My years in college and years recently out of college have been filled with timeless daydreaming about the next big start-up company that I could take from nothing to something big. I’ve had plenty of ideas, but I’ve fallen into the trap of having tons of ideas, but no means to make those ideas a reality. I began researching and critically thinking about the idea of myself. I know, it sounds conceited, but there are thousands of people who become extremely successful by developing their personal brand. They are literally making a name for themselves by turning their name into a business.
The concept of developing a personal brand is a topic that cannot be fully covered in one article. The concept of building a personal brand is making your name synonymous with something else. Dave Ramsey’s name is associated with personal finance and eliminating debt. Zig Ziglar is associated with motivational speaking. Stephen King is associated with dark fiction. You can think of any well-known name and immediately think of their expertise. This is the goal of personal branding. You want the entire world knowing your name and what it is associated with. Here are three key steps to helping you develop your personal brand.
Develop an online presence.
If your name is not online, you will have a hard time promoting and developing your brand in today’s world. We feed ourselves with online media and information first. It’s more convenient for us to look up someone or something on the internet than to look anywhere else. The best way for you to build your online presence is with a blog. My entire strategy for building my personal brand has and will revolve around this blog and Money Crashers. It’s a real-time resume. It’s one of the best ways to show people your expertise by writing about it. Plus, search engines love blogs. They love how nicely they index with search engine crawlers, and they love their uniformity and constant content updates. Putting your name in search engines with a blog/personal website is the first key step to building your personal brand.
Develop media that can be distributed to the masses.
When you are selling yourself, you are selling ideas. You are selling your expertise, your ideas, and your creativity to others. If you successfully market your personal brand, people want to hear and read what you have to say. Videos, podcasts, eBooks, traditional books, and any other packaged media that can be distributed to the masses and sold for a profit is the second key step to building your personal brand. If you’ve come this far, you might have a chance to become an expert in your field. Writing a book, producing a weekly podcast, or selling an eBook online are all great ways to take your personal brand to the next level. You’ve gone from a blogger with some nice ideas to a more authoritative voice with print, audio, and visual media.
Refine your speaking skills
Are you deathly scared of speaking in front of people? Then you should reconsider packaging and selling yourself. Because, the next key step to developing your personal brand and becoming an expert voice in your field is public speaking. Consulting and public speaking engagements will come if your blog and other media are discovered. Organizations will want you to come and explain your ideas. You may get an offer to speak on the radio or do an interview on television. If people start seeing that you can’t speak well in front of an audience, they might lose interest in you. I know what you’re thinking. How did George Bush become the President? I’m not a Bush basher, but no matter what your political affiliation is, we can all agree that public speaking is not his strong suit. All I can say is that he worked it out. And that can be true for you. You don’t have to be a natural public speaker, but practice can help you just like it helps to practice for anything else. Speak in front of your friends, take opportunities to speak in front of smaller groups before a company asks you to speak in front of 1,000 people. You may never have the kind of public speaking skills as a Zig Ziglar, but you can still be effective.
Developing an online presence, developing packaged media, and refining your public speaking skills are three key steps to helping you develop the business of yourself. It can be done, and it’s done all of the time. You set your own schedule, you control how much income you earn, and you develop multiple streams of income with limitless potential. Sound appealing? I thought that it might. But, it won’t be easy. You’ll be starting from nothing. You’re going to be putting your name in the public eye, gaining their respect, and commanding an authority on a certain subject. It’s not an easy task, but it’s also not impossible.
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