Midlife Matters Thought Leader: Julie DeLucca-Collins
When someone thinks of you or your business, what is the first thought that runs through their mind?
Without a personal brand, the results will vary from person to person. Fortunately, you can influence how others will view you and your business through proper personal branding. Today, I will explain what personal branding is, why it is important, and how to create and use one.
“It is what you put out there for the world to see, recognize, engage with, and gain customers.”
What is Personal Branding?
Personal branding is how you present yourself to the world. It is an avenue for networking and communicating your values and goals with others, especially potential customers. It is what you put out there for the world to see, recognize, engage with, and gain customers.
The Importance Of Personal Branding:
In today’s world of constant media interaction, potential customers trust brands that they can recognize, engage with, respect, and commit themselves to.
Creating a personal brand allows you to highlight your strengths and passions, demonstrating the side of you that you want potential customers to connect with. Putting out specific information prevents misunderstandings about who you are and what you represent.
Now, I want to caution that personal branding doesn’t mean turning yourself into a god. Honest and natural personal branding that builds trust and a solid reputation with an audience is built on you, from your life story to your skills, from your successes to your failures. A genuine, personal brand demonstrates your beliefs, quirks, and attitude. People trust real-life people, not caked on makeup or golden individuals with no flaws. They want to know that you have failed but that it hasn’t stopped you.
“Before you begin building your personal brand, you need to develop a business plan.”
Determine Your Personal Brand:
Determining your brand starts with self-reflection. Your brand should encompass your skills, passion, and expertise in what you are trying to sell. For example, if you were selling jet skis for a living, you wouldn’t have a blog on cake baking or only post photos of your cats. No! You would run a blog about jet skiing, post pictures of jet skiing tricks, etc.
Before you begin building your personal brand, you need to develop a business plan. You should have a firm understanding of your business goals, customer demographics, products/services, and the nitty-gritty details of entrepreneurship.
After you have that laid out, ask yourself this question, “How do I want to be remembered?” You can establish your core values, write a mission statement, and begin refining your brand through your answer.
Refine Your Brand:
When it comes to personal branding, consistency is critical. Frequently changing it up only confuses your audience and negatively affects your chances of creating a lasting bond with a potential client. Therefore, to refine your brand, you must establish a unifying theme.
“When it comes to personal branding, consistency is critical. “
Your theme will include your brand colors, fonts, and style. This theme should be pleasing to look at, memorable, and be easy to replicate across all platforms, including your logo, website, social media, business cards, and product.
Remember, you need to be unique. Obviously, people don’t have rights to colors, but you never want to copy someone else’s branding. Yes, you can take inspiration, but you must develop your unique style to present.
Utilize Your Brand:
Once you have your branding in place, it is time to share it with the world. I recommend establishing a marketing plan that allows you to tackle your platforms of choice in a consistent and well-thought-out manner.
Where you share your brand should be where your audience most frequents. It could be social media like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or Reddit. It could also be television, radio, podcasts, or even old-school newspapers. Whatever it is, conducting market research and developing a plan of action first will provide the highest yield results.
“Customers see through false pretenses, so I advise that you choose wisely in your personal branding because it needs to be genuine. “
Consistency Is Everything!
There is one more hint to personal branding that I want to share with you today; consistency is everything! Your personal brand is not just a nine to five idea; it is a concept that you should saturate into every aspect of your life, personal and professional.
For example, if you are a health professional who coaches people on proper eating habits, you wouldn’t want to post Instagram stories of you binging on cupcakes every Saturday! Customers see through false pretenses, so I advise that you choose wisely in your personal branding because it needs to be genuine.
Resource Available:
Would you like a help in defining your personal brand and learning how to communicate it to the world in order to support your professional, and personal goals? If you are nodding your head yes, I encourage you to download my FREE ebook on Personal Branding today.
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About the Author:
Julie DeLucca-Collins is the Founder and CEO of Go Confidently Services and the host of the popular Casa DeConfidence Podcast®. As a Business and Life Strategist Coach, Julie helps women business owners launch or grow their businesses, get clients, be productive, and achieve their dreams. Julie helps her clients create simple habits to achieve goals and change lives. Julie is also the best-selling author of the newly released book Confident You (simple habits to live the life you’ve imagined). She is certified as a CBT and Holistic Coach. This past summer, she was honored to complete her certification as a Tiny Habits Coach under Dr. BJ Fogg the founder of the Behavioral Lab at Stamford University and the author of the book Tiny Habits.
