[00:00:00] Foreign and welcome back to Confessions in the Home Office. I'm Wendy Hill and each week I bring a podcast episode to you about marketing or working from home or sometimes we have great guests other business owners on. But today you just get me. And today we're going to talk about a topic that might be the missing piece of your growth strategy, and that's personal branding. So whether you've been out working for a while or you're just getting started working or you're just getting started as a business owner, personal brand is key to standing out and attracting the right opportunities. So by the end of this episode, you're going to know more about what personal branding is, why it matters, how to strengthen your personal brand, how to get past branding challenges because you will run into some and practical steps that you can take starting this week. So. So it's not something you have to really wait on. You can take action now. So first, what is personal branding? I want you to think about personal branding as your professional reputation, how people perceive you, what they think that you do, what's associated with your name and why they trust you. It's not just a logo. It's not just a catchy tagline. It's not just a cute or really bold website. It's the story you tell about yourself and the value that you bring to others. If you've been going on just word of mouth or your company's brand to do the heavy lifting, you might be missing out. And I will say I relied on word of mouth for a really long time with my business. Do I think that it slowed things down? Yes, I'm sure it did. Was it I. Was I at a point in my life where I could really take on a ton more work? Probably not. But I do feel like I missed some things by not focusing on this. So I want you to realize that people connect with people. People want to see people. If you are on social media and you're also always posting stock shots, just static shots, pictures of your location, and then you post pictures of the people who are in your business or you post a picture of yourself doing something, you will see engagement on that, go through the roof. So people want to see you. Customers, partners and industry peers. They want to know about you. People are naturally nosy, but that's a good thing with us. They want to know what you stand for, what you to the table and how you can help them. So I want you to take a minute to think. If someone googled your name right now, what would they find? And if Your answer is they really wouldn't find much or it's just some outdated things. I just haven't had time to do anything. Then it's time to take control of the narrative and let's work on personal branding. So why does it matter for growth?
[00:02:42] So if networking feels awkward and attracting new clients seems hard, either because of the economy or you're just not great at networking, or it's just hard, believe me, going out and digging up new business is necessary. It's not always fun, but personal branding can help you build trust and authority in your industry.
[00:03:04] It can create recognizable and consistent presence offline and online.
[00:03:09] You, you will start to attract opportunities naturally over time, such as clients, speaking engagements, partnerships, people that you know, whether friends or colleagues, they'll think of you when an opportunity comes up.
[00:03:22] So you definitely want to be out there so people will remember you and know what you're doing. And it also helps you differentiate yourself from others who offer similar services. Like in marketing, there are a ton of us out there, so I definitely have to make sure that I stand out and that people remember that I'm out there and what I do and what I don't do.
[00:03:42] So we see it all the time. There'll be someone in your industry that's always in the latest magazine, business magazine or industry publication. They always have a press release out about them. There's always a magazine article. They've always had a speaking engagement. And you think, how do they have time to do that? But a good trickload content is where you want to be and you don't want it to take over your life. So I'm going to talk to you about how you can do this. This doesn't need to be something that you work on all the time, but you do need to work on it consistently. So here are the steps to strengthen your personal brand. If you want to know how to build it, here's a few things you can do pretty quickly. I want you to define your unique value proposition. What makes you different? What expertise and insights do you have that others may not? I want you to write this down in a single sentence and use it as your guide. Grab a pen right now. Grab a piece of paper. What makes you different? What expertise and insights do you have that others don't? Write it down. It doesn't have to be a complete sentence. It doesn't have to be perfect, just a phrase. And then I want you to look at your online presence. This could take a little bit longer, but I want you to look at LinkedIn I want you to look at your website, I want you to look at any type of social media that you have. Does it reflect your expertise and showcase your work? Maybe you need a business social media and maybe you need a personal social media because you do things that are completely opposite from each other. But for your personal branding for business and how you want to make money, you need to make sure that everything on there is consistent, that you have a good bio, that it says what you do, that you have a good profile picture and content that aligns with your message. Let me say something about profile pictures, your business profile picture, unless you're a travel agent or something like that, or a travel blogger, needs to be a good professional headshot. That way people know what you look like. If they're going to interview you, if you're going to be a guest on a podcast, if they're going to bring you in for a job interview, if they want you to speak, they need to know what you look at, look like. You don't need to be on the far end of an island waving with a drink in your hand. So those, those pictures are fun. Those can go on your personal site, but not for your personal branding for your business.
[00:06:06] So I want you to think about how you're going to create and share valuable content. Do you have an article that you could share on LinkedIn? Have you been interviewed on a podcast? Is there a video that you've been in? Have you written something? Have you published an article? Do you have a press release about something you've done? Do you have a blog that focuses on what you do, you can share that you need to share a couple times a month? This isn't something where you say, I'm going to work on my branding every day, all day, and let it consume you don't want it to consume you because you'll burn out from it. If you're on Instagram, you need something like a link tree, something similar where you can showcase all types of things. A website, services, a product, how to contact you if you want to speak, how people can get in touch with you, all types of things like that.
[00:06:59] You may want to consider having a YouTube channel and the thought of that may scare you. It. It used to scare me, I guess some days it probably still does that I'm out on YouTube. But you will be shocked how many times those results will start to show up when people search for you or search for your business.
[00:07:18] It can really help you to be found faster. So I would definitely look into that and I want you to start engaging and networking with intention. Some people just get on LinkedIn and start firing out connection requests and hitting people up for random things without looking, without looking through their profile. I would rather you connect with less and understand what they do and see if they could be a potential.
[00:07:42] There could be a potential work relationship there. Then just Bombard people with 25 or 50 requests a day. You can also go out and comment on industry discussions, articles, people post, that type of thing. But I want you to be consistent. If you said, hey, how often should I be working on this? I would say to start 15 minutes a couple times a week. Don't overwhelm yourself. Don't make a huge list at first of everything you have to do because you might just go into paralysis mode and not do anything. But maybe make a list of a couple things and start checking them off. And next thing you know, in a couple of months you will have made a huge difference.
[00:08:25] So let's talk about some challenges because you may have some. When you're working on personal branding, you might feel like you're being self promotional, like I'm bragging on myself. I don't want to be a professional back powder and I go through this a lot. But I want you to think about this. Who else is gonna do this for you unless you have your own publicist who's gonna take care of it? Who else is gonna talk about what you're doing? Don't sit in your office, don't sit in your house. If you work from home and wait for somebody to knock on the door or just to call you. You need to let people know what you're doing so you're helping others by sharing your expertise. If they're looking for someone who does what you do, then they'll know how to find you. And again, you're not being a back patter. If you consistently putting out a trickle of content and shaping things up on your profiles. Let's say you don't know what to share. I want you to start small, like a lesson learned. Forward an article about industry trends.
[00:09:22] Keep a running list. You'll be amazed where you'll think of things or you'll see something that somebody else is posting, maybe even a different industry and you'll think, I need to find something like that or I need to write a quick post about that. Just keep a note on your phone and just go through there when you can't think of anything to post. Like I said, 15 minutes a couple of times a week is all it really takes. And if you say, well, I don't have time to work on that several days a week, we'll spend 45 minutes on a Sunday and do it then.
[00:09:51] And then you may fear people saying things back to you or criticizing you. Don't worry about it. You're probably going to get some haters too. Don't worry about it. Just engage with their feedback professionally and use it. And think about, can I refine my message or are they just completely out in lost field? Don't fight online. Just don't. There's people out there who are just waiting for it. Don't do it.
[00:10:14] So here's what I want you to do. I want you to write down words or phrases that people should associate with your name. I want you to look at your LinkedIn profile and look at your website. Does it reflect those words? If not, start making some changes, start making some edits. Have somebody look at it. You don't have to do this by yourself.
[00:10:33] And so your personal brand's really an asset and it can open up doors, attract customers, speaking engagements, partnerships, and make networking a lot easier. Somebody may even say, hey, I've seen what you've been putting out there. That's really cool to finally meet you in person.
[00:10:48] So I'd really love to hear from you. What's one thing that you're going to do to strengthen your personal brand this week or this month? We're getting ready to go into April. I want you to reach out on LinkedIn or email
[email protected] and let me know so if you found this episode helpful. I'd really like it if you would subscribe, leave a review, share it, follow it, and it helps others find the podcast as well. And I hope you have a great week and I'll see you next week.
