Our world is changing rapidly.
As a society, we’re undergoing massive economic shifts. The economy becomes more global by the minute with millions coming online. Technology is constantly evolving the pace of doing business. The job market is constantly in flux.
How do we as professionals, consultants, and business owners face the rapidly changing economy with any certainty that the investments we make today are going to be relevant in the next 5-10 years?
How can we create real autonomy, security, and peace of mind in a global economy with massive uncertainty, especially amidst a pandemic?
We own our gifts, aka our unique genius.
Everyone has gifts. When we harness the gifts we’re born with and position ourselves to be of service, we get the word out where people can receive us. When we own our genius, we can create an infinite stream of access to economic abundance regardless of currency, language, or location.
Owning our unique selves sounds complex enough. With so many people daily creating content and offering services, how do we make sure we’re heard?
We stand in authenticity.
Authenticity makes competition almost irrelevant in the way we currently think about it. The core of who you are already has intrinsic value that’s irreplaceable. No one else has your story. Your perspective is unique to every other human being on this planet and has value to someone, somewhere. Communicating that perspective can be leveraged and sold when you can tap into your true genius.
This provides a level of self awareness and understanding of your highest value and it comes down to this: offering your unique service to others is sellable in all currencies, languages, and locations. That’s true security, real autonomy, and freedom.
And it all comes through in a personal brand.
Personal Branding and Your Zone of Genius
The personal branding process is different than building any other business model.
Why? Because it must be embodied to be authentic and sell.
An embodied business is when your business truly is your chosen persona. People can feel it when you aren’t telling the truth. They’re looking for lack of congruence, lack of content, and distortions in your message.
Therefore, clarity is everything.
How well you know your business determines how successful you’ll be. With personal branding, you must know yourself extremely well. In order to feel confident marketing yourself, you have to be comfortable with being seen and believe that you’re valuable.
It’s a healing, transformative, and deeply introspective process to create an authentic, high value, and timeless personal brand.
You may think that by building a personal brand, you won’t be able to leverage your business in the way you want to. You may believe you won’t be able to scale, create massive impact, and build a legacy within the parameters of a personal brand.
Maybe you think that personal brands don’t hold a candle to a good business because then it’s highly dependent on the entrepreneur and impossible to sell.
It’s time to shift your thinking.
Building a personal brand builds a foundation for your entire career. Remember: today, people want to know who you are, what you stand for, and what you do. They want to see social proof. They want to see content. They want to know what you authentically think before they buy from you.
Creating a personal brand is something that will continue to serve you for decades, regardless of what other projects you take on.
In fact, a personal brand essentially serves as the foundation for all of your other projects when you can deeply tap into your zone of genius. It will be deeply aligned with your values and permeate all dimensions of your life.
You are your own brand
Managing a career is like managing a brand.
Being your own brand doesn’t mean your businesses are not brands in and of themselves. However, you, as your personal brand are a living, breathing, money-making, sales-churning, customer-serving human being.
The amount of time people spend in one job is getting shorter and there’s an immense amount of pressure on those with a career to be at least a semi-functional entrepreneur. Our career is our business, whether we’re building 7 figure companies or working a 9-5.
Having a strong personal brand makes it possible for you to change jobs, start new businesses, and have a centralized persona no matter what direction your career takes.
Every entrepreneur is their own personal brand.
Many of the world’s best business leaders were born out of failed businesses. Knowing that there’s a chance that the company you work for or own could someday fail, you need strategy. This strategy can ensure your personal success, no matter what cards your business is dealt.
The only insurance you have against extinction is building your brand.
You could argue that each of our personal brands began at birth. When we were given a name, we were unknowingly launched into a new brand, the first of a lifetime of personal decisions that makes us each uniquely our own being – or brand. From that day forward, we spend our lives living up to our given name.
Ironically, when you look at it from a marketing perspective, this is no different from launching and marketing a brand. The brand starts out with a name and a basic sense goals, messaging, and vision. It then connects with people to add value to their lives, constantly evolving over time to be more and more relevant. The way we operate as humans is, therefore, similar in nature.
Personal branding is the most important foundational element for the longevity of your career.
Three key mistakes people make when building their personal brands are:
- Lack of congruence in their story and messaging. This comes from not doing enough work pinpointing your zone of genius, crafting your irreplaceable offer, and building a business model that actually serves your soul.
- C+ Presentation. Your web presence is based on a template that makes you blend in with everyone else. You also may have copy that doesn’t connect with your customer.
- Poor functionality and lack of automation. These are the glitches on your website, lack of mobile responsive content, using software that is sabotaging you rather than serving you, or not using automation software at all.
Are you ready to dive in? Let’s put together a rock solid blueprint for your personal brand to get you started building true insurance for your future self.
