Operating from a personal brand mindset doesn’t mean you have to turn into a Kardashian.
It doesn’t require shameless self-promotion or being wired as a narcissist—it’s actually quite the opposite.
A personal brand mindset is simply this: consistently building on your authentic promise to your tribe.
Let’s break it down.
Consistently . Are you—regularly, ridiculously reliably—working on your promises to your tribe? This means the explicit promises you’ve made to clients, prospects, buyers, readers AND the implicit pact you’ve made with your collective audience. If you’re talking about speed to market and it takes you three days to return an email, you’re toast.
Building. Every step you take either contributes to or detracts from your reputation. It can be breathtakingly easy to undo years of diligent investment with a single bone-headed blunder. But even cringe-worthy moves that teach us how to do better can still—eventually—get moved to the “build” column.
Authentic. This is all about acting in alignment with your authentic self. It is NOT an excuse to let it all hang out, but a clarion call to serve your clients at the deepest level. Because the most enduring, the most valuable and the most trusted personal brands are about SERVING. Who are you? Whom do you serve? And how do you transform them?
Promise. At its heart, every brand is simply a promise. An expectation that when your tribe sees your face, reads your words, hears your voice they will get a certain consistent experience. You may make them smarter, fix a problem, inspire them to take action or lessen their pain. Getting clear on your promise—and then baking it into every single story, action and visual—is how you demonstrate your value.
Tribe. Who’s in your sweet-spot? And not just clients, buyers and prospects, but the people you crave in your orbit. I love being in the midst of idea-driven experts, advisors, creatives and entrepreneurs, with a soft spot for Davids battling Goliaths. I write for them, I work with them, I befriend them. And that also means actively repelling my anti-tribe: the tradition-bound, bureaucratic and narrow-minded. Who is in your tribe? Not sure? Check this out.
Once you’re clear on your core brand, there are plenty of brand-specific habits and actions you can build into your routine.
But it all starts with your mindset…