This is Part 3 of a 4-part series on Why Your Personal Brand Needs a Mindset Shift. You can read the other posts in this series here: Part One: Your Personal Brand Needs a Mindset Shift Part Two: Normal is Not Enough — and make sure to check back next week for the final post!
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Its easy to get pulled into the idea that your personal brand is all about you. It is your personal brand.
But, the key component to your personal brand actually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your audience.
Shifting your mindset from a question about you: Why am I awesome? to a question about your audience: How can I help them? is one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can make. This is because, fundamentally, success comes from delivering value to other people — to your audience that is!
To make this mindset shift, you’ll have to take on four tactical steps, so let’s get started.
Step one: identify your audience
You can’t make it all about them if you don’t know who your audience is. In other words, this is a key step. Actually, it is a key step that you will have to repeat and repeat — as your audience is made up of lots of people and is constantly changing. But, let’s start with just a few members of your audience first.
To identify your audience, think of the people you would like to influence, the people you would like to have help you and the people who help to shape your own success.
Action: Write out a list of your top five audience members.
Step two: define their success
Now that you have your list of audience members, dig into each of those people and define what success means to them. Success has many components: not only is there business success, but also personal success.
Success could be putting together a successful marketing campaign, running a marathon, getting a job at Google or even finding a wonderful new wine vintage. In other words, think outside of the box when it comes to success and happiness!
Action: Next to each person you have listed, write down at least three things that defines “success” for each person.
Step three: figure out how you can add value!
Now its time to start thinking about the value that you can offer to your audience. This is where things really start to come together.
Its time to think about what you can do for them: Can you help them produce a successful marketing campaign? Can you help them run a marathon, get a job at Google or find the perfect bottle of wine? This is time where doing research and sharing information is often extremely valuable.
Action: Next to each “success”, write down something that you can do to help them reach that success!
Step four: focus and act
Now that you’ve identified ways to bring your audience value, let’s take it to the next step and focus those ways that you can help into a to-do list!
For example, if you think that you could help someone train for a marathon because you’ve run one before, break that down into a specific to-do list item: send your training schedule or introduce your trainer.
Action: Next to each way that you can help, write down something you could do in less than 30 minutes.
Congratulations, with these steps your brand is now about delivering value to other people. And, you have a list of 15 specific ways to add value to the most important people in your network: talk about a to-do list. It’s time to get working.
