Branding has long been emphasized as an important part of growing your business, whether you are an entrepreneur with a physical product or a freelancer who offers their services. Countless business gurus will tell you that you need a strong personal brand to distinguish yourself from your competitors so you can leave a lasting impression on the people you want to work with.


The question is, how do you do that exactly? How do you create your personal brand?

Personal Brand Vs Business Brand

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of personal branding, we need to differentiate personal branding from business branding first. Are the two really different when both their goals are to attract potential customers?


Yes!


The simplest way to put this is, a personal brand is focused on the person running the business. Your identity as a business owner is in the spotlight. How different are you from other people in the same field? What sets you apart from other life coaches, fitness instructors, realtors, freelance writers, therapists, virtual assistants, etc.? 


On the other hand, a business brand doesn’t revolve around the entrepreneur who created and runs the business. It’s about the business itself. The branding concentrates on the products and/or services offered. You don’t need to look far for examples. Big brand names like Coca-Cola, Apple, Starbucks, and the likes are business brands.

Both personal brands and business brands have their pros and cons but that’s a conversation for another day. 


In some industries or fields, personal brands and business brands do intersect at some point though. Take for instance makeup brands. Cosmetic companies often collaborate with social media influencers, bloggers, YouTubers, and celebrities whose personal brand matches or complements their business brand.

A 6-Step Guide to Building a Personal Brand from Scratch

So now back to our first question, how does one start a personal brand? 

Although it feels like it takes a hundred steps to create a personal brand all you really need to do to get started are these six things:

Step 1: Create a Genuine Persona

It might be tempting to create a unique personality that’s very different from who you are so we’re reminding you from the get-go that the keyword here is genuine.

What are you about? What are your skills? What makes you feel passionate? What are your values and work ethics? These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself to define your personal brand. After you’ve put together the answers to these questions, then you can start working on your brand mission and messaging.

Step 2: Identify Your Perfect Client

If you’re thinking that the best way to get a high ROI on your branding efforts is to appeal as to many people as possible, then you couldn’t be more wrong. That’s a recipe for disaster. In any given niche, there are dozens of kinds of clients. Even if you try really hard, you can’t cater to the specific needs of each one. 

So if you want your personal brand to work for you, you need to create it with a specific type of client in mind. The better defined your “perfect” client is, the more targeted your message and solution can be, and of course, that means more work (and money!) for you. 


To help you define your target market, create a client profile that includes demographics, pain points, and desires. Take it a step further by determining how much they’re willing to invest, how much input (in other words, managing) you’re willing to take from a client, and your ideal work hours.

The perfect clients are least likely to balk at your rates and would be repeat customers.

Step 3: Craft Your Offer

Now that you know the essence of your brand and your target audience, then you can start crafting your offer. Your offer should be specific enough to solve the problems or pain points of the ideal client that you identified in the previous step. 


One common piece of advice that abounds on the internet is to position yourself as an expert. While there’s nothing wrong with doing this if you are indeed an expert, know that it can backfire if you’re not. What you can do instead is to position yourself as a specialist in solving a particular problem (which we’re sure you are!), and don’t forget to highlight how you may add value to their lives. Be careful not to make vague promises. Good clients are smarter than that!

Step 4: Create a Solid Online Presence 

It’s a common mistake for entrepreneurs and freelancers these days to rely on just social media. Remember when Instagram went down for several hours? Many businesses lost money during that time and were reminded of why it’s important to have their own websites.


A solid online presence goes beyond Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You need to be found by potential customers through an online search, too.  And regardless of where they search for you (social media or search engines), it’s important to make a good impression through what they find. 

Your website should have engaging content that speaks to what you offer, customer testimonials, high-quality graphics that include photos of you, and links to your social media profiles and blog.

Step 5: Develop a Content Strategy

Now we’re going a little deeper. To engage your perfect client, you need to make them feel that the time and attention that they spend consuming your content is worth it. 


Having a good content strategy in place ensures you’re being consistent and are continuously positioning yourself as a specialist. This is where you can get creative and produce interesting content that keeps new people and existing clients coming back for more.

Step 6: Collaborate!

The more you can get your name out there, the better! To increase your online visibility, you need to publish your content on the right platforms and collaborate with the right people. Seek PR opportunities, write guest content, speak at public events, host a webinar with someone in your niche, or offer to be a guest in a podcast! You can also look at hosting your own events that will help you build a community.

Building your own personal brand can open a lot of doors for an entrepreneur, as long as you have a strategic approach in place.


Do you have any questions about personal branding or do you need help figuring out how to best represent your personal brand? Leave a comment below or shoot us a DM -- we are on Instagram as @bravoimage_branding!