Why Now Is The Time To Start Your Personal Branding

JourneyNorth Podcast | Season 01 | EP 11

Personal branding has been one of the more popular buzzwords in recent times. Especially with the emergence of LinkedIn, people have been doubling down on their efforts to carve out a brand for themselves.

In today’s episode, we speak to Laura, who leveraged on LinkedIn to create a personal brand for herself.

Who Is Laura Wong?

Laura is an experienced Social Media Marketer and Personal Branding Coach with a passion for helping brands and individuals in maximising the power of social media for their business and/or career.

In less than a year, Laura went from freelancer to the Founder of Our Stories Lab with a team of 6 through building her personal brand on LinkedIn. By crafting a solid branding and storytelling strategy, she managed to attract sales leads and collaborations which accelerated her sales growth from 1 to 8 clients, generating thousands of dollars for her business. Laura was also featured as Top 70 Rising Personalities in LinkedIn Malaysia by Marketing in Asia. 

Some of the brands who have trusted Laura with their stories include Taylor’s Education Group, Sonno Mattresses, Ace Power Group, FLIP, and Makoevents. This also includes building personal brands for public personalities like Pandelela Rinong and Sam Tsui.

Apart from social media management, Laura has also trained over 300 Entrepreneurs, Corporate Employees and Job Seekers in building successful personal brands on LinkedIn, and now she will be sharing that knowledge with you too!

Draw Inspirations From Your Current Actions

When it comes to personal branding, many people get stuck on the positioning they should adopt and what they can post about. However, as Laura mentioned, there is no need to overcomplicate things. Simply post about what you’re currently doing!

If you’re working on a passion project, you could share about the behind-the-scenes of how you set up certain processes, or the struggles you face. If you’re still deciding on what to venture into, share about that as well! You could talk about the sources you’ve been visiting to do research, the people who inspire you, or the considerations behind your decisions.

There is always something to share, you just have to get started.

Start & Sustain

Once you get started, it is important to sustain your efforts. Personal brands are not established overnight, and it is important to be patient to see the results of your efforts. This was an area where I sought for Laura’s opinions as well, where she said that it took her more than 6 months of consistent hard work before she began to see results.

In this regard, Laura also emphasised on the importance of quantifying your objectives beforehand, so you know what you’re working towards.

Don’t be afraid to share about your aspirations and your career dreams online. If you don’t talk about yourself, if you don’t talk about your dreams, nobody will know about you and no one can help you, only you can help yourself.

– LAURA WONG, FOUNDER OF OUR STORIES LAB

Believe In Yourself

When Laura first started building her personal brand and business, she had to go through many rough patches. As she mentioned in the interview, you might encounter people who would encourage you to take a different path, or to pursue something else.

In those periods, it is important that you stay true to yourself and believe in your own potential. That self-belief is what will propel you to success in the long-run.

Personal Thoughts

Laura is a testament to how age is merely a number. If you’re willing to put yourself out there and stay consistent in your efforts, opportunities will eventually arise and you have to be ready to seize those opportunities. In Laura’s case, she was able to do so and is now reaping the dividends of her sustained hard work.

We can all look to Laura as an example of how powerful personal branding is, and why we should start building our personal brand as soon as possible.

Show Notes:

• Check out Our Stories Lab
• Connect with Laura on LinkedIn

Hosted by Marcus Cheu. Connect with me on LinkedIn & Instagram.

If you'd like to tune in to the full episode, you can check out the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.