Today we’re going over creating a personal brand. This is so important for every solo entrepreneur, creative business owner out there because we’re not a corporation. We are typically one person. Maybe you have a team of a few people that you hire on to do some work, but we’re not an industry, we’re not a corporation. I can bet you whatever industry you’re in, whether you’re a photographer, wedding planner, designer, any industry that you’re in, that it’s a saturated one and that you are vying for people’s attention. We want to have an understanding your personal brand and how to define yours

There may not be many things that set apart your service from the next person’s service, from the next person’s service, but one thing that can set you apart and define you is yourself, your personal brand. Now let me clarify something. Your personal brand is not about selling. It’s an extension of yourself. It should reflect who you really are.

Understanding Your Personal Brand and How to Define Yours

I created a worksheet that takes you step-by-step how to start building a personal brand and defining your brand personality. The way that I like to start this off, if you have no idea where to start, you’re like, “I don’t know. Who am I? What’s my personality?” So the way that I like to start is just thinking about if you were at a cocktail party. I like to decide, “Where would you be? Would you be on the bar, you know sitting there maybe talking with the bartender sipping on a drink? Are you on the dance floor like the life of the party in like a slinky little black dress?” I want you to start creating a very vivid picture in as much detail as you can think of. If you’re sitting at the bar, what are you drinking? What are you ordering? How many drinks are you going to have? How are you getting home? Are you taking a taxi? Are you driving? Are you somebody else’s designated driver? I want you to create this entire scene and night as this whole because that’s really one way to start defining who you are. Are you more of an introvert or more of an extrovert? That’s the first part of just getting to define your personal brand, and knowing more about yourself, and how you want to present yourself.

Connection Points

The next point, which I love, I used to just call these “things,” but I was actually listening to Jenna Kutcher’s podcast, and she called them “connection points.” I think that’s a phenomenal name for these little tidbits about yourself that are reoccurring. So for Jenna Kutcher, they may be like mac and cheese and the Kutcher condo. For me, it’s my daughter, and family, and margaritas, and I’m obsessed with cows, and I came from the country. These are ways that we connect with our audience, and we humanize ourselves because like I said, personal branding is not about selling this is how we take somebody who may be just following you on Instagram, maybe just liking your Facebook page because they saw a blog post. It’s a way to start connecting with them on a deeper level. So that’s kind of part two. If you grab that free download that I put the link in, this kind of takes you step-by-step of everything that I’m laying out here.

[Tweet “personal branding is not about selling. – @carrylovedesigns”]

Story Telling

The third part is taking those connection points and putting a story behind them. One thing that makes Jenna Kutcher, or Jasmine Star, or one of those prominent industry leaders, very noticeable is because they tell the same stories over and over again in different ways. You’ll see the same reoccurring themes show up, especially like on Instagram. So we can start to take those connection points and integrate stories into our brand using those connection points. So you can see we’re kind of layering one on top of another. We’re starting off at a cocktail party. We’re getting to know ourselves and our brand and how we want to be presented. Then we’re adding in those connection points. It’s stuff that we maybe use on a daily basis or go to on a regular basis. Just reoccurring themes in our life.

Lastly, we’re taking those connection points, those reoccurring themes, and we’re turning them into stories. Stories are what really connects us as human beings. Stories are something that we remember. Stories are something that our brains just like. We want to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So using these three points, we can start to define and create a personal brand that’s going to connect with our audience. Grab that free worksheet to begin working through your personal brand. After that, your next step would be to start identifying your ideal client, and finding and connecting to your ideal client, and then creating a brand voice.

Grab the Personal Branding Worksheet and start working through your personal brand so that you can connect with your audience and they can be a loyal tribe to you.