what are the five components needed for a personal brand

What are the components of a personal brand? A brand isn’t just a logo anymore. It isn’t just your name or your color palette! It’s so much more!

The components of your personal brand are your niche, your mission statement, your logo, your branded photography and your content.

During this episode I break down the details of each of the brand components.

The Components of a Personal Brand

Niche

Identifying your niche (refer to the brand equation in episode 2) will help you define your avatar or ideal audience. The last thing you want is to put content out into the world that confuses people or targets an audience you don’t want to work with.

You can define your niche and still be multi-passionate. But you need to define the niche and then get specific with where your passions align and who you are serving with each passion. Defining your niche and creating a scope will help you avoid confusion internally and externally and will help you create the know, like and trust factor faster because people will have no doubt whether you can help them, no doubt about what you do, no doubt about who you serve and ultimately no doubt about hiring you for your expertise.

Mission Statement

Your mission statement tells your audience what your intent is for your brand and how you serve others. Included in your mission statement are your values and how you use them to serve your clients.

Your mission statement should:

Include the value that you will Provide

Inspire people to want to work with you

If your mission statement is far-fetched, people will not believe in you or trust you. Be reasonable.

Be specific about your business; what you do and who you serve.

Logo

Your logo is a unique identifier using your color palette and mood board to help people easily identify you, your style and your brand. Most logo designers will provide you with an entire brand portfolio including the logo, a color palette (based on color psychology), and typography. Collectively they represent your business and your personality as the business owner. A great logo will trigger an emotional connection to your business and be recognizable. There really is a science behind it. Learn more in this blog post.

Having a logo created can be expensive. I do believe it is valuable and necessary to have a logo, but if you are on a tight budget and need to choose between a logo and branded photography, I am going to say choose branded photography to start.

I realize this may seem biased, but if you really think about it, if you are making an investment for your brand, you want to make it so that you get the most value out of it. Branded photography is going to make an emotional connection with your audience much faster than a logo because people want to get to know the person behind the business.

Remember: people buy personalities not products and services.

That leads me to the next component of a personal brand:

Branded Photography

Stock photography can be great, but if you really want to get the attention of your audience and develop an emotional connection with them to help you pass the know like and trust test you need custom brand photography. Custom branded photography will represent you as your brand. Remember, your personal brand is your personality infused into your business, which means people want to see you.

Let’s use a dentist as an example

There are so many dentists and ultimately they provide the same service unless they are a specialist like an endodontist or orthodontist. Mary just moved to town and needs a dentist because it’s been six months since her last check-up. She Googles dentists in Smithtown, the new town she lives in.

Dr. Roberts comes up first in the Google search and just under his name is Dr. Garret.

Mary clicks on Dr. Roberts and sees stock photos of dental equipment and but no picture of Dr. Roberts, his office building or his staff.

Mary goes back to the original search and clicks on Dr. Garret’s website. Front and center on the home page is a picture of Dr. Garret. Mary immediately relaxes thinking, “oh, she looks kind and approachable”. She looks around the website a little more and sees pictures of the office building and pictures of other staff members who work in Dr. Garret’s office.

Which dentist do you think Mary scheduled an appointment with? Dr. Garret, of course.

This is just one example of how powerful branded photography can be.

Content

Your content, both visual and written, should inform, educate and entertain your audience in a clear, cohesive, consistent and valuable way.

Content should be created specifically for your ideal audience, the people you want to work with.

Most importantly you want your content to be engaging.

So…Does Your Personal Brand Have All Of These Components?

Are you struggling to identify your personal brand? Do you have questions about how to make your brand stand out in the sea of on-line noise? Schedule time with me so we can chat about it! I offer a free 15 minute call or a one hour strategy call that is recorded and you’ll receive a copy of the recording and my recommendations for you on how to create or further develop your personal brand.