How to up level your personal brand
You are your brand
“To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called you.” Tom Peters
You don’t necessarily need to be a business owner to benefit from working on your personal brand though. The same principles around your personal style can be applied even if you are employed and want to boost your confidence to go for promotion, or to speak up more in meetings etc. If that’s you just skim past the business bits.
I’m soon to be dusting off and relaunching a 1:1 package that I used to love doing. It is for women in business who are ready to level up in terms of their personal style and overall brand identity. (I need a new punchy name for it though. The tagline is ‘look and feel the business’.)
What you need for a cohesive brand identity
When you first start in business you don’t know what you don’t know and probably haven’t got much money to spend on the aesthetics...
A couple of years later you want to look the part, take things up a notch and are ready to invest.
No more Vistaprint business cards, the website your friend designed as a favour is giving you ‘webarrassment’, same thing with the logo from Fiverr. The selfies and quick phone camera snaps are ready to be replaced with more professional photos AND you want to ramp up your personal style and image confidence to match the look and feel of your overall branding.
The package starts with YOU and what vibe you want to convey, and we look at how to carry that across ALL of your visual communication. You get your personal style sorted and have a mood board that is congruent to use as a starting point with my trusted partners to create a cohesive brand identity. You, your logo, photos and website will all look the business. I’m currently going through the process again myself as I incorporate the FAB Network into my branding because I want it all to look cohesive.
Looking the part and reflecting who you are
Developing your Brand Identity enables you to create a clear, recognisable visual style for your personal brand. Once done it professionally expresses who you are and helps you attract your ideal client. Brand Identity guidelines ensure that you are consistent, stand out from the crowd and become memorable for the right reasons.
First Impressions Last. Creating the right first impression can make or break getting the work. Think about you, your personal style and your brand what kind of emotions/impression do you want to convey?
When I very first got my brand guidelines done, I did a quiz. I had to answer questions like ‘if your brand was a holiday/car/restaurant what type of holiday/car restaurant would it be? It was really interesting to get a feel of my brand personality – these were the words that came out for me dazzling, lively, engaging, unique, colourful, vibrant, splendid, sparkly, self-assured, bold. This was the impression I wanted to give.
I even do this exercise with my style only clients, so they have something to check in against when they are choosing outfits. These words become your 'Duck Words'.
Because…If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it probably is a duck...
You could also things about where your brand identity sits on each of these points on a sliding scales? Make a mark on each line.
exclusive------------------------accessible
traditional-------------------------modern
formal------------------------------friendly
serious-------------------------------playful
understated---------------------------bold
simple------------------------------complex
city, urban--------------------------natural
familiar-------------------------disruptive
stable------------------------------dynamic
realistic---------------------------idealistic
Think about the images you use in your current visual communication/assets. Do they reflect the vibe/words you identified? If not, why not? What else would be a better fit?
For a great personal brand identity, you want to be consistently applying certain visual elements in all your communication. For example - anything you publish on your social media channels, your website and presentations you might give etc. You and your brand identity/personality are representing YOU. If it is a mish mash of styles, colours, fonts etc that don’t have harmony or consistency what is that saying about you as a women in business? Does it match up with how you want to be perceived?
The 3 C's of Personal Brand Identity
1: CLARITY
What you do and who do you do it for? Who are your ideal customers? What appeals to them? What are your values? What is your brand 'essence'?
2: CREDIBILITY
What does looking the part mean to you? What message do you want to convey? Do your brand express 'go to expert' in your industry? Are the colours & fonts sending the right message? Are your visuals congruent with your 'Duck Words'?
3: CONSISTENCY
Are your visuals all part of the same 'family'? Is your brand 'personality' showing through? Is your aesthetic/style recognisable across all your visual communication? i.e., website, business cards, banners, leaflets, social media platforms etc..
The 4th C is Confidence. When your Brand Identity is clear, credible and consistent both you and your prospective clients have greater confidence.
A handy checklist to see how your personal brand stacks up
“Personal branding is about building authority that gets people to pay attention to your message and want to share it and recommend it to others.” Mark Traphagen
Here’s a handy checklist for you to see how your personal brand identity stacks up:
You - does your personal style and image reflect your duck words?
Do you 'look the part'? Whatever that means to you?
Profile pictures - are they the same across your social media platforms?
Fonts - do you have 2/3 that you always use, a mix of serif/sans serif?
Colour palette - do you stick to the same group of colours? A main one, a couple of interest colours and a couple of accent colours?
Do you stick with similar styles for: stock images composition filters on photos If we gathered all your visual assets/ images together and took an overview do they appear to belong to the same family?
Client success stories re personal brand
Here's what some of my clients say
“I'd encourage everyone to have their personal and professional brand style done. Where once I might have dismissed this as unnecessary expense, I now think it's essential. It's life changing in so many ways that I couldn't foresee when I started my journey with Lisa Newport.” Karen Chappell
“If looking the part matters professionally, you can’t afford not to sort out how you appear to others and know that you’re getting it right every time. It freed me up to concentrate on the job of speaking and reassured me that I looked right for the job.” Pam Burrows
“I really enjoyed my sessions with Lisa, not only did we talk about colours suited me, but spent a lot of time talking about my re-brand, my ideal customer and the being confident in the skin you are in. Lisa is honest, which is so refreshing and made me examine my entire life purpose. It was an absolute journey!” Debbie Clarke
If you found this useful and would like to explore working on your Brand Identity further then get in touch to have a no obligation chat about your options. I have products and services to suit all budgets – just hit drop me a message.
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