Elevate your business with personal branding

Influencer culture and the modern ‘personal brand’ is often seen as something to deride. To that, we say ‘phooey!’ as more and more people are finding their voice, and not only that, having it heard.

Never before have those with a smaller following been able to promote advertisements, to accept sponsorships, create content that becomes monetized, or to promote their professional candor in a manner in keeping with their skillset. The business heroine of 2020 is personal branding – start getting it right now.

But how can you dive into this approach with enthusiasm? The moment we begin, we may start to feel overwhelmed by the plethora of options open to us. Even something as simple as launching a website approximate a million design questions, staring inquisitively at you from all around.

This is why great personal branding is both the most exciting venture to focus on, while also being the forward progression that inspires the most active procrastination.

Never fear! We have some experience in this game, and to this end, we hope to help you launch into the new decade with heroine smarts. Hey, even Wonder Woman had to have her outfit designed. Before we discuss that though, let us consider the first and only bitter pill we will force upon you in this guide:

Not everyone is branding themselves as well as they could be.

This grants you some potential, it services as both an opportunity to fulfill, and a lesson in how not to do those things. This can help you land with the most focused grounding possible.

But first, we have some questions to ask of you:

Who are you?

This is perhaps the first thing to consider when hoping to design your personal branding towards a cohesive result. If you have little clue who you are, or what you wish to offer, or the lens in which you hope this to be realized, you have almost nowhere to begin.

If you desire to draw a picture, for example, an understanding of perspective can help you construct the final design. So, what is your perspective? What is your vantage point?

It’s easy to design what you have enjoyed and try to view it through that lens. You needn’t always be one-hundred percent-original. For example, a freelance barber hoping to visit the home of his/her clients to offer wet shaves with a straight razor, their goal being a return to an old fashioned barbering service rarely seen today.

Due to this old-fashioned service, they may consider using a paid-for, licensed, commercially viable Western font for the logo, echoing the signage lettering of the Wild West. This is just one example of how you may represent yourself and how you may allow branding to explain your service or standing.

Perhaps the first lesson to learn is how commercially viable you wish to be. A lawyer hoping to become a consultant for business would brand themselves far and away from a hopeful young YouTube creator. What matters is finding your authenticity. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. As Robin Williams once said, ‘You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.”

A Primer On Being Unique

Being unique at any cost is not advisable, because it can lead you down strange pathways in which you may not wish to be oriented. It’s better to be strong and stable in your simplicity than to opt for an overly complicated logo or website with awkward functionality, for instance.

That being said, it’s also important to remember that while the accessibility of branding is open for you, it is for most other people, too.

This means that finding your own niche is perhaps more of a worthwhile opportunity to take. Focus on what you’re good at, and are doing well. Sometimes, this can be enough to help you stand out.

For example, it might be that injecting a little humor into your bicycle store branding can help draw families and children towards your premises. And, they will be hooked for life (provided you treat them well).

When launching any passion project, you may feel as though you need to adapt to the expectations of the industry. But what about bending the industry’s aspirations to you? Why can’t you come onto the scene with a unique selling point? Before Uber came along, booking a taxi and seeing its GPS route and a bio of your driver seemed unrealistic. But now said company operates in 60 countries around the world.

Additionally, authenticity and uniqueness are not about aiming for the highest success. To this end, we would like to consider how:

Personal Branding Is Flexible

It’s fine not to have all the right answers now, provided you put yourself out there in the best manner you can. You can always shift. You can change your motto. In fact, businesses and the best practice surrounding personal branding shifts course all the time.

Perhaps you were known as a specific professional before. Now you wish to make video content for other business owners, and so are happy to switch up your style.

Never feel like you have to lock yourself into a particular role.

Without the willingness to pivot, you can feel locked into a situation you’re never happy with. No heroine is interesting to watch without a character arc, a change of ambition, a smile in the face of challenge, and a learning process to be followed – so why should your heroine of personal branding?

Think of a tree in the wind. The most flexible and bending tree will be able to withstand the intense gales more hardily. The stagnant, old, deeply rooted tree will have a harder time shrugging off this pressure.

This also lessens a great deal of ‘FOMO’ when making those decisions. It can feel that choosing one thing is, by extension, neglecting to select every single other option.

Branding FOMO Anxiety

A few further words on this horrible emotion. Much like purchasing a new wardrobe of outfits for the upcoming season, head to the local bar and you’re sure to find at least one person dressed better than you, perhaps seemingly with less effort, or with a higher sunken cost. Does that mean you’re poorly dressed?

Of course not. When we view things in that context, we see just how silly comparing your branding to everyone else can be. That’s why, in every branding approach we take, we always try to find that which helps a specific client’s platform sing rather than how they can ‘keep up with the trends.’

We spoke of authenticity earlier. Finding your authentic vision as an absolute baseline can help you completely subvert that branding anxiety, because when an approach is you through and through, what else do you need?

This can give you the confidence you need, helping you promote it thoroughly, and also allowing you to keep things consistent. Not only that, but you’ll feel as if you’re speaking from the heart. This sets a positive trend for any and all industries, content platforms, or for the team behind you.

So Where Do You Begin?

There are many places for you to begin. However, an answer such as that barely inspires confidence when we’re unsure of our footing to start with. We would like to offer a suggested guideline. First, consider the practical nature of whatever you’re hoping to brand. Is it a law firm? A cafe? An online blog, or Depop fashion store hoping to one day branch out? How might your fonts, logo design, color palette, and social media presence surround that kind of attention?

Additionally, how might you consider your approach as it relates to your emotional truth? This is worthwhile to consider because it gives you a strong idea of how you would like your audience to engage with you.

Fraught professionalism may be necessary for serious fields such as legal counsel, but a cafe?

Well, might you get funky fresh, displaying the kind of cuisine you hope to offer, or may you become a real social space for the local industry? A cafe deigning to become the hub for all the surrounding tech startups to meet may factor in this goal within their branding.

The possibilities are endless, but the very first steps you take will help enlighten you to the direction you wish to follow. To that end, we would like you to consider the options we can afford to you. Also, how the daily realities of managing your social media, curating your branding, and starting your adventure may be approached. It’s quite alright to have fun with this process, you know.

With these sentiments, you should have everything you need to make a heroine of your personal branding. So, rebel on, live your art, shout it out loud & shine (always)!