Because your personal brand is built from the thoughts and words and reactions of other people, it’s shaped by how you present yourself publicly. This is something that you have control over. You can decide how you would like people to see you and then work on publicly being that image.
You should plan your personal brand based on your aims. If you want to sell an expensive course in watercolor painting you’ll need to be seen as someone with the authority to teach others on the topic. If you want to get work for high-end design clients you’ll need to be seen as a runaway talent with a professional attitude. Two useful springboard questions are:
- How would you like potential customers/clients to think of you?
- How can you publicly ‘be’ that brand?
The second question is an important one, but a tricky one. Your personal brand is composed of your public actions and output in three main areas:
1. What you’re ‘about’. Seth Godin is about telling stories, being remarkable. Leo Babauta is about simplicity and habit forming. Jonathan Fields is about finding ways to build a career out of what you love doing. Think about the key ideas you would want people to associate with you.
2. Expertise. Every good brand involves the notion of expertise. Nike brand themselves as experts in creating quality and fashionable sportswear. Jeremy Clarkson (host of Top Gear) is an expert on cars. Even if you’re not interested in marketing your advice you need to create the perception that you are very good at what you do.
3. Your style. This is not so much what you communicate about yourself, but rather, how you do it. Are you kind and unusually enthusiastic, like Collis Taeed? Are you witty and raw, like Naomi Dunford? Are you confident and crusading, like Michael Arrington? Hopefully you’re none of these, or at least, not in the same way. Your style of delivery should be as unique as any other aspect of your personal brand. This doesn’t mean you need to sit down and brainstorm how to be different. If you don’t actively imitate anyone else, it will happen naturally.
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