5 Steps to Building an Authentic Brand

5 Steps to Building an Authentic Brand

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room”
~ Jeff Bezos~

Your personal brand is about identifying and then communicating what makes you unique and relevant. If you understand your strengths, skills, passions, and values, you can use this information to separate yourself from all of the noise and really stand out.
Personal branding is very powerful because it sends a clear, consistent message about who you are and what you have to offer.

A strong, authentic personal brand helps you become known for what you’re good at and sets you apart from everyone else. What do you want people to associate with you when they think of your name? Once you understand how you wish your brand to be perceived, you can start to be much more strategic about your personal brand.

Your brand is composed of everything that represents your company: your name, logo, colors, pricing, website design, customer service, and more. Your brand is what people experience when they encounter and work with you.

Here are five steps to growing an authentic brand:

Step 1. Confidence – Confidence is one of the most important aspects of personal branding. Before you can convince others of how great you are, you must first believe it yourself. Remember, it is almost impossible to convince somebody of something that you don’t believe yourself.

Step 2. Clarity– Clarity helps to develop trust and trust creates connection. When these three magical things happen, window shoppers turn into loyal clients. In order for trust to be established, your brand message has to be clear and concise. It is important to understand that a confused mind will not buy.

Step 3. Connection – How are you connecting with your ideal client? In today’s society people live a lot of their life online. Since people are naturally designed to be social creatures and connect, we can reason that quite a bit of socializing will be done online. It is no longer acceptable to simply post a picture or a status and walk away. People want to know your REAL thoughts and feelings and connect with you. They want you to be authentic.

Step 4. Consistency – Once you establish trust with your ideal client and connect with them it is important that they consistently here from you. Your audience wants to know that you are predictable and will keep showing up. Consistency ensures that you stay top of mind as an industry leader and positions you as the “go to girl” in your field.

Step 5. Commitment – You have to be committed to offering extreme value to your ideal clients. It is important to offer information that your ideal client can’t find just anywhere online or offline. Don‘t be stingy, share REAL information that moves your audience forward. Do not give your ideal client the left overs, give them your best.

T. Reneé Smith, President & CEO of iSuccess Consulting, is known as the “Business Scalability Expert.” She is a serial entrepreneur and corporate strategist who has directly developed small business suppliers for Delta Air Lines and other Fortune 500 corporations. T. Reneé has assisted small businesses in obtaining more than $30 million in traditional and non-traditional funding capital. She has been featured in various publications including Entrepreneur and Cosmopolitan. She serves on the Leadership Council for the National Small Business Association (NSBA).

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