about building a personal
brand for yourself then know this your personal brand
already exists it's a question of whether or not you're going to take the
time to develop it and nurture it into an asset that's
valuable so if you are well then follow these eight steps
really take the time to identify what it is that you want to achieve who
it is that you want to help how you're going to be different how
you're going to engage and how you're going to go out there and create value
if you really take a strategic approach to building your brand
then you can develop an asset that will open doors
for years to come but I'd love to hear from you about your experiences
when it comes to personal branding have you taken the time to start your brand
last year and have you developed into something valuable
are you starting your personal brand right now and then you're coming across
some challenges or some difficulties if you do have any questions at all let me
know in the comments below I'll do my best to answer all of those
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would love to hand it back over to you now I would love to hear from you
about your challenges about your experiences as I said I'll do my best to
answer all of those until next time brand like a master and
I will see you in the next video!