As a Solopreneur, I am always thinking about how to improve my personal brand and ways to make my business stand out.
To improve my personal brand I focus on 5 areas.
1. Research To Find My Touchpoints
2. Forming A Strong Brand Voice
3. Making Sure My Content Matches My Personal Brand
4. Making Sure List Building Is Apart Of My Brand
5. Creating A Consistent Daily Action Plan
Now let’s look into how to get the most improvement in your personal brand, in the shortest amount of time.
HOW TO RESEARCH TO FIND YOUR TOUCHPOINTS
You might be asking yourself what in the heck is a touchpoint. Sounds a little kinky ….RIGHT? But a touchpoint point is simply tracking down the places where a customer can come into contact with you or your brand.
Is it through your website or blog? Maybe they are first introduced to you via your social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn). So, pay close attention to the flow of traffic. How do they move from Social Media to your Blog? Or maybe how they go from your YouTube Video to and Offer Funnel.
Let’s say for example you have an offer or special sale that you would like to bring attention to. So here is what I do. I make a post on Facebook sharing an image or information video content. But instead of giving potential customers everything on Facebook, (the first touchpoint), I redirect them to my blog in order for them to get the full details. Kind of like a movie trailer gives them the highlights.
So here is how I do it. I just do a Google search of yourself or the company brand name and I make a list of everything that comes up. Recently I was really shocked at some of the things that came up about me. I even was able to find social accounts that I never signed up for were active.
The point is to MAKE A LIST of all the touchpoints Google is showing your potential customers about your brand and make sure it points to what you want people to know about you, your company, the products or services you offer.
WHAT TO FOCUS ON TO FORM YOUR PERSONAL BRAND VOICE
There is so much going on and happening on the internet and if you want to improve your standings you have to make sure you have a strong voice.
I like to just focus on a few small things that make the most impact. I don’t have a fancy marketing team to help me with branding or even a lot of time to build a personal brand. So I keep my focus very compacted and precise.
Now your voice is greatly dependent on your company mission, your audience, and industry. Which plays a big part in what you want to say and how you say it. Here are a few things I focus on when I working to establish my personal brand voice. So when I am putting content out into the world I have to decide if I want to be:
- professional
- casual
- fun/funny
- technical
- friendly
- servant oriented
- promotional
- informative
- conversational
- authoritative
- confrontational
The most important part is the figure out what style is the most comfortable for you to execute. If you can sell funeral insurance and make it fun or funny. Go For It. The point is to make your own voice and be consistent.
HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR CONTENT MATCHES YOUR PERSONAL BRAND VOICE
I am a little embarrassed about how bad and inconsistent I had been in the past with this one. Thank God I figured it out.
I thought I had to be an EXPERT on everything and teach everything on the subject of Solopreneurship. I was so wrong. Really and truly I only needed to share what I was learning and my experiences. I share what is working and how I fail. To be honest I get more traffic and feedback on my failure post than anything else.
So I take a strong look at how I can best serve and give value to my Core Audience.
Once upon a time, I felt like I had to write about everything and post about everything in order to meet the needs of my Core Target Audience. Nothing was further from the truth. My brand voice is casual and a little silly. I am also a little long-winded. So now for my personal brand, my customer base or core audience are people who want to move a little slower and desire full details. I matched my content with my brand. Which my audience responds to very well.
Also, my brand voice is for Solopreneurs who have been investing in their own business growth but have not got the traction or leverage they were expecting. My core target audience has had some success but still feels a little lost, inconsistent, and stuck. So in order to serve them better, I create content that matches the Solopreneurs struggles.
It is important to me that my audience walks away feeling empowered and feeling like they’re on the right path. So visually I created a superhero theme to help them feel transformed. I helped the Solopreneur to focus on only four things. Building an audience, engaging an audience, nurturing an audience, and selling to the audience.
MAKING SURE LIST BUILDING IS APART OF MY PERSONAL BRAND
To be perfectly honest this is another area of my personal branding I have really sucked at. And for that reason, it greatly affected my bottom line. But I have come a long way in improving that area of my business. So in order to improve your personal brand, you have to establish a way to build a list. Everyone’s brand should have some aspect of list building.
So you may be asking yourself what exactly is List Building?
List building is the process of building groups of people who are interested in your products or services. The list-building process that I have found to be the most effective for me and my personal brand has been value-based offers.
I offer my potential customers or clients something that they find valuable. In exchange for the value-based content (an ebook, video training, free download, pdf, personal coaching session,…etc) my potential customer or client gives me their email address to correspond with them. It is the best way to build a relationship and to continue to give them value.
As the relationship grows and KNOW- LIKE -TRUST has been establish then people are more open to making a purchase from me. This process does take a little time, but in the end, I have a more loyal and consistent purchasing customer.
HOW TO CREATE A CONSISTENT DAILY ACTION PLAN
It is important not to be hit-or-miss when it comes to your personal brand. If you know that you are not consistent with posting or engaging your core target audience. This is by far the easiest way and the fastest way to improve. When it comes to personal branding if Content is King then Consistency is the Queen.
Now the most common excuse that I have come across has it been I don’t know what to post. I have even used it once or twice myself. It doesn’t matter if you give value every day, three times a week, or once a week. What matters the most is that you do it consistently.
So take an honest look at your schedule and determine when you would like to give value to your potential customer or client. It really is just that simple. To this very day, it still takes me a while to write a blog post. So I set aside the time to write a quality value post that my audience will appreciate.
Also as a busy Solopreneur, you have to create a divide and conquer mentality. You may not be able to complete all your tasks in one day. Creating a task list in bite-sized chunks may be best for work productivity as well as your sanity.
SUMMARY CONCLUSION: To Improve Your Personal Brand
- Research To Find Your Touchpoints
- Focus on Forming A Strong Brand Voice
- Making Sure Your Content Matches Your Personal Brand,
- Make Sure List Building Is Apart Of Your Brand
- Create A Consistent Daily Action Plan
