Creating your brand identity is not an easy task. I'm mean really? I didn't figure out what my purpose was in life until just 7 or 8 years ago. However, no matter what age you are, understanding who you are allows you to walk in confidence toward all your goals.
A big obstacle that tends to happen is when we start marketing ourselves. We begin sharing who we are with the world, which makes you vulnerable. Some people may experience feeling like a fraud. Others may simply have no idea who they are or what they want. We may experience blocks, crutches, insecurities.
If you've ever stopped and asked yourself "what is this life all about?" Then IT'S TIME TO FIGURE IT OUT!
YOUR BRAND IDENTITY IS BASED ON HOW WELL YOU KNOW YOURSELF
The first step in creating a personal brand identity is you need to KNOW WHO YOU ARE and WHAT YOU WANT. Defining your long term goals is a great place to start. Outline where you'd like to be by the time you retire. Of course, your vision can change, but knowing what you want now creates a general map that will help guide you to where you want to go.
The next step is to identify your value structure. What is important to you? For me, I can say that creativity, compassion, and balance are some of my top values. When you can identify these values you now have a foundation for how you can communicate to your audience. More than likely, your ideal customer will have some of the same values that you have. Therefore, once you start speaking your truth, people will resonate towards you because they will relate to you.
Finally, understanding your purpose is essential to your personal growth. This may also be the hardest thing to discover about yourself. It may or may not lie within what you are truly passionate about. Whether you believe in destiny or not, destiny may be simply waiting for you to define it.
The process of creating a personal brand identity is a journey to self-discovery. If you know yourself well this process may be easy for you. For some of us, it can be a struggle and can take a long time. It all depends on how driven you are to get there. When you brand yourself you are "dressing-up' your image for success. It's just like putting on your best suit for the job interview of a lifetime.
"When you brand yourself you are 'dressing-up' your image for success!"
Call it the Law of Attraction or whatever. If you showcase yourself how you want to be you will become it. The days of feeling like a fraud are over and you'll enjoy what you do so much more. Plus, it will be so much easier to market yourself.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
You may be a young professional and want the perfect job working as an Operations Manager. Your ideal audience is head hunters who work for large Corporations. Perhaps you are a certified Wellness Coach looking for women who are ready to lose weight. Whoever they are you need to identify them and define them. Create a personality profile of your audience so you know what their interests are, where they shop, what their philosophies are, etc. When you know this you will be "speaking" directly to them. Your audience will resonate with you because your values and theirs will be in line with each other.
HOW I CAN HELP YOU
I am not a Life Coach. I am, however, the person who helps you present the real you to the world. For me to visualize the full "picture" I must understand who you are first. I am the next step in your journey. Stand up and sing..."I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR!"
- Personal Brand Statement: I must know first how you help people and what you do for them. We'll Identify the benefits you offer and what your brand stands behind. A little different than a Mission Statement, we'll create a written summary of what you promise to deliver and how it relates to your benefits.
- Brand Persona: I work with you to create a Brand Persona that entails narrowing down six key personality characteristics. Once a scale is created we look at how these personality traits all play together to evoke your strongest characteristics to your ideal client. We take into consideration feeling and mood, clothing, and your environment. We also take into consideration the poses and expressions and even symbolism if necessary during a photography shoot. During this process, we also identify your top values and your ideal customer.
- Messaging and Profiling: Having goals before we photograph is essential so we must do an online marketing overview. We will look at your website and online presence and assess where key shots need to go. For example your contact page, about page, services, and even social media. We focus on messaging and utilize your tag lines and/or campaign slogans and then capture you illustrating them. We sometimes create a character profile of one of your key traits and photograph it. For example, The Spiritual Healer sitting in a garden with his disciples.
Your brand is the experience customers have when doing business with You. The meaning behind your brand becomes subjective and unconscious but outwardly it is your "voice" that shines through. Once we know what meaning is behind it, your brand can be developed to deliver your true "voice". Let me tell you this straight out... If you find your "voice" your tribe will follow you. People who are well branded online have gone through this process. You have to want it and be ready to step into it.
Star the next step to your Journey.
Explore my VIP Branding Portrait Session or Contact Us at (805) 440-3655
