My post last Saturday, highlighted how I built my personal brand from scratch and the opportunities that followed. For today’s post, I want to focus on how you can get started building your personal brand so you can receive some awesome opportunities as well.
What’s required to begin building your personal brand?
First, let me start off by saying that building your personal brand will take time, dedication, persistence and passion. If you don’t truly care about building your personal brand, you will easily become distracted and lose the focus you need to succeed.
But, most importantly, don’t let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you can’t build an incredibly powerful personal brand. They’re just plain wrong!
Now let’s hit it!
First steps to building your personal brand
Take what you’re passionate about and have the biggest brainstorm session of your life. Don’t hold any ideas back. Write everything down and let it flow. At this stage, your not aiming for perfection, you’re looking to get the big ideas down on paper so you can build on them and organize them later.
Brainstorming my personal brand, my blog, and how I would promote it took several sessions over the course of a month. Some days the ideas flowed better than others – stay with it, don’t feel like you need to rush or that you’re not making headway. The best ideas take time and constant improvement before they become truly great.
Make your brainstorm period electric
I love to read. I find it relaxing and I know I’m getting smarter at the same time. When I read, ideas pour into my head and I’m able to create original content of my own later. You should always be reading, but it’s especially important during your brainstorm period.
A great way to have information you’re interested in delivered to your e-mail or RSS reader is through Google Alerts. If you don’t know how to set up a Google Alert, checkout Use Google Alerts to Increase Selling Opportunities.
By reading up on the subjects you’re interested in you will find that you become extremely knowledgeable and increasingly creative quite quickly. You will become more confident and likely to share your thoughts with the world, which in turn helps to create and reinforce your personal brand attributes.
After your brainstorm, organize your thoughts into a web
Making a web will help you get an idea of how you’re going to present your personal brand to the world – your blog, social networks, personal website, etc. It will help you create some structure to your thoughts and begin to give you some confidence that you truly do have something to present to the world. And, by the way, everyone has something to share with the world!
I remember when I was making my web and I looked down at my scrap piece of paper, and said to myself, “I’ve got something here. This is mine.” That was a damn good feeling and you will get there too. You just need to stay with it – persistence pays!
Let’s recap what we explored today to begin building your own personal brand
1.) Have the biggest brainstorm session of your life and let your brainstorm develop over time.
2.) Read all you can and use Google Alerts to help you find great info you can use to create some really cool ideas.
3.) After your brainstorm period, organize your brainstorm into a web to gain clarity and structure.
4.) Have fun!
With a little bit of time, dedication, persistence and passion you will be well on the way to creating a unique and powerful personal brand online.
Make sure to check back next Saturday for the next steps on how to create your personal brand online so you can reap the rewards.
Have an awesome weekend!
Author:
Chad Levitt is the author of the New Sales Economy blog, which focuses on how Sales 2.0 & Social Media can help you connect, create more opportunities and increase your business. Chad is also the featured Sales 2.0 blogger at SalesGravy.com, the number one web portal for sales pros, the professional athletes of the business world. Make sure to connect with him on Twitter @chadalevitt.
(6 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)
Loading ...
I really appreciate you taking a step by step approach in your post, Chad. This is so often needed. Many times people are told “be known for who you are” or “start a blog” and there’s no playbook and how to get that done. Or, the playbook is too huge and overwhelming they feel like it’s too huge a mountain to conquer. Kudos to you for breaking it down – while it’s FRESH in your mind. I believe those are the most valuable “how to” lists – the ones that come from the most recent to climb.
@Maria- Thanks! I’ve found a void as well in the lack of concise how-to guides to get things done. For creating your personal brand, this blog and Dan’s new book: Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Personal Brand to Achieve Career Success help fill that void.
Thanks for your comment and for all your help!
I really enjoyed your post. I am an absolute techno-idiot and your direct and concise outline really helps me to absorb the information. I intend to forward it to everyone I know.
@Lisa- I’m glad you enjoyed the post and keep dropping by on Saturday’s for more concise and to the point posts on how to build and promote your personal brand. Thanks for sharing with your network.
Great stuff. Not enough people realize the power a personal brand can have. It can be much bigger then a company itself.
You can never be certain what your start-up will do or where your career will take you. But the one thing you can control is your brand!
@Jared- Right on the money! Creating a unique personal brand differentiates yourself from your competition and can create opportunities that would not have been possible otherwise.
While there is no such thing as absolute control over your career, creating your own unique personal brand will help you to pursue the career and goals that will truly make you happy!
Thanks for your thoughts!
Great advice! i’ll be sure to keep this in mind when building my personal brand. Thank you.
With this short anlyzes of steps to follow, even a dummy can achieve his goal. thanks
[...] Read More… [...]
@Yinka- Anybody can achieve their goals if you break the larger parts down into small, actionable items. Glad you found the post helpful!
@Jonathan- Smart move to begin building your personal brand. Make sure to drop by the blog next week for Part 2 of this series.
[...] As I was thinking about my personal branding, the brainstorming session led me to the same conclusion that I’ve had over the years. That I [...]
[...] How to Create Your Personal Brand, Part 1. (PersonalBrandingBlog) [...]
[...] you run your own company, a personal blog, or just want to create a personal brand for yourself, Twitter is a great way to promote your products, gain readers for your blog, interact [...]