THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT The 5 step framework to build your personal brand
Kat is an Aussie actor, coach and entrepreneur who grew up on the Gold Coast in Australia. Her professional career began with a bang, playing Marilyn Monroe at Warner Bros Movie World before landing a role in the original Australian cast of Jersey Boys and then Hairspray the Musical. After a “quarter life crisis” at 25, she re realised alised she wanted more than to just play someone else’s role and speak someone else’s words, so she wrote, produced and starred in a series of cabarets that ignited a love of marketing and branding. A few years into her marketing journey in real estate and the advertising industry, she decided to become a freelance copywriter and brand strategist, something she did successfully for 4 years and was what eventually led her to becoming an online course creator and full time content creator. These days you can find Kat on YouTube as well as the occasional TV commercial and TV show (she’s currently based in Vancouver, Vancouver, balancing entrepreneurship entrepr eneurship with her acting career) and is most obsessed with teaching fellow fell ow creative solopreneurs how to find the confidence to show up and create a powerful personal brand using the power of video.
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
WHY PERSONAL BRANDING?
As you’ve probably figured out by now, personal branding has become a pretty big deal in recent years.
If you’re ready to take action, you’re in the right place – the following pages are going to kick-start your personal branding journey. journey.
What Wha t you not realise, is that it’s not just might for celebrities andhowever, entrepreneurs. Every single human being (that wants to have a career and/or make an impact in the world) needs one… and already has one.
If you’re not, then I guess you should just close this window, unsubscribe from my emails and pretend we never met. Because I can only help you if you’re prepared to do the work. work.
That’s right. Whether you’d thought about it before or not, you yourself have a personal brand. ‘Cause guess what? A personal brand is about how other people perceive you (the good, the bad and the ugly) and they’re going to have an opinion of o f you whether you’re
Alright, I’m assuming you’re still reading this and are ready to dive in! But first a disclaimer:
intentional about your brand or not.
commitment to your showing up daily andlouder consistently so actions become than your words.
So now you know this, you have a choice to make. You can take action and be proactive about how people see you – taking the power back into your own hands. Or you can continue to leave it all up to fate, getting frustrated when your agent, friends, casting directors and acquaintances don’t seem to ‘get’ what you’re about.
A personal brand is about more than making some superficial changes to your social so cial media profiles or writing a killer bio. It’s a lifetime
Oh, and it’s an ever-evolving process. Your personal brand WILL change because it’s simply a reflection of you – an ever-changing, always fascinating piece miraculousness. So relax and enjoy the journey!
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
Clarity is at the core of your personal brand. Without it, you could end up creating the wrong content for the wrong people written in the wrong tone of voice… and what good will that do you? Sometimes we convince ourselves that any content we create is better than no content, but every piece of content we create needs to have a purpose – to educate, to help us get found, to entertain, to lead to a sale… etc etc. And if you’re pouring time and effort into creating anything that doesn’t lead to some sort of result, you’re wasting precious time and effort. Not only that, you could be attracting the wrong people or confusing the people you want to be serving. Which is why we’re going to dig deep into answering some crucial questions before we start creating anything. The clarity you need to build a powerful powerf ul personal brand covers a few areas…
Mystification is simple; clarity is the hardest thing of all. – Julian Barnes
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Who Wh o you want to serve
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What problem they need solving How you solve that problem What makes you qualified to help them t hem What makes your own story unique
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So let’s get down to business!
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
$ QUESTION 1: WHO DO YOU WANT TO SERVE?
I want you to create a profile for your dream customer (feel free to do this 2 or 3 times if you have secondary and tertiary markets, but even just 1 profile will change everything for you). If you’ve been in business for awhile, you could base this on one of your favourite customers or clients, or if you’re new to this or pivoting right now, then use your imagination – as long as it’s specific. By the way, if you want to do this thoroughly, I recommend scheduling some discovery calls with people (friends, family, acquaintances, past clients) who you think fit your profile and get answers straight from them as opposed to making it up. Alternatively you could create a Typeform questionnaire Typeform questionnaire and send it out to your list or suitable contacts in order to complete some real market research.
I often incentivise this in some way (give them a thank you gift, discount code, digital product etc) to increase the response rate. Whatever you do, take your time with this step as it’ll make the rest of the personal branding process so much easier and more rewarding. rewarding.
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PART ONE: DEMOGRAPHICS Name Age Lives Relationship Children Career Annual income Reads Listens to Holidays in Spends time online Searches for answers Follows
Why Wh y
Follows
Why
Follows
Why
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PART TWO: OPPORTUNITY TO SERVE
What are their biggest frustrations (in the context of what you do)?
What is their number 1 struggle (in the context of what you do)?
How have they tried to solve it so far?
Why Wh y didn't that solution work?
If they could wave a magic wand, what would the ideal product or service look like to solve that problem?
How much would they be prepared to pay for that?
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HOW DO YOU SOLVE YOUR AUDIENCE’S PROBLEMS?
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What is your product or service offering and how will it help your audience?
WHAT DO YOU DO DIFFERENTLY TO YOUR COMPETITION? What do you think makes you and your product/service unique when compared with any other similar offerings out there?
WHAT MAKES YOUR OWN STORY UNIQUE? What is it in your own life that led you to doing what you do? Have you experienced the same problems as your customers/clients? Is there something close to your heart that drives your “why”? What is it about you that would make a journalist want to write about you and your business that would connect emotionally with their audience?
WHAT DRIVES YOU?
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Why did you choose this field and why is it important to you that you succeed?
WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES? Some examples of values are: integrity, affordability, transparency, perseverance, innovation, respect, passion and equality. Brainstorm up to 10 but then narrow it down to your top 3.
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
In order to serve your audience in a way that is genuine and un-salesy, you need to have confidence in what you do and your audience needs to have confidence in you. This works from the inside out. First, you need to have absolute certainty in your own ability to serve your audience and that you have what it takes to solve their problems and improve their lives in some way. Then you need to find ways to demonstrate this in action so they start to have confidence in you – before they spend a cent on hiring you/buying from you. We often get very impatient for people to buy from us because we we know know how good we are and know that we could help our audience get the results they desire. But we forget that they often barely know us from a bar of soap. Put yourself in their shoes. If all you knew about you was what you could see on those few pages of your website plus a pretty Instagram feed, would that be enough for you to hand over the credit card? I highly doubt it.
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For instance, my mum is a real estate agent who has been in the industry industr y for 1 11 1 years. Occasionally she’ll get called in to appraise a house and will find out that the couple who called her first met her 5 years ago and hung onto her branded notebook all that time, observing her success from a distance, knowing that when the time came, she’d be the agent they called. Even then, they may still call in a few agents to interview, meaning despite the fact that she’s created 5 years of evidence for them, she still needs to put on an impressive show when she pitches her services. ser vices. The takeaway? Both your “incidental” actions (like daily interactions, social media posts, Facebook lives, being seen on the street – which, when done properly are actually always intentional) and your “essential” actions (direct contact via emails, sales calls, webinars, face to face meetings – anything that’s trying to close the sale) are all working together to build the confidence required to eventually turn your passive follower or engaged fan into a paying customer.
So… how are you going to do that? This is where that old know/like/trust equation comes in. And it doesn’t happen overnight. With some customers/ clients it might be a matter of days or weeks of talking to you (this often connected to how expensive your offer is too — how high risk is the investment?) For others it could be months or even years.
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WHAT MAKES YOU QUALIFIED TO HELP YOUR AUDIENCE?
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What training, experience, results and/or social proof do you have that will help your audience believe that you’re qualified to help them?
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IN WHAT WAYS ARE YOU GOING TO DELIVER VALUE?
How do you serve your audience before they become paying customers or clients? Think of the platforms you use, the kind of content you can create, the generosity you’ll have when answering questions, the hours you’ll dedicate to those “unbillable” hours that create deposits into your audiences’ confidence piggy bank. Don’t overthink this – treat it like a brain dump and you can streamline this later when you create your strategy.
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WHERE ARE YOUR CURRENT CONFIDENCE CRACKS? There are all sorts of ways that confidence can slip through the cracks, whether it comes from our own mindset blocks (imposter syndrome, fear of selling, newbie nerves) or the content we put out there that may undermine our efforts (unprofessional looking website, spelling mistakes in copy, lack of testimonials, inconsistency on social media, not having a great profile photo… the list goes on). I want you to run an assessment of your own mind AND your entire marketing presence and write down anything and everything that might be causing your audience to have a lack of confidence in your ability to help them. Take your time with this step – it’s really important.
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Now you’ve laid the foundations for yourself, the next step is communicating your message m essage and ensuring it reaches the right people. As I'm sure you know, communication is more than just words. It’s in all the other signals we send, from the colours and fonts we use, the photos we share, the clothes we wear, the body language we use and so much more.
We’ree going to start We’r star t by running an evaluation on how your existing communication is going, then t hen we can make a plan on how to improve it moving forward. Give each element of communication a score from -5 to +5. Anything under 0 means it’s potentially damaging your personal brand, whereas a +5 means you’re nailing it and using it to grow your brand on the daily.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. – George Bernard Shaw
Then I want you to jot down a) what message you think it’s currently sending and b) how you think it could improve either by up-skilling/spending up-skilling/spending more time on it or whether you think you might need to outsource some help.
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
SCORE
HOW I CAN IMPROVE
VERBAL (phone)
VERBAL (face to face)
WRITTEN (emails)
WRITTEN (website/blog)
WRITTEN (social media)
AUDIO VISUAL (video - live)
AUDIO VISUAL (video - pre-recorded)
AUDIO VISUAL (public speaking)
VISUAL AESTHETIC (logo)
VISUAL AESTHETIC (website)
VISUAL AESTHETIC (social media)
VISUAL AESTHETIC (brand photography)
VISUAL AESTHETIC (stock images used)
VISUAL AESTHETIC (how you dress)
VISUAL AESTHETIC (hair + makeup)
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
% Next, I want you to think about what your STRONGES STRONGESTT form of communication, then you’re you’ re going to choose a primary platform to utilize this skill and up to 2 secondary platforms to support it (by cross-promoting your content as well as creating shorter form content to build more CONFIDENCE with your audience).
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MY STRONGEST FORM OF COMMUNICATION IS: Written Verbal Video (live) Video (pre-recorded) Design
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MY BEST PRIMARY COMMUNICATION PLATFORM (ONLINE) IS: Blog YouTube Podcast
Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
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MY BEST SECONDARY COMMUNICATION PLATFORM (ONLINE) IS: Blog YouTube Podcast
Facebook Instagram Twitter LinkedIn
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
& Now we can get down to the nitty nitt y gritty: What will your communication style be on your chosen platforms? Even though you have a primary form of communication, to do truly make an impact, you’ll still need to incorporate them all, so we’re going to dig into the details here, from tone of voice to visual aesthetic.
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PERSONALITY: HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE PERCEIVED? Some examples are: Warm, funny, relatable, down-to-earth, authoritative, serious, quirky, energetic, motivating. Choose 3-5 that feel right – use a thesaurus if you’re stuck for ideas!
VISUALS: HOW WILL YOUR PERSONALITY LOOK?
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(If you have existing brand colours, are they consistent with this or is it time for a visual brand refresh?)
b c d
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What colours best represent your personality?
What fonts best represent your personality? What shapes best represent your personality? What emojis best represent your personality?
TONE OF VOICE: HOW DO YOU “SOUND”? Write an example email and/or social media post in the kind tone of voice that you think best represents your personality and will resonate with your audience. Keep tweaking it until you’re happy then use this as a reference point whenever you write your own copy for your business.
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
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PRESENTATION: WHO ARE YOU SHOWING UP AS? Is the way you currently present yourself a good visual representation of your brand? If not, describe the kind of style choices that would as well as the hair, makeup and accessories that would allow you to be a walking billboard for your personal brand. Is there a signature piece that you could invest in to help you create a stronger visual impression? For instance a blazer in a statement colour or t-shirts with funny quotes on them.
How would you translate your style for different occasions, such as…
Filming a video:
Meeting a client for a coffee:
Attending a business-casual networking event:
Presenting a keynote speech:
Attending an awards night:
BONUS EXERCISE: MOOD BOARD
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BONUS EXERCISE: CREATING A MOOD BOARD If you’re unclear on how to communicate your brand visually, a mood board is the perfect place to start. You can do these for specific purposes like getting logo or website design inspiration, creating your style uniform, or designing your office OR you can do a general one, pulling in anything that has the “vibe” you’re drawn to… colours, textures, objects, typography, offices, quotes, infographics, you name it. The quickest way to do this is on Pinterest via a private board, but you have less flexibility as you can’t re-order them. If you’d prefer to take complete creative control, you could instead… Milanote’s Mood Board Template •Use Milanote’s Mood Use design software like Canva or Illustrator • •Create a Google Drive folder to pull everything into •Go old-school and start cutting out clips from magazines to paste onto a big ol’ piece of cardboard.
…Whatever …Whatev er makes you feel best!
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
Finally, you can pull together everything you’ve worked on so far and write some killer bios ready for your social media profiles, website, press releases and more.
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MY MICRO BIO (INSTAGRAM ETC)
MY SHORT BIO (150 WORDS)
2 MY FULL BIO (300 WORDS)
3
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
I don’t believe that any one of these four Cs is more important than the others, but I will tell you now that no amount of work you do on the first 3 will matter if you’re not consistent. Consistency is the key that builds the most trust with your audience as you’ll become familiar to them, they’ll know what to expect from you and you’ll become a reliable source of education/value/ information/entertainment/whatever it is you’re offering.
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From how often you’re sharing valuable content to how available you are on different platforms to answer questions and build relationships with your audience. This part takes work and is the main reason most personal brands never reach their full potential.
In the case of personal branding, I like to break consistency into two parts.
It’s also why I know you WILL succeed if you commit to doing the work — because there’s less competition out there than you think. Sure, plenty of people are saying they do what you do, but how many of their actions match their words? How many of them are prepared to play the long game? You’d You’d be surprised.
Part 1 is how consistent your brand looks/sounds/
And so while I’ll give you some simple prompts to help
feels across every platform. For instance: are you showing up as the same person on Facebook as you are on YouTube? YouTube? If someone was to meet you in person after reading your website, would they get a surprise or know what to expect? Or something as simple as if they typed your Instagram handle into other social platforms, would they be able to find you?
your “technical” consistency, the real task at this point is to make that commitment to yourself AND your audience, that you will start to show up daily, generously sharing value and representing your own personal values no matter how you feel that day or how pissed off some online troll’s behaviour makes you feel.
So to help you with part 1, you’ll find a checklist to make sure you’ve covered all bases. This stuff is pretty basic and once it’s done, it’s done. Part 2 is a different story, however. It’s your commitment to showing up consistently.
Your audience is paying attention to everything you do, so it’s just as important to respond with integrity to the people you like and want to serve as the people you want nothing to do with. And that’s easier said than done! But just think of the payoff once your brand is established and growing your business like wildfire.
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
BRAND CHECKLIST
Own a good domain name
Curated suitable stock images
All my social handles match
Have branded photos of myself
All my profile photos match
OR planning a brand photoshoot
All my cover images are on-brand
Completed my customer profile/s
All my social bios are complete
Wrote my elevator pitch
Claimed all of my vanity urls
Wrote my micro bio
Verified my social accounts
Wrote my short bio
Set up a custom email address
Wrote my full bio
Designed a custom email signature
Chose my primary + secondary platforms
Chose my brand colours
Designed website to suit my brand
Chose my brand fonts
Designed social media post templates
Chose my “go to” emojis
Brainstormed 12 months of content ideas
Chose my IG filter (or editing style)
Brainstormed some opt-in or promo ideas
Have a consistent IG stories style
Decluttered and styled my office
Have intentional IG highlights
Created an on-brand video backdrop
Have a powerful CTA in social bios Styled some on-brand outfits
PERSONAL BRANDING WORKBOOK
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HOW OFTEN I’LL BE CREATING CONTENT FOR MY PRIMARY PLATFORM
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HOW OFTEN I’LL BE SHARING CONTENT TO MY SECONDARY PLATFORMS
HOW MUCH TIME I’ll DEDICATE TO ENGAGING WITH MY EXISTING AUDIENCE
HOW MUCH TIME I’ll DEDICATE TO ENGAGING WITH NEW PEOPLE
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OTHER WAYS I’LL SHARE VALUE + CONNECT WITH MY AUDIENCE
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
% This final step of the blueprint is one that most of us often forget because we’re too busy doing all things – myself included! You’re going to turn yourself into a compass who can take a look at everything you’ve been doing and use it to determine how you can improve, where you can double down on what’s working, and when it’s time to set new goals.
A few practical tips to do this:
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Become friends with the analytics of your social media and email platforms. Use them to see what content is helping grow your brand and which activities aren’t really moving the needle.
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Survey your audience. Check in with them to find out what they want more of, where they’re struggling, how they like to hear from you.
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Intentionally test out new kinds of content, new subject lines and get a feel for which ones have the biggest impact.
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Try daily journalling to help you stay in touch with how you’re feeling about what you’re
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” Lao o Tzu Tzu – La
doing, what niggling thoughts are bothering bot hering you, and to have a safe space to dream big and set goals for the future.
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Use your coach, mentor or accountability partner to help guide you through this process if you find yourself feeling stuck or overwhelmed.
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
Now let’s set this all in stone by committing to some goals that exci excite te you and will keep you motivated even on those days you don’t really feel like it PLUS sum everything up by creating your official mission statement.
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IN 6 MONTHS I WILL HAVE…
12 MONTHS
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IN
I WILL HAVE…
IN 3 YEARS I WILL HAVE…
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MY MISSION MI SSION STATEMENT STATEMENT
THE PERSONAL BRANDING BLUEPRINT
A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer's decision to ch choose one product pr oduct or service over another. SETH GODIN
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