Obviously, it has to be positive and inspirational. It has to be something that other people would want to have, too. But as long as it’s upbeat, fun, and exciting, you should find that it will help you to stand out in the marketplace.
BROADCASTING YOUR BRAND
Much trickier will be broadcasting that brand. This is what giant corporations pay advertising companies suitcase loads of money to do on their behalf. If you have a suitcase or two filled with money that you don’t know what to do with, you can save yourself a small headache and do the same thing. There are now plenty of small marketing and branding companies around that will be happy to help make your brand recognizable.
But you don’t need a suitcase stuffed with cash to broadcast your brand. One of the advantages of choosing a personal brand that’s closely linked to who you really are is that it then becomes very easy to broadcast it yourself. As you’ll see, social media has made it easier still.
That’s because your brand will consist of two elements: (1) a visual image that is immediately communicated and (2) a style that allows people to feel they’re getting close to you and that they know you.
To create the visual image, you’ll probably need the help of a professional. A photographer can shoot portraits to use in your marketing material that communicate the characteristic that you most want to put across. You’ll have to tell your photographer what you want the image to say. Find someone with the right amount of talent, and you should end up with a selection of photos that you can use for your branding.
Figure 7.1“Barefoot Executive” Carrie Wilkerson is an expert on all sorts of marketing topics, but her knowledge of branding comes naturally and serves her well.
Carrie Wilkerson, for example, is a consultant and strategist who helps entrepreneurs who work at home to build their businesses (Figure 7.1). Just look at the main image she uses on her web site BlogBarefoot.com. She’s shown sitting on the floor, smiling and relaxed ... and barefoot.
That’s her brand. That’s what she’s offering to people who hire her as a coach or a consultant. She’ll help them to be professional, but in a way that’s easy, relaxed, and stress-free. It’s a message she communicates through the pictures she uses. It’s a feeling that’s summarized in the title she uses to describe herself: “The Barefoot Executive.” And it’s also something that comes across clearly in her Twitter stream (Figure 7.2).
Carrie’s tweets are inspiring, positive, and professional, but they’re also personal. They help her to communicate her brand and her personality directly to her target market, building a close relationship with people she may well be working with in the future.
Figure 7.2Carrie Wilkerson’s brand name and image help to place her in people’s minds. Her tweets help her to build that brand.
Twitter is particularly strong at doing this, and it’s another good reason to choose a brand that reflects your true personality. It’s very difficult to create a successful timeline that doesn’t show who you are. But when your brand is a positive aspect of your personality—your sense of fun, your love of knowledge, your thoroughness—then that will come across naturally in your tweets.
Every time you open your timeline and tell people what you’re doing or thinking, you’ll be giving your brand another little push and burying it a little deeper in people’s minds.
Your personal brand will make you known to your target market. It will help to build trust, and it should lead people to like you. Communicating that brand is a process. It takes time, but as you do it, you should find that it creates a very powerful connection with your audience, encouraging them to return to you... and to hire you as a coach, too.
Sometimes you need a tool that will communicate your brand in a way that’s much faster, much broader, and much more powerful.
How to Do PR for Mass Impact
Coaching relies on your image as an expert. Students will hire you, sign up for your classes, and buy your coaching videos because they’re certain that you know more than they do and more than most people do—and that you can share your knowledge. That expertise will form part of your brand.
Usually, it takes time to build a sense of the depth and value of your expertise. It happens after your blog has been online for a long time and has consistently posted good content. It happens when your information products are bought, shared, passed around, and most important of all, respected.
It happens when you really do know your stuff, and the content that you produce shows that you know your stuff.
But you can take a shortcut to build your brand as an expert: You can get your name in the press.
When reporters are assigned a story, they start looking for sources. They’ll want to speak to people who are directly involved in the story. That will give the article a human touch and show the reader that what they’re describing does have an impact on people’s lives. But they’ll also want to speak to an expert. That will explain to the reader what’s happening, why it’s happening, and why it’s important.
Reporters themselves can’t do that. They’re not the experts. They’re just the ones who ask the questions and pass the information on to the reader. They don’t create that information themselves. The reader assumes that the experts interviewed by reporters are leaders in their field. The reader assumes that if there were a higher authority on that subject, the reporter would have found and interviewed that person instead.
If you get your name in the press,
