Your personal brand is your most powerful asset.

Tansi.

In today’s competitive world, where opportunities abound and first impressions matter more than ever, your personal brand is your most powerful asset. Whether you’re vying for a new job, seeking career advancement, or simply striving to make a positive impact, how you present yourself to the world can make all the difference. In this blog post, I’ll share invaluable insights and practical tips for elevating your personal brand and cultivating a healthy self-image that propels you towards success.

Understanding the Power of Personal Branding

Your personal brand is more than just a resume or a LinkedIn profile—it’s the essence of who you are and what you stand for. It’s how you present yourself to the world, both online and offline, and how others perceive you. In today’s digital age, your personal brand extends far beyond traditional boundaries, encompassing your social media presence, your professional network, and even your personal interactions.

Crafting Your Digital Footprint

In a world where first impressions are often made online, it’s essential to curate a digital footprint that reflects your values, aspirations, and professional expertise. Start by optimizing your LinkedIn profile, the go-to platform for professionals seeking to expand their network and showcase their skills. Ensure that your profile is complete, with a professional headshot, a compelling headline, and a concise summary that highlights your unique strengths and achievements.

Investing in Professional Photography

A picture is worth a thousand words, especially in the realm of personal branding. Consider investing in professional photography to capture a high-quality headshot that conveys confidence, professionalism, and approachability. Your headshot should be consistent across all your social media platforms, serving as a visual representation of your personal brand and creating a strong, memorable impression.

Creating a Compelling Brand Story

In addition to visual elements, your personal brand should also encompass a compelling narrative that resonates with your audience. Take the time to craft a brand story that articulates your values, passions, and professional journey. Whether through your LinkedIn summary, your personal website, or your professional bio, tell a story that reflects your authenticity and authenticity and showcases your unique value proposition.

Leveraging Online Platforms

In today’s interconnected world, online platforms offer unprecedented opportunities to expand your professional network and amplify your personal brand. In addition to LinkedIn, consider leveraging other social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to connect with like-minded professionals, share industry insights, and showcase your expertise. Remember to maintain a consistent brand voice and aesthetic across all your social media channels, reinforcing your personal brand identity and building credibility within your industry.

Investing in Your Personal Brand

Building a strong personal brand is an ongoing process that requires dedication, authenticity, and a willingness to invest in yourself. Whether through professional development opportunities, networking events, or personal branding workshops, prioritize activities that enhance your skills, expand your network, and elevate your personal brand. Remember that your personal brand is an investment in yourself and your future, and the dividends it pays will be invaluable throughout your career journey.

Embrace Your Power to Influence

Your personal brand is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal for achieving success and making a positive impact in the world. By crafting a compelling personal brand that reflects your values, passions, and professional expertise, you can distinguish yourself from the competition, attract new opportunities, and unlock your full potential. Remember that your personal brand is a reflection of who you are and what you stand for, so invest in it wisely and embrace the power you have to influence others and create positive change.

Chances are you are in a role right now where you’ve put yourself out there, the marketplace, whether it’s through a resume, your cover letter, your branding materials.

And in turn, you are given a wage, an opportunity to deliver your service to the world.

I want to give you some hacks to elevate your personal brand, to enhance how you see yourself because that’s extremely important to get to where you want to get to in your life, your career.

I really believe that every person is a brand.

How you live your life is a brand.

Now, some people, they may have certain views of the world that they choose to share online, that they choose to share on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on.

Here’s my advice to you.

If you are a controversial believer, try to keep that behind the scenes because you don’t want to put a lot of negativity to the world online because once you make a tweet, a Facebook post, a LinkedIn post, everyone sees that.

The reality is that everyone’s going to have different views of how things should be run in society.

The goal is that we use what we have within us, align it with where we’re meant to go and work in this world to make it better through our action, through who we are as an individual.

And the more that we align ourselves with our gift, with our talents towards that chosen field that we do, we’re going to feel better about ourselves.

Now, how people perceive you when they first meet you for the first time, it’s going to be on how they see you for the first time walking through a door, how they see you showing up online and so on, and if all they see is negative posts, they’re going to perceive you as a negative person walking into a room.

You may limit your chances of them even looking at your resume because of what they see online.

I could tell you from experience, people who have brought resumes to me, I go on social media right away and I looked them up.

What are they posting? What are they doing with their spare time? Because here’s how an employer looks at stuff.

When someone is coming into an organization, the employer is thinking, is this person going to treat my clients, my customers with the same or equal respect as what I do with my customers?

And if I look on their social media and I see all this toxic stuff, they’re not even get a chance to come into the door to have an interview.

That’s the power of your personal brand.

Now, I want to give you some tips to enhance your personal brand to give you more opportunities.

I really believe that everyone should be on LinkedIn.

Everyone should be on LinkedIn who is looking to advance themselves.

LinkedIn is essentially a place that’s like a Facebook, but a place for professionals to grow their network.

The reason I say LinkedIn is because this is where CEOs hang out.

This is where GMs hang out, board of directors hang out.

And if you’re trying to get opportunities, wouldn’t you want to go to a place where these people hang out? That’s on LinkedIn, at least for right now in this moment that I’m sharing this with you.

Another thing I would recommend that you do is that on your social media to amplify your personal brand, I’d recommend hiring a professional photographer to do a headshot of you dressed and smiling, the way that you dress, the way that you want to show up to work, something with a nice white background showcasing your smile, make that your profile photo.

The next thing that I would get you to do is to make a banner photo of how you help people or how you want to help people.

On that banner photo, you’re going to put it on your LinkedIn, on your Facebook and Twitter and so on, and it’s going to brand in the images of who you are.

You can go on to places like Fiverr, Fiverr.com to get banner covers, to get logos made.

You can even get a personal logo of your first name and last name.

Another thing you can do is you can get your own domain, your first name, last name .com on something like GoDaddy.com.

You can build a website on Wix.com, on Squarespace.com and you can start to brand your first name, last name as who you are and showcase your story to the world.

I share this with all of my personal brand clients.

If you have a website showcasing you, what you’re trying to do and help this world, and you gave that on a business card to an employer, how many other people are going to be doing what you just did for yourself? Not many people are going to have their own website, have their own social footprint that’s branded.

And from an employer’s perspective, if I see that you have a website, you have your own logo, you have photography, and if you put your own story, just like we talked about on the storytelling section on your website, you showcase that on your site and I really get a chance to get a feel for who you are, I’m going to think in my mind:

Wow, this person really takes themselves seriously.

They must really respect themselves.

They must really think about where they’re trying to get to in their life, their career.

I’m going to automatically think that this person is probably going to treat my clients with more respect than these other people in the stack of resumes.

That’s the difference, ladies and gentlemen.

It comes to the power of a personal brand, how you brand yourself.

Everything you put on social media is your digital footprint.

It’s an extension of you, your thoughts, your beliefs and so on.

And if you put things out there that are too negative, it’s going to hurt you in the long run.

I could tell you that from being an employer myself, I witnessed people that I wish could have gotten an opportunity, but I couldn’t because they were being too toxic online and it hurt their future opportunities.

Watch how you brand yourself.

Make sure you get that…

Build your own website.

Do the photography, put your story on your site.

Get branding materials.

Get a business card.

Put your website on your business card.

I guarantee you not many people are going to have their own website, not going to be able to say that they have their own website and everything about them is on that site.

That’s what I can tell you because I’ve experienced this as an employer, but also as a mentor to many people out there teaching them how to brand themselves.

Now, it’s also very important that you see yourself as a person that you want to become.

Oftentimes when I got into the speaking field, I had to brand myself for the person I was trying to grow into.

Sometimes it’s going to feel like, “I’m scared to put this photo shoot.

I’m scared to put myself online,” but you have to do this in order to get yourself ready for the next step of your journey, your evolution.

If you don’t take these steps, you are limited because there’s going to be other people that will take similar steps.

They will stand out from the rest, and you’ll ask yourself, “Why is that person getting opportunities? I have more qualifications, I have more advantage.

Why does that person get an interview?” They’re doing all the right stuff to get noticed.

Personal branding, how people perceive you when they bring you into an interview, give you an opportunity.

It’s going to be based on how they perceive you, will dictate a lot of how much you will get paid in the future.

I’ll give you an example.

There’s many people that I work with in the speaking field that are amazing at branding themselves online.

They have the best videos, they have the best images, the best mock-up images, everything just looks the part, but I know other people over here that are amazing speakers but don’t have anything near to what their branding materials are showcasing to the world.

This person over here should be paid $20,000 a speech.

Meanwhile, the person over here is getting it and is half the potential of this speaker.

It all comes down to branding, how people perceive you.

When you look the part, you act the part, you grow into that person that you’re trying to become, people will take notice of that.

People will give you opportunities and it will give you that time to evolve into that leader that you’re trying to grow into.

How we brand ourselves is a reflection of our own self-image, how we see ourself.

We’ve got to make sure that we’re telling ourself in our mind that we deserve this.

We deserve this path that’s been given to us.

You have to give yourself permission to allow yourself to put yourself into the marketplace, to give yourself opportunities because other people are waiting for them.
Other people will brand themselves effectively.

Other people will go on LinkedIn brand themselves effectively, and they will get opportunities.

I could tell you from my experience as a service provider primarily, I get a lot of my clients from LinkedIn.

Many companies, they see my posts, my videos, and that’s where the initial contact starts is on LinkedIn.

It could be from a message or they go to my website, fill out a form.

That’s how it starts.

And if you want those opportunities, you want those contacts the people that you know, that you like, that you trust, that’s where they hang out.

And you want to get yourself ready so that when you walk in the door, when you’re making yourself known online and when they see you, they do a double take.

Who is this person?

Who is this?

Who is this company?

As we’ve grown, we’ve done these steps to increase our brand presence and it’s given us greater opportunities in speaking, in virtual series, in consulting and coaching and so on.

If I wasn’t ready for that part, I wasn’t branded for the part, I wouldn’t get those opportunities.

How people perceive you determines how much they will pay you, so we better start branding ourselves accordingly.

In order to get there we have to see ourself in a positive light.

We have to see ourself as a positive individual.

As someone who deserves the success that’s waiting for them.

You have to give yourself permission.

If no one’s ever given you that, I’m giving you that right now.

You deserve it.

Use your gift in a positive way.

Go change the world in whatever way that you’re meant to and go affect that change in a positive way.

And when you get the opportunity and you see someone else just like you, go help them get that same light that you were given.

Help them to achieve the same thing that you were given.

Pass that bar down to them.
Our legacy lives through our experiences, people watching us, our children, our co-workers and so on.

And I hope that your legacy is based upon your actions and how you live your life, how you live your life for your children, your family, your siblings, your co-workers, strangers.

Pass that bar to the next person as you develop your personal branding.

Watch the opportunities that will unfold as you make it a priority to brand yourself effectively, to look at yourself in a healthy way.

And if you ever wake up out of bed one morning, just do a Superman pose, you don’t know what that is, go on YouTube and you can find it all over YouTube and online and so on.

You’re basically make yourself as big as possible and you tell yourself that you can do it.

I can do this.

I tell you, when I’m speaking in front of thousands of people and I get those nerves, they come all the time.

I do that.

You can do this.

You can do this.

You are chosen for this.

This is your time.

No one else is going to tell us that.

We have to develop that belief within ourselves and I’m handing the baton to you to take it to the next step.

hiy hiy