3 Things You Must Know About Personal Branding

Welcome to episode 319 of Hit the Mic with The Stacey Harris.

It's Friday and that means another 3 things episode. This week we're going a little bit left of center and we're going to talk about personal branding. I think this is such an important topic because there are some misconceptions around personal branding and having shifted to a personal brand a couple of years ago, I have learned a lot. A lot, a lot, so I want to share that with you because I know that there are a lot of questions about what's involved with being a personal brand and if you have any sense of yourself left. That's what we're going to talk about. These are the 3 things you must know about personal branding.

Number 1, it's not actually about you. I know, it seems strange, almost counter-intuitive because personal branding, I'm a person, on the brand, it's about me, but it's not really about you. It still ultimately about how you serve your community, whether you are a company that serves your community, or a person that serves the community, whether you are a product-based brand or an info-based brand or a service-based brand. Ultimately it comes down to solving the problem. It comes down to being the solution, and being the solution, again, not about you. It is about your customers, it is about your clients, it's about your buyers, whatever it is for you. That's what it's about.

Personal brand, not actually about you, and some of you are heaving a huge sigh of relief right now. You're like, "Wow! It's not about me. I don't have to be the center of this in the sense that I have to be on all the time and talk about myself at length ad nauseam," some might say. No, really, it's ultimately still about being a solution, being a value to the people who need your value, your expertise, your product, whatever. Again, personal branding, not actually about you. All branding in fact, guys. Pay attention to this. Not about us. It's about the end consumer.

Number 2, it's not about all of you. Often times the question I get probably most frequently about being a personal brand is, "Well what do I keep private?" This comes up a lot with social media in general, this what is for me and what is for everybody else? A lot of it is still not at all involved in your brand or your business. I am a business owner, I own the company. I am definitely a personal brand. I mean, TheStaceyHarris.com is the website. I run a membership site where I'm doing trainings, I'm answering questions. It's not outsourced to some third party team. I do this podcast. I run all my social. Here's the deal, though. That's not my whole life.

There's a whole section of my business an my life that don't all overlap, that don't intersect. For example, you will not see pictures of my son on my website. I think the only place you'll see him on social is if we are actual good friends on Facebook, meaning I actually have you in the close friend category. You will occasionally, and by occasionally I do mean 3 or 4 times a year, see a picture of kid. If you follow me on Snapchat, from time to time we will have fun with silly faces. That's it. He's not on my Instagram feed, I don't tweet about him. I don't post about him on any of business pages on Facebook. That's it. Although, he's a massive part of my life.

My husband is another great example. You do hear about him. You will occasionally see photos of him because he works for me, because he's who you reach when you email for questions about Backstage or though the website, you reach him first. You'll hear about him but you don't hear about our marri

Support the show