Personal Brand & Media

Why Your Personal Brand Should Be Bigger Than Your Current Business

A strong personal brand is clarity plus reputation. It is not posting your breakfast with a leadership quote under it.

W.N. Walker
W.N. WalkerEntrepreneur · Strategist · Media Maven

The short answer is simpler than the internet usually makes it: A strong personal brand is clarity plus reputation. It is not posting your breakfast with a leadership quote under it.

Quick answer

A strong personal brand is clarity plus reputation. It is not posting your breakfast with a leadership quote under it.

  • Decide what you want to be known for
  • Build a point of view
  • Publish proof of thinking

Decide what you want to be known for

Choose a small number of ideas and problems. Your range can be broad; your front door cannot.

Build a point of view

Information is everywhere. The brand lives in interpretation: what you believe, what you reject, what you would do differently and why.

Publish proof of thinking

Articles, videos, frameworks, interviews and useful posts show how you think before somebody hires you.

Own the archive

Use the website as the permanent home for your best thinking and offers. Social media should feed the asset, not replace it.

What people get wrong

A common mistake is trying to look important before becoming clear. Fancy production can amplify a strong idea. It can also put cinematic lighting on confusion.

Put it into practice this week

  1. Write the three ideas you want to own.
  2. Turn one of them into a useful long-form piece.
  3. Adapt that piece for the social channels you actually use.
  4. Give every version one clear path back to your website, email list or offer.

What I would do next

Write the sentence you want somebody else to use when introducing you. That is more useful than another mood board.

You do not need to make the whole decision today. You do need to create enough movement that the next decision has better information than the last one.

Next step

Build a Brand People Remember

If this is the problem you are actually trying to solve, reading one more article may not be the highest-value move.

Build a Brand People Remember →

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