Why?

When building your personal brand, I am a really big believer in starting right at the beginning. The reason for this is that if you don’t know your why, and that includes knowing your big picture and your key motivation, then quite frankly it’s very likely that you’re going to quit.

Building a personal brand is not easy. It doesn’t happen overnight. Ten years ago, it was a lot easier; now, it’s extremely challenging. You need to have an extremely high level of commitment and that commitment level comes from getting real clarity on your purpose and why you’re doing what you’re doing, otherwise personal branding might not be right for you. Please start with that! Just write it out, brain dump it now!

What is your why?

Look at what you’ve written and really question whether those are the right kind of reasons. If your ‘why’ is that you want to get loads of free stuff, then you should really question if this is the right path for you.

What am I the best at?

Really think about what you’re insanely good at. Don’t start a business or a personal brand doing anything that you don’t think you’re absolutely excellent at and, ideally, the best at. I focus on personal branding because I believe that I am actually better than most people, if not everybody, at personal branding, getting clarity and building a brand that’s authentic and that connects with your audience.

You need to really think about what you’re best at. Anything that isn’t in that best, best, best list? If it’s in mediocre? Then maybe just leave it behind.

What do I love?

What really lights you up? What gets you in flow? What makes you excited? If you’re building your brand around something that doesn’t make you super excited and super motivated, if you’re not really in love with what you’re doing …then, I hate to say it, but you’re going to get bored!

It takes a long while to grow a brand and essentially, once you’ve put out your first content strategy and are looking at your second, if you don’t really love what you’ve done and aren’t excited about the next steps, then your interest levels are just going to drop. So, really ask yourself that question: What do you love?

Who am I serving? What do they need?

Who are you serving? A good personal brand is serving an audience. It’s not about you, it’s about them; so, who are you serving and what do they need? What problem can you solve for them? Maybe that’s a challenge or maybe it’s a desire. What do they really deeply need?

On LinkedIn the other day, somebody asked me what my main challenge is in terms of getting fit. He’s somebody who helps busy female entrepreneurs fit their exercise in, so I’m definitely in his audience. And I said to him, you know what? My real challenge is going to sound really stupid…my real challenge is washing my hair! I don’t like to wash my hair every day, but I do sweat like hell in the gym so, actually, my biggest challenge is around building a gym plan that enables me to wash my hair fewer times a week. And this is definitely a really key challenge his audience faces that he wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t asked!

So, get to know your audience and give them what they need. Solve those issues for them. Provide solutions for the real challenges they face.

What content do they consume and where are they?

This is not about what content you consume or what you want to create. This is about what they consume and where they consume it. Don’t start creating a tone of Instagram posts if your audience is actually on LinkedIn. Don’t start writing a load of blogs if your audience actually prefers to watch videos. Find out what content they consume and where they are.

If you can answer these five questions, you’re on a great path to building a strong personal brand.

You could use these points as a really solid branding brief to start building out your brand or you could join my Facebook group, where you’ll get a real head-start on a lot of people. If you want help with these points, then come along and join my Facebook group, or, if you’re not ready for that yet but you’re really serious about growing your brand in 2020, then I strongly recommend getting a piece of paper, blocking a couple of hours out of your calendar and answering these questions for yourself.