Getting started with your personal brand
Often I hear from many others who are wanting to get started with building their personal brand.
Yet many times, I hear huge objections, excuses, or reasons for not getting started.
Even when they know the value that a personal brand can bring, they still don't get started.
In this article, I'm going to give you the very simple steps to getting started with your personal brand.
Why build a personal brand
I've written extensively on how my personal brand historically has driven 68% of Lead Cookie's revenue. Since launching Content Allies, I can attribute many of our customers to my personal brand as well.
But here I want to hit on the high-level points of the value of a personal brand.
A personal brand is investment that you never lose
You may sell your company, shut it down for something new, or eventually leave the entrepreneurial realm for a stint working with someone else. In those cases, you often lose your company brand...
But your personal brand is an investment you never lose.
It doesn't matter if you work for yourself or someone else.
It doesn't matter if you run one company, or ten. Your personal brand sticks with you.
Spotlight marketing
One of the greatest marketing concepts that I love which applies to personal brands is that of "Spotlight Marketing".
The idea is that you build an audience of followers. Then you simply "shine the spotlight" on different offers throughout your journey.
By having an audience that trusts you, you can test and launch new offers much more rapidly than someone without an audience. And over the course of your career, you simply point your spotlight to whatever the current offer that you are focused on is.
For years, I shined the spotlight on personal consulting with my brand.
Then I put the spotlight on Lead Cookie.
Today, I put the spotlight on Lead Cookie & Content Allies.
And sometimes I shine the spotlight on pick-my-brain sessions.
Personal branding is long game
I remember when I started my personal brand, and I was excited be getting even one or two new email subscribers per week. When my email list crossed 100, I was jacked.
Yet at that time, I never imagined the momentum and pace that would build up with my personal brand over time. Today, I get nearly 100 new email signups every week...
I don't hustle and work for each of those signups, they just happen organically because of how much content I have put out into the internet.
Personal branding is a long game. It's slow, it take's time, but it keeps building on itself year after year.
How to get started with your personal brand
Getting started with your personal brand isn't that hard. Most people just make it into something bigger than it needs to be.
There are firms out there like Phil Pallen Collective or Simply Be that do phenomenal personal branding work. They charge a decent price point for the services that they provide, but they will ensure that your brand is polished and professional.
But in this article, I'm not going to be going as deep as their approaches go . I'm going to give you a simple framework for getting your personal brand started on your own. The process is.
Get professional photos
Build a brand look
Create a website
Start Publishing
Iterate
Step 1) Get professional photos
Here's a hard fact. People judge you by your photos. With all of the LinkedIn outreach campaigns we run at Lead Cookie, we see a noticeable difference in results based on the quality and professionalism of someone’s profile photo.
But fear not. Gone are the days when you need to spend thousands on a professional photoshoot. In fact, I did my most recent personal brand shoot for less than $50 USD.
There are many ways to book photographers but I found using AirBnb Experiences to be an amazing and affordable option. Nearly every city has local photographers who will walk around the city with you and take photos for $30-100.
You can view their portfolios before booking, and then schedule a time. Within a week, you have professional photos ready to use with your personal brand.
Step 2) Build a brand look
The next step is to build a brand look. Brand companies dive deep on this to ensure quality and consistency, but when you are just getting started, I would opt for basic.
A basic personal brand look includes:
What colors are you going to use?
What fonts are you going to use?
What other visual elements will you incorporate with your brand?
Take a look at my personal brand as an example... It's not amazing.
I didn't hire a branding firm, I did it myself.
The logo is simply a Futura Bold Italic Font. The website utilizes a similar font family.
Everything is black and white.
Calls to action are in yellow.
Buttons are blue.
That's pretty much it.
It's simple, could be improved, yet the brand still drives massive results for my businesses.
People care more about your content than they do about the look of your brand.
Don't believe me?
Just look at Paul Graham's website or Derek Sivers. (It looks like they skipped step 1 & 2!)
Step 3) Create a website
Long gone are the days of needing to spend $10k to build a basic website. These days, you can get a website up and running very quickly, and very affordably.
My preferred platform of choice is Squarespace.com. For a long time people had stigmas against Squarespace, stating that it "wasn't professional". Yet I've built my personal brand, Lead Cookie and Content Allies websites all on Squarespace.
These sites get tens of thousands of visitors each month and serve me and my businesses just fine.
And they are SUPER EASY to use which is why I love them. I don't need to write any code or hire a developer to create a new landing page. I can do everything on my own in minutes.
For most tech savvy individuals, they could get a decent looking Squarespace website live within one day’s worth of work.
For those who are not tech Savvy, there are sites like UseSixty where you can hire a Squarespace designer and even work with them live over a screen share while they build your site in front of you.
Grab email signups
I won't go deep into website design, but I would recommend throwing up a simple form on your website to capture emails of people who want ongoing updates. Email marketing can come down the line, but start gathering a list of interested subscribers right away.
Step 4) Start publishing
Once your website is live, the next step is to start publishing. It may be articles, podcasts, or videos... but just start publishing something.
To start, I recommend setting the deadline of publishing at least once per week. When I started my personal brand, this was my habit.
Good or bad, I published. Some weeks I hated what I put out there, but I got into the habit of publishing.
This is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. A personal brand without content is just a bunch of pretty pictures for people to look at.
The whole point of all of the steps up until now is to have a professional image for when you start drawing attention toward yourself. So now it's time to put your ideas out there.
If you can't do once a week, then do once a month.
But make it happen.
Publish consistently.
This is key!
If you struggle to publish, then consider hiring a B2B podcast agency to produce a podcast which will make it easy for you.
Step 5) Iterate
Throughout these 5 steps, I didn't dive too much into "positioning" or "how to describe yourself". This was intentional... I've seen people get hung up and delay launching their personal brand for years as they tried to get this perfect.
Just put it out there and get started...
When I started, my personal website was some 3rd person resume style description of myself. Over time, I learned, evolved, and shifted.
Then I shifted again... and again... and again...
You can even see this whole evolution on WayBackMachine as you see my website and positioning evolve many times over the years.
And it's still evolving today.
The point I make is this...
Don't worry about getting your personal brand right.
Just get started and then iterate.
Through publishing content and seeing what people resonate with, and what you enjoy, you will refine your personal brand, your voice, and your message over time.
You can launch your personal brand in a week
Everything I shared in this article could be completed and launched within a week. There is no reason this should take you a year, two years, or even two months to do.
Just dive in, get started, and start publishing
Stop overthinking it.
Just go.