079 – Building your personal brand

What they say when you leave the room


Have you ever spent time thinking about your personal brand? The concept of a personal brand might sound a bit superficial. At first blush it trivializes character in favour of an image. I shared many of those views for many years. So, this week, I invited Debbie O’Connor to convince me otherwise. And I have to say she did an excellent job. Debbie is the head of White River Design, a marketing company dedicated to creating personal brands.

In this conversation Debbie shares with us the importance of personal brand. And she makes the case that a personal brand runs much deeper than simple image management. She also gives away her secrets including the five steps to better understand their personal brand. Follow along, ask yourself these questions, and see if you are convinced.

Lessons Learned

How to understand your personal brand

Who are you?

In order to communicate with your peers you need to understand who you are. You can only gain people’s trust when you are totally authentic. Shifting your personality to fit different customers is no way to gain that trust. What makes you, you? There is so many aspects to your personality so investigate each of those facets. Then lean into your authentic personality in your business.

What is your promise?

What are you going to promise your customer that you will always deliver on? the core promise that you make to every customer and every co-worker. You can’t please all the people all the time. You have to build upon one core promise to develop a rock solid personal brand

What is your why?

Why do you do what your do? If it’s simply to make money than you are on the wrong track. No one will connect with you if that’s your drive. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. And that how connects back to your authentic personality.

What’s your style?

Every person has a different way of approaching the same task. Ellen is the lighthearted host. Oprah is the philosopher. Same job. Different style. You need to understand how do you do things. What makes your different from others in the same industry?

What reputation do you want to have?

Do you want to be someone who shakes up the status quo like Richard Branson? Or do you want a reputation for caring like Princess Diana? Decide what kind of reputation you want to have and then make sure all your actions align. Your reputation is like a precious diamond that can be shattered in an instant.

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