BeYOUtiful: Cultivating Your Personal Brand from the Inside Out

When it comes to cultivating your personal brand, I invite you to not only be curious, but serious!

It’s true: building a brand takes hard work and it means getting serious about exactly what your brand represents.

More importantly, it means getting serious about ensuring what it represents is aligned with your goals.

Cultivating Your Personal Brand

When you buy a cup of Starbucks coffee, you’re buying into their brand.

This means you’re expecting a good cup of coffee because that’s the brand they built.

You expect good coffee when you see their logo or enter one of their stores. You have become a paying customer because of what you believe about their personal brand.

As for your own personal brand and what people automatically know about you, I’m about to tell you how to do just that!

Clearly understand your personal brand

Everyone has their own unique “thing.” For Starbucks, that’s good coffee.

To start cultivating your personal brand, you need to get very clear about what your “thing” is.

This all goes toward not only your brand but also your platform and image. It’s what people know about you—that thing that when they meet you, they will automatically assume or know about you.

Create top-notch content consistently

Next, it’s time to create content that speaks to this personal brand you have built.

For example, if someone reads your blog posts and later meets you in person, they should think to themselves, “Yes—that’s exactly what I expected!”

Your content needs to be cohesive with your brand to ensure your message is consistent.

(Don’t miss this post where I cover the one online branding tool you must have)

Craft messages and images to reflect your brand

Remember: you are your brand’s book cover!

When people look at you, they’re making a judgment about you and your brand. But it’s not all about outward appearances. You truly have to live your brand from the inside out and be the most authentic version of yourself.

(For more on this, visit this post next: Seven Tips To Marketing Your Authentic Self by Karen Taylor Bass)

To get more clarity around this, start by asking yourself:

What is it I stand for?
What colors represent my brand?
Intrinsically, what am I about?

For authors, this also means matching your book cover! You can represent your book cover in the way you act, dress, speak, and this all goes toward developing a strong personal brand.

Connect to every opportunity

Finally, put your personal branding efforts to work for you.

Promote and reinforce your message so you create mind-share and create a community of “raving fans” or a tribe.

Get out there and take advantage of every opportunity that becomes available to you for developing and reinforcing your brand.

Whether it’s speaking engagements, conferences, or other events, you never know which opportunity could be your next big break. (For example, here are some book promotion venues you can’t miss!)

If you want to brand better, be serious – not just curious! As for your next steps, take a look at my Ready Set Go Speak! Community Membership Program for even more branding insight, guidance, and strategy.