Personal Branding: 4 Rules to Help You Rule

Personal branding – the term is everywhere in the marketing world and experts and owners alike are diving headlong into creating a magical personal brand of their very own. As part of a larger strategy, personal brands can be a powerful way to establish expertise and connect with new audiences, but on it’s own a personal brand is not a revenue generator. Turns out, people don’t want to give you cash for just being they you-iest of yous!  And at the @revenue office, the motto is: if it doesn’t help generate revenue, then it’s not for you.

One of the biggest questions you should be asking before you embark on creating a personal brand is: Do I know EXACTLY what I am going to be selling to the leads generated from this? If the answer feels ambiguous take a step back and map out what your offering will be. Even if the answer is products or services from within your current business, what it will take to fulfill them, and where you can create economies of scale to help you make more money in less time? (you get bonus points if it has a Monthly Recurring Revenue stream built into it). Know what success looks like before you start so you have a direction to go, because no matter how many likes, follows or watches you get, you are not going to be happy about the investment you make if it never pays you back.

As an expert, crafting and rolling out a personal brand will give you certain flexibilities that should happen outside of your business brand. Using your personal brand to reach out and create more one on one conversations, put you on stages, and increase your social media reach are all great goals to have. What then becomes important is how you will expect it to turn into income. Typically we will want to see a sales model with a personal brand that includes the following things:

  • Paid speaking engagements
  • Direct leads for your business
  • Digital courses or materials like books, podcasts, etc.
  • Advertising dollars for your YouTube Videos and podcasts
  • Partnerships that will boost your business

Personal brands also take a long time to take root – this is no quick win. And what’s worse, is that a back-fire in your personal brand will follow YOU around, not the name on the company. So…. how can a personal brand backfire? Oh, let’s share some stories, shall we?

1. It’s not you.

Personal brands are all about authenticity. If your goal in crafting a personal brand to make people think things about you that aren’t true. This is where those idiosyncracies will come crawling into the daylight. Allow me to present Exhibit A: the photoshop fail.


2. It’s all about you.

This sounds contradictory at first, but your personal brand should include your thoughts on other things besides yourself. If every image you post, a comment you make or video you produce is part of a conversation then make sure you are talking to and about the world around you. You will exhaust your audience if every image is a hyper-filtered shot at exposing how fabulous your every moment is.

3. That’s right. You tweeted it and it was dumb.

We don’t have to reach too far into our consciousness to pull out a news story or two about an ill-timed tweet or tone-deaf message. And thanks to that cool little screen grab gadget it can live forever! If you are combining your personal brand with your private life brand be sure that you know that what you say will reflect on you and could possibly damage your business. 

4. Repping Products

If you do have a personal brand that lends itself to promoting products, you must ask the question, are they aligned with MY brand? I shudder at the term ‘influencer’ because of how much it’s been abused, but the things you recommend will become part of your reputation. As an expert in your field, you do not need to hashtag every cute cupcake unless your personal brand aligns with supporting that business or eating cupcakes like it is your job. Which it may be – and if that is your real job please call us immediately, we want in. 

Building a personal brand should be purposeful, strategic and hopefully a lot of fun.

If you want to learn more about building your own brand and how @revenue can help you integrate it into your marketing strategy let’s have that chat. marie@revenue.wp10.staging-site.io