How can coaching help you craft a unique personal brand?

Also, consider asking others why they think are your strengths and noting what others come to you for — this could provide some insight into your brand and value offering. It can also be telling if we are lack alignment between our existing brand and desired brand. We can then build the brand we want!

When I started out on my own, it felt daunting to see myself as 'the brand'. I had been a senior marketer for years, living and championing my company's brand for years. Working with coaches enabled me to become braver and to: ? Let people in by sharing some of my stories ? Make a plan for how I wanted to show up for my audience ? Find my voice and lean into what makes me me Most of all to get over my fears and insecurities, FASTER. Even though this continues to be a journey. If you struggle to promote yourself or to see yourself as a brand, the support business peers and coaches can provide is INVALUABLE!

We work with clients using our proprietary "Ignite Your Impact" 6 pillar format. These pillars look at the key elements of your personal brand such as brand voice, brand ecosystem and stakeholder audiences. The critical part in crafting and developing your own personal brand is to be very aware that your message needs to be clear, concise and easy for others to repeat correctly. Your message and your brand must deliver curated value, relevance and impact to each f your audiences and must be aligned across every element - brand style, communications, voice and your pricing!

Defining your brand comes to answering this question - what do you want to be know for? There are many tools and assessments you can use to define your brand but ultimately you’ll need to answer that question. If I looked you up 6 or 12 months from now here on LinkedIn or in a Google search, what do you want me to find? What do you want me to know about you? In other words - what do you want to be known for?

Personally, I appreciate the "Martha Stewart" story of independent and progressive branding. In an attempt to explore a hobby when renovating her house, she grew her business and brand through remarkable catering, publishing, television, and merchandising. Her passion drove the genesis of a new type of brand and created a self-made industry leader who uses her entrepreneurial spirit, interest, knowledge, and innate abilities to coach herself and foster a genuine and successful branding experience within her audience. Her story is truly a story of exploring a tradecraft, finding a relevant niche, and allowing a need in an emerging market to guide the creation of a powerhouse brand.

Delete posts that don’t reflect well on your brand. Also, carefully consider your track record of engagement. Engage on positive, constructive content related to your field to build awareness of your brand. Posting negative comments, negative content, and engaging on negative comments can quickly damage your brand.

In the case that you have little to no online presence, you can still perform an audit (of sorts). Try this: 1. Create a list of contacts relevant to your area of expertise. 2. Begin commenting on their content. 3. Do this for a month. Three times a week is a strong baseline. Your interactions will be a low-stakes warm up. You’ll feel who you are and how you want to operate online – and you’ll learn mountains about what doesn’t represent you. While it's not as complex as a blog or podcast, this is your starting point. This is how you can shape questions and point of exploration to work through with your coach. Before you can optimize anything, you first have to experience it.

Make sure your online assets are aligned. This means social bios, images, posts, etc, are all similar and reflect what you want to be known for. Strategically, create a hub and spoke strategy with your website or LinkedIn profile at the center and all social media assets pointing back to the center. This will help others quickly get what you are known for but also send a signal to Google so you start to rank higher in search.

People want people. Business is a people game. Focus on your offline as much as you do on your online (if not more). I am a offline > online person, and events and meet-ups have opened me thousands of opportunities. Dedicate time to people, recharge your social battery by meeting people. This will allow you to establish a business based on trust, not just money.

Personal branding is like chicken soup: Everyone has a recipe they swear by! As you select a coach to help you set a strategy, ask: Does this coach typically support individuals like yourself? If not, what sounds like perfectly universal, wise personal branding advice might not apply to you. From there, ensure they can customize their recipe for you. You're looking for the intersection of best practices and what's best for you as you set strategy. Ensure it's part of your coach's process to deliver on that.