7 Activities Of Highly Impactful Personal Branders

‘I don't want to build my Personal Brand but I don’t have the time’ 

Story of my life as this is pretty much what 80% of the people I’m talking to.

Good news!

Building your Personal Brand doesn’t take a lot of time when done right. It does require intentional habits and actions that are aligned with your long-term goals. And this is exactly what this blog post is all about! Ready to build and boost your Personal Brand? Then let’s go!    

No matter if you’re a corporate professional, an entrepreneur, an athlete or a student- building your Personal Brand is the best investment you can make in your future trajectory.

However, one of the biggest hurdles 9aka excuses) that I hear from the majority of people who express interest in becoming the Trusted Authority in their field is time, more specifically: the lack of time.

And since I’m all for getting rid of excuses and stepping into actions, I want to share with you 7 highly effective and impactful activities you can do, no matter where you’re at in your journey that will guarantee to plant the seeds for long-term success.

Because although everyone’s personal brand is different, there are a few things that all successful “branders” do:

1. Commit to life-long learning

Becoming the Go-To, the trusted authority in your field doesn’t just happen.

It’s a process and comes from committing to consistently learning more about, refining and also relearning best practices, methods and systems. But I don't want you to use this as an excuse to not start sharing what you know and create content around it.

Because that trap is real.

I want you to commit to a topic, a promise, a specialisation that you’re so passionate about that you’d love to read about, listen to and talk about 24/7 anyway.

Otherwise, you don’t have longevity in whatever you’re embarking on as it'll become dreadful. I’ve immersed myself into the world of branding since I was 18 and have taken - god knows how many courses, worked with personal branding coaches and did further official qualifications in it even though I have a masters in Marketing and 10 years experience working in purely focused branding roles.

There is no end game to mastery. I still learn something new about it every day and that’s the existing part.

So my question to you - what is it that you want to commit to? 

Another way to answer this question is to ask yourself: what’s the conversation you want to lead?

2. Know the importance of clarity and consistency

Building trust comes from consistency and cohesiveness so being mindful and intentional about your online and offline presence is key.

It starts with you focusing on one big topic you want to talk about with a couple of smaller sub topics that compliment your core pillar topic, eg: in my case I’m talking about building + monetising personal branding aka becoming the trusted authority probs 70% of my time.

The rest is split into content creation and LinkedIn as these are subtopics that are aligned with the main topic. And it doesn’t stop there. Take an audit and see how consistent you are online with your social media profiles and Google results. Is it clear that it’s you, aka do you own your name together with your specialisation? Is there a consistent theme in terms of colours, fonts, look & feel or would it be hard to recognise it’s your contribution / page when someone covers your name on it?

Lastly - part of consistency also includes you showing up. If you want to be seen and recognized as the Go-To, the Trusted Authority, sharing and contributing regularly your thoughts, ideas, learnings and any other relevant updates is part of it.

No one will run your door in when you’re the best kept secret. And consistency doesn’t mean 762 daily. It means consistent to what’s possible and feasible for you. So it might be 1x per week, it might be more.

Commit to a number, a measurable outcome eg weekly blog or 2x monthly podcast appearances etc and stick to it.

3. Relationships, relationships, relationships

The other day I shared on my instagram stories what my morning routine in the gym looks like and it includes connecting or reconnecting with 5- 7 people.

Daily.

Why?

Because connections, partnerships and the relationships you have with them are the door opener to your next opportunity.

This is why I touch base regularly - also or even more so when I don’t ‘need’ anything, aka I don't have an ask to make. You never want to take advantage of people and only contact tenm when you want something. I’m sure you’ve been taken advantage of also and it feels gross.

So make sure to have a daily 10min or so window where you reconnect with existing and/or connect with new people. In last week’s episode Karen talked about habit stacking - she engages in other people’s Linkedin content when she’s on her way to pick up the kids and waits for her fried egg to be cooked. I’m sure you have habits too that you can connect with it.

As the saying goes- connect business with pleasure :)

That same day, I also got a very interesting and highly relevant article sent from one of my amazing clients, Val and gies what? That’s such a relationship building activity that also keeps him top of mind for me and creates a positive experience.

4. Get external perspective

By now, you should know that your personal brand is the perception others have of you when they think of you. Unfortunately, perception = reality (for them) and not always aligned with what you actually want to be remembered for.

Get external feedback and input regularly. Again, same principle as the commitment to life-long learning activity: don’t focus on pleasing people.

Use this feedback to gather insights and analyse those data points. When I was introduced to someone who would have been my ideal client at a really important event where i was not only the keynote speaker but the intro was done by the event host as he said’ petra is a really great networker’ … my jaw just dropped.

This was NOT what i want to be known for, quite the opposite.

But i also realised that I wasn’t clear enough in my external comms, i didn’t create the narrative so it was hard for others (aka impossible) to talk about me in a way that I like. Take control over your intro, your story and your positioning.

Otherwise, someone else will do it for sure. This is one (of many) reasons why I consistent enrol to high end masterminds, work with coaches and pro-activity seek feedback from my clients and students to make sure that any blind spots are uncovered but also to sense-check if the current association is still aligned with my future aspirations as this also changes over time

5. Embrace and immerse yourself into your (ideal) community

The best way to get people's attention, build trust and be remembered is to add value in a conversational format. This could be in a one-to-one conversation, as guest on a podcast or as guest speaker at an event or panel discussion.

One of my Personal Brand KPIs (which we also covered in eopi 46 when i talked about the ROI of investing in your personal brand) is speaking engagements and reach.

So no surprise that I consistently seek out opportunities to connect with my ideal community, may it be through building my own channels, like this podcast you’re listening to or through solo workshops I’m running but I also pitch myself to be a guest on podcasts, to be a speaker at events or to collaborate with others to run webinars and masterclasses. Just this week when I record this episode, I was the guest speaker at the Coffee Commune Women’s Leaders Breakfast Series and was interviewed by an incredible personal brand, Phil di bella himself. And not only that - the room was full of 60 incredibly driven high flyers, women and men who’re all the perfect community I want to be part of and contribute to. So here’s my question: which industry associations, interest groups or communities can you immerse yourself in, become part of and contribute to?

6. Social proof 

In today’s digital-first economy, where transparency rules, it’s no longer enough for you to say you’re the best and your immediate circle knowing about it. Your reputational capital as Rachel Botsamn coined it is your reputation across marketplaces and communities and that also includes your digital footprint, meaning - testimonials or logos of brands you worked with you have on your website (if you have one) or recommendations on your LinkedIn profile but also not so obvious social proof like partnerships, ie speaking at events with a reputable name or having learned from / studied at a respected institutions or mentor. It’s basically external validation that is one aspect of making you credible. 

7. Having a repeatable system

One of the biggest and most common reasons why people are afraid of putting themselves out there is that they think they ‘get found out’ or feel like an imposter because they aren't sure if they can deliver on their promise, aka: their knowledge isn’t systemaised and packaged that would guarantee them a predictable result.

How you can overcome this is by sorting your own systems, processes, methods and steps and develop your own branded IP, aka your signature system that you can not only use to actually deliver on your brand promise but also to use it as educational content to build your thought leadership and authority further through social media, speaking engagements and of course, trough paid solutions like consulting packages, courses, speaking engagements and other package-able (fi that’s even a word) solutions.

So whilst this isn’t a comprehensive list, it’s an effective list that will give you quick results and wins. Not only long-term but pretty quickly.

Now I want to hear from you!

What are some of the tips, tactics and techniques you apply to build and boost your Personal Brand? Send me a DM on LinkedIn and I’ll make sure to record a Part 2 of this soon!