Episode 6: 3 Keys To Building A Personal Brand

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Every person—no matter if you work for yourself or in a company—needs to build their own personal brand. Your personal brand is how people perceive you. It’s what you’re communicating into the world with the pictures, words and videos you share online and in person. And it’s crucial to establishing yourself, showing how you add value and opening doors for career opportunities.

Building a personal brand is an ongoing process and something we’ve been working on throughout our entire journeys as entrepreneurs—and even before. Everyone’s personal brand is different, so it’s important to work with what you have. If you’re naturally a great speaker or passionate about a certain topic, make that part of your personal brand. Use the skills and interests you already have and continually improve yourself to build your brand.

Here are three keys we consider when we build our personal brands:

1. Consistency. Start by defining your personal brand to yourself. Choose a topic to become an expert about and stick with it. If you’re all over the place, people won’t be able to easily define your brand, and their perception of you will be jumbled. The goal is to have people instantly know your topic when they think of you because you share consistent messages; for me, that means customer experience, and for Jacob it means employee experience and the future of work.
2. Visibility. Once you’ve defined your message, you have to be as visible as you can with it. That means writing a blog, starting a podcast, attending conferences, posting on other websites and more. Think of the content you enjoy as a consumer and create that for yourself. You want to spread your message widely, but focus on quality over quantity to make sure you’re showing up in reputable places.
3. Frequency. You can’t share a few sporadic articles and expect to build a strong brand. The key is to share as often as you can. Your personal brand is part of who you are, so make it part of your everyday routine. The more frequently you share your message, the stronger your brand will become.   

Building a personal brand means being confident yet vulnerable. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, but you also have to be confident in your message and that it can add real value to your audience. Most people are scared of the spotlight, so even taking the step to share a message can put you on the path to success. The best time to start building a personal brand is yesterday, so get out there and work towards creating a recognizable brand that can boost your career.

To hear more about how we build our personal brands and other tips to success, be sure to tune into this week’s episode of the BYOB Podcast.