Supporting your Ongoing Personal Brand Communication
Where do most people need support to continue to grow their personal brand, beyond initial planning and launch?
All of my work with individuals starts with Personal Brand Profiling, to get clear on their personal brand positioning messages, along with their audience and goals. After that, most will work on refreshing their LinkedIn profiles to reflect that positioning, and from there we create detailed personal marketing plans which may include LinkedIn and networking strategy and sales/business development plans.
Some clients ask for specialised help in particular areas such as building a personal website, creating a speaker profile and topic outline, or coaching in professional confidence in meetings, presentations or networking.
“They may have been thinking about achieving these goals for some time but don’t know where to start or how to get it done efficiently and effectively…”
I enjoy the structure of a handful of focused intensives to get the above goals achieved with clients. They are busy people who want to achieve a lot but also have a lot on their plates. They may have been thinking about achieving these goals for some time but don’t know where to start or how to get it done efficiently and effectively. Intensive one-to-one workshops over a few weeks achieves that.
While people can get a lot done in a short time clarifying their personal brand, creating a plan for reaching their target audience and even launching on one or two platforms… where most people really struggle is in keeping the momentum up that is required to actually carry out your plan successfully and build the brand with communication over time.
Watch the video and read on below for examples of what people ask for support on when working on their personal brands…
What does it mean to communicate a personal brand successfully?
Communicating your personal brand is about achieving set goals for what it is supposed to help you achieve. After clarifying your brand messaging, you need to get it out there – clearly and consistently – and keep layering your communications to build impact over time. In addition, you need to actually do the things that are on your personal brand outreach plan for it to work!
“…you need to actually do the things that are on your personal brand outreach plan for it to work!”
This might include strategies like:
- specific network-building activities and conversations you need to have
- research you need to do and connections you need to make on LinkedIn
- introductions you need to acquire through a planned method
- website or media content you need to produce on an ongoing basis
- well-thought-out social media posts you need to publish
- speaking engagements you need to obtain.
As you can see, there is a lot to do after planning, and this is overwhelming to many people. With the best of intentions, busy people get side-tracked and pretty soon six months have gone by and they have done almost nothing on their plan to build their personal brand! I do have clients who come back a year after their initial work feeling they have to start again because nothing has been achieved in between.
To ensure the strategic work on their personal brands isn’t wasted, many clients have asked for support on a monthly basis to not only ensure things get done, but to make sure they are done right – because lack of skill or confidence are big reasons why people procrastinate on new tasks!
Clients will come to me with questions on finer details and challenges they want guidance on, through the lens of their personal brand positioning. They may want hands-on support from our team on getting quality content out regularly or fine-tuning particular pieces. They may want more coaching to build confidence in areas they want to develop, like speaking and networking. Or they may mainly just want someone to keep them on track with their plan and keep them accountable to goals they have decided are personal priorities.
Regular support not only gets things done but steadily builds confidence in communicating a personal brand!
Questions I regularly help my clients answer in support sessions include:
- What do you think of this article / post?
- Am I being too promotional if I highlight this service on LinkedIn?
- Should I participate in this promotional opportunity?
- How’s my engagement level on LinkedIn?
- Can I have a template for an email introduction request/response?
- Can you review the wording of my email response to this contact?
- I’ve lost regular contact with this important client. How can I re-engage?
- I have updated my bio. What do you think?
- How soon should I announce this change?
- How often should I post about…?
- Do you think this CV fits for this job/board role?
- Should I connect with this person?
- What networking events should I choose?
- How can I start a conversation with this LinkedIn contact?
For me personally, being able to support clients month-by-month after planning and launching their personal brands, is one of the most rewarding aspects of my work, because I get to help them achieve along the journey and to witness close-up the results of our work together… I get to celebrate the successes with them along the journey, and that is such a joy.
Related material
How to develop a leadership brand
What to do before launching your personal brand