Learn these lessons before you start building a personal brand

5 lessons I learned the hard way on my way to start building a personal brand

Photo by Kristian Egelund on Unsplash

I started as a blogger, then consulted clients for SEO, practiced digital marketing concepts & served clients with that too. I wanted more.

I wanted to be known for the work I do, hence I picked up building a personal brand around my work as my life mission.

I wanted to sure that whatever I sell doesn’t have to be dependant on a marketing platform to reach my target audience. I wanted to be that platform itself, hence the personal brand.

Fusing a thing or two I know about digital marketing with what I observed & learned from the existing personal brand in the market, I derived with the lessons I’m about to share in this post.

If you’re someone who wants to build a personal brand online and have no idea of what, to begin with, this post is for you.

Let’s dive in right away.

#5 Get the brand fundamentals right

A personal brand is built on the basis of three pillars the product you want to sell, the personal thoughts around the niche you’re in (this is to educate & make the target audience aware of the product) & the company values that people will connect & resonate with.

If you’re building the brand from scratch, do not proceed without finalizing these three things. I have failed in my starting days when I straight away got into blogging without figuring what am I going to sell.

This led to spending a lot of time blogging towards infinite space. Since I had no clue who to target, I couldn’t monetize the blog effectively.

Though it wasn’t a personal brand, a blog is a brand in disguise. Especially when you’re just starting out.

1. Product: Release the first version of the product as soon as possible. Don’t get trapped into analyzing paralysis. Find the most lucrative things you can package in a product your target audience would pay for. You can always update it later.
2. Personal thoughts: People won’t magically show up at your door for buying things from you. You have to drive them through the funnel. Share your personal thoughts on marketing channels that trigger people into checking out what you have to offer. For example, I put out content on LinkedIn so that they visit my profile & connect with me or check out my newsletter.
3. Company values: Even if you’re not a registered company, you should have values to live by. These values will be the foundation stone for your personal brand. Values will ensure the right people resonate with your brand & stick with your brand for a long period of their life.

#4 Have a mission & vision

The mission is why you do something, on the other hand, vision is who you do it for.

Google is on a mission to organize the world information for the people who use the internet to find the solution(s) to their problems.

Similarly, you should have a mission that helps you keep track of your progress. Mission ensure that you don’t defocus & stay on track.

As easy as it sounds, a mission statement isn’t straight & easy enough. You will be faced with a lot of statements that sound like a mission to you, but it won’t be that.

If you think you have a clear mission right from the beginning, chances are you’re mistaken, but that’s okay. Begin with whatever you have, it will refine more and more with time.

Have a mission statement in 3 words. I specify 3 words because if you can’t pronounce it in 3 words, you’ve not understood it right yourself. 3 words are point-blank mission. See Google’s for example, “Organize”, “World”, “Information”

There’s no way the company can defocus from its mission with this level of simplicity in the mission statement.

#3 Don’t sell the story, sell the hero

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai, Richard Branson, you name it. These people are icons in the business world & they’ve proved that if there’s something that sells more than the story, it’s the hero of the story.

We of all generations have seen Steve Jobs revolutionize the smartphone industry forever. Most people are still buying an iPhone remembering the legacy of Steve Jobs.

If you’re a cricket fan, you’d be aware of legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Sir Viv Richards, Allan Border, Ion Bishop. These players are the reason why so many youngsters are getting into the sport.

I was shocked to see Elon Musk adding a couple of billion dollars to his net worth after 200k people pre-booked the cyber truck soon after it’s launch. Moreover, he even sells tequila under tesla’s brand, & the beauty is, people actually buy it.

That’s what selling the hero does to your brand. The story is fine, people forget the story because there are a ton of storytellers. But people remember the hero of the story.

Remember to declare a hero of the stories you tell people when having their attention. That’s on you to decide who the hero will be.

#2 Show your face & connect

I was never a camera persona. Though I’m a photographer by hobby, I’ve never felt comfortable in front of the camera. Maybe being behind the camera for all these years has led to this.

But I had to get used to the camera or get extinct. It took me a year to get comfortable but now I think I’m way more comfortable than I was a year ago, slowly but surely, I’m producing video content for my brand.

Video content is not only the future of content marketing, it’s the new way people trust creators. You can very well hide your face in a podcast, but if you want people to connect & trust you, video is the way. Take your time, but don’t ignore the video format as a mode of marketing your ideas & your personal brand.

I’m not even talking about useful YouTube is for brands. It’s the second largest search engine & still fresh enough to support creators find new users on the platform.

You just can’t ignore the format. If you’re not comfortable like me, practice getting comfortable by sharing reels on Instagram or TikTok videos (If the platform isn’t banned in your country)

I’m doing exactly that & I feel more comfortable with it, with every video I publish.

#1 Build credibility, get visibility & be approachable/accessible

This is the most priceless lesson I’ve learned while building a personal brand. The whole point of building a personal brand lies in the credibility you have. You technically don’t have a personal brand if you don’t have credibility.

Somehow you can have influence, which I’m yet to come across. Like having 10k followers isn’t influence (this is what many people think, that’s why run behind followers & hence indulge in follow-for-follow strategy)

Credibility is when you have 10 followers & most of them take action on what you say. This credibility doesn’t come easy. It’s the ultimate thing you can acquire as a personal brand.

Once you have that credibility, you can then focus on maintaining that credibility. Credibility is why people look up to you, is it because you’re an expert? You’ve accomplished something people can only dream of doing.

So how can you build credibility?

1. Get media & press to genuinely feature you. Not by influencing a friend who knows a friend who knows a friend into giving you free press.
2. Speaking at events is a very easy way to get people to pay attention to you. Hundreds of people are readily available to consume what you have to offer. If you can’t speak at event, speak live on IGTV or create YouTube videos on topics that you & your target audience care of.
3. Create content that speaks out loud about your credibility. In fact, content is exactly what decides your credibility. It goes in front of people & speaks for itself.
4. Don’t get trapped in metrics like follows, subscribers or likes. The real decider metric is when your audience takes action on your work. If a million people follow you & no one takes action on what you say, are you even credible to have those million followers? What good those million follows do to you?

TL;DR: Final thoughts

So that is it for this one. If you’re working your a** off to get noticed online & not paying attention to branding (if you’re a startup) or personal branding (if you’re an individual) you’re missing out on a lot.

I want you think of personal branding as your own personal community. It’s what people will know you for. I’m creating content around two things, blogging, personal branding & photography.

Years from now I want people to look up to me for these three things. I want to coach people around these niche, doesn’t matter profitable or not, I have the purpose set (the mission I talked about, remember?) & that’s what’s I’m serving.

Find that for yourself. If you need help figuring out, I’m there for you. Reach out to me on Instagram or Twitter. I’m super active on those two platforms.

I’m also, writing free newsletters & you can find it here. I’m sharing daily-ish posts around digital marketing & personal branding.

Hope you’re doing good, & I’ll see you around in the next one.