BUILD A BRAND THAT STANDS OUT

5 Personal Branding Tips to Elevate Your Online Business

by Mel Fee

THE BLOG

Our online business tips

Hey, I’m Mel Fee

Brand and Marketing Strategist
for female entrepreneurs

1 - Stay true to yourself

One of the biggest trap of personal branding is looking too much outward and comparing yourself so much you end up feeling inadequate. You then try and change who you are to blend in, start acting and speaking differently and next thing you know you’ve become a totally different person.

Don’t do it, just don’t. You haven’t left a formatted corporate life to build a formatted online business, right?
It’s your business so you earned the right to be yourself. Focus on being authentic, in alignment with your values and don’t pretend to be something you’re not.

By letting your true personality shine, you will attract people with which your message resonate – these are your people. As Andre Gide said so well, ‘it is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you’re not’. Now that’s a strong statement, but you get the memo, just stay true to yourself.

2 - Realise being yourself doesn’t mean winging it

Authenticity: A great concept too often misconstrued as a reason to do nothing about your brand. If you hang out in the wrong Facebook groups you can even read some pretty shocking advice such as “ to build an authentic brand, just go with the flow “ (safe to say the person was not a qualified brand strategist…) Being authentic is NOT an excuse to do nothing about your brand. Let me explain, if you don’t intentionally work on your personal brand, people will do the branding for you. Not being strategic about your brand is the equivalent of letting a 15 year old without license grab your car key, and *fingers crossed* everything’ll be just fine. Why would you risk it? What I mean is if you don’t manage your brand, it will just live a life of its own and who knows the impact it can have on your business. Authenticity should always be at the forefront of every personal brand as it helps you genuinely bond with your people, but this should not come at the expense of strategy. Get crystal clear on your brand strategy and define a roadmap on how you want your audience to see your business. Authenticity can be expressed in many different ways, so base your strategy on audience research and see what resonates. If you need help with understanding what your unique brand essence is, join me for a Standout Brand Strategy session here.

3 - Create a content strategy and stick to it

You are knowledgeable about your topic. But for your ideal clients to know it too, you need to put yourself out there.

To make sure you show up online consistently and in a way that showcases your expertise, you need a solid marketing strategy and visibility plan.

Your content strategy, just like your brand strategy should be aligned with your overall business vision and goals to be effective.

Once you know where to create content, for who, when and with what message, your audience will realise you know your stuff, which will ultimately result in sales.

4 - Understand your worth

That is a good one as it is directly related to your services pricing. If you don’t understand your worth, you end up too often undercharging your clients.

One way to better price your offerings is to reframe the concept of cost around VALUE CREATION.

Get clear on what problems your ideal clients are facing. Then, look at your services and assess how well they can solve these problems.

Let’s say you are a social media manager. Ask yourself how impactful the transformation you deliver is.

Are you able to get your clients from A to B quicker than if they did it themselves? Would they need to spend months or years to achieve similar results? Can you help them double their website traffic and triple their revenue?

What would they miss out on by NOT working with you?

Once you understand the impact you can make on your client’s life, you will become much more confident about your value and start charging more for your time.

5 - Lean on a community

Being an entrepreneur can feel lonely at times. You got to stay focused on your objectives, do the work and hold yourself consistently accountable. This can be challenging on a daily basis, that’s why hiring a coach and surrounding yourself with like-minded people committed to levelling up is so important.

You can join online communities such as Facebook groups to keep yourself motivated, support fellow entrepreneurs’s journey and hold each other accountable. Facebook groups like The Mighty Bunch community are also a great opportunity to raise your profile as an expert, network and collaborate, which can speed up your online business growth.

Upleveling your personal brand is going to look different for everyone, depending on your brand’s objectives. In all cases, have a strategy in place, own your brilliance, surround yourself with like-minded entrepreneurs and get visible. These are the fastest way of establishing your authority ion your field and elevating your online business.