On today’s show, Kristen will discuss what exactly is a personal brand and why it is important in today’s market and online culture. You may ask yourself, “Do I really need a personal brand?” Yes you do!
More and more business models are moving in the direction of online social selling because people will buy from people they trust and know. Kristen describes how you can develop your personal brand to help your client or potential client feel connected with you.
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Transcript of Episode #4: Why Having a Personal Brand is a Must
Kristen Boss (00:05):
Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling and authentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business in today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way back to another episode, episode four personal brand, or are you just chomping at the bit?
Kristen Boss (01:00):
Oh my goodness, you guys, this episode is going to be so fun and I know it’s going to provide a ton of value for you, especially if you are over there asking yourself, do I really need a personal brand or what the heck is a personal brand, or even how on earth do I build a personal brand? This is a massive, massive, massive topic. So I’m not going to be able to cover everything in detail in this episode, but I really want you to walk away with, at the end of this, a clear idea of why you need a personal brand and a few pointers on how to identify your personal brand and how to build one, at least personal branding, 1 0 1. So let’s get to it. So if you’re asking yourself, do I really need a personal brand today? My friend, yes, you do. This is the podcast about social selling and network marketing. And here’s the truth today. People now more than ever come online to buy things. It is a normal experience when people go on Instagram, especially on Instagram, but Instagram and Facebook, it is not abnormal for people to go online.
Kristen Boss (02:18):
And they’re very used to seeing things for purchase. You buy from influencers, you buy from friends more and more companies are looking to have word of mouth purchasing business models, where it’s friends telling friends, social selling network marketing. This is the best way to go because word of mouth will always Trump, a cold advertisement when there’s no connection with somebody. So knowing that more and more business models are going in this direction, that’s a great thing for you because that means now more than ever people purchase things online, they do experience a lot of purchasing through social media. I remember when I was pregnant with my kids, I followed, a few influencers, and I bought diaper bags and cute clothes and change it. Like I shopped the baby stuff that all the influencers were saying, oh my gosh, this is the best. And I really did like it because I trusted what they, I trusted their opinion.
Kristen Boss (03:20):
I resonated with them. I liked them. So all of this to say, be encouraged that people now more than ever are going online to buy things, but they don’t want to go online to feel sold to that is different. When a customer goes online with the mindset of I’m going to buy something, they feel in control of their purchasing experience. They choose where they want to go, who they want to follow. It’s a pleasurable experience for them, but when they feel sold to that’s when the power feels taken away from them, that’s when someone comes in their space and says, you want this right? We’ll look at this and look at this, look at this. And now they feel overwhelmed and it’s no longer a pleasurable experience for them. So think about that. People come online to buy, but they don’t come online to feel sold to.
Kristen Boss (04:14):
And there is a huge difference. And based on how you position your social media platform and how you do your social media how well you do your social media communicates one of those two things to them. They either feel sold to all the time from your platform or they are, they enjoy your platform and they choose to buy through your platform. It’s very different. And so I’ll, I’ll talk a little bit about how you can create a pleasurable buying experience through your social platform with your audience. So that said with things, with it becoming more and more normal for people to sell things online and for people to buy things online, it used to be like five, six years ago. Not as many people were selling in social media, right? That’s why a lot of people that were in network marketing and direct sales, and even those early day influencers, they were kind of on the early wave of using social media to market and sell products and services.
Kristen Boss (05:14):
And then it got more and more popular. And as this massive influx, massive of a majority of the market now doing the same thing. So now when you have the majority of people online buying or selling something, the reason you need a personal brand now is because the online social selling platform is not what it used to be. You’re not the only person that’s recommending baby gear. You’re not the only person that’s selling a health, health, and wellness products. You’re not the only person selling skincare. You now are, and you’re not the only coach you. Now, there are many people now offering similar services. So your personal brand is what sets you apart to your audience? Because the truth is consumers, especially someone that is a very cold lead, or they don’t have any relationship with the seller. When they’re deciding who they’re going to buy from, they’re going to buy from the better brand that they resonate more with because they it’s how they, it makes them feel about themselves.
Kristen Boss (06:34):
They trust they trust more. It’s they buy from the brand that looks better. They will even buy from a brand, a better brand. Even if that better brand has a subpar product. Branding usually trumps the service. I know that’s crazy. I know, but I want to teach you how to have a stellar brand and a stellar service, because you don’t want to be a scam. A scam is like a fancy brand that can’t back up the product or service or offer, but you want to have a strong, compelling brand that draws your audience to you, where they feel like they’re getting to know you and offer a great service product, offer, and purchasing experience with your buyer. So that said, if you are over there being like, but Kristen, what is a personal brand? How do I have one? How do I build one?
Kristen Boss (07:37):
I don’t even know what it means. I just remember four or five years ago when someone told me like, you need to have a personal brand. I, my brain felt like it melted. I was like, what, what do you mean? I like, I like yoga. I have kids. I’m a mom. You guys, I have to say this for all of us in the room. All of us listening right now, being a mom is not a brand. It’s, it’s a role wives and moms, but it’s not a brand. Just like a mom is not a niche. It’s really broad. I remember when I was building my personal brand, I’m like, well, I’m a mom. Okay. So it was half the world, half the population. So it’s like, that’s not a brand. The thing is, is when you’re sitting there, kind of be like, well, what’s a brand.
Kristen Boss (08:28):
The thing is you already have a brand. You already have a brand. And you’re like, Kristen, what have you seen? My social media? I have a brand. You do. The question is, is, do you have an intentional brand or an accidental brand just to help you a brand is what people say about you when you’ve left the room, your personal brand is the impression you on people after they’ve encountered your social platform, how they feel and what they think after they’ve encountered your platform is your personal brand. And it’s funny, because for years I built a personal brand. I didn’t even really know I had. And then I learned after a couple years that everyone was telling me the same thing, like Kristen, you, you say so much truth. You tell it like it is, you’re really inspirational. You’re very motivational. You, you enter hard conversations, you say deep truths.
Kristen Boss (09:31):
And I realized, I just thought it was, oh, I’m just sharing. What’s meaningful to me. And what I think would be meaningful to others. But then I realized, oh, not everybody posts like that. And that became my brand. And because I was doing that for years, when I actually decided to be a coach and started sharing with people, I am a coach. It matched my brand that I had been doing for years, motivating, inspiring, saying hard, truths, getting people to take action in their lives. My brand matched my offer that I later made. I didn’t, I didn’t, it’s funny because I didn’t set out to be inspirational so that I could later become a coach and make, have an offer. It just worked out that way. And I believe that’s partly why my business exploded. The way it did was because of how much value I was giving to the marketplace before I ever had an offer.
Kristen Boss (10:27):
And we’ll talk about that another time, but you have a brand and it’s helping you make people feel, let me tell you what a brand is not. And I think just to help you have more clarity around this, what a brand is. Not a lot of people. When they, when they hear personal brand, they think it’s fonts, colors, typography, their logo, their website. When they think of Instagram, they think of like preset filters and they tend to think that is the, that’s the whole of the brand. That is part of it. I’m going to say, that’s the look that’s, that’s the, that’s almost like describing a person like that’s describing. She has blonde hair and blue eyes and she’s five, six, and she has an athletic build or whatever it is. That’s the exterior look of a person. So that I would say that’s the same as a brand.
Kristen Boss (11:18):
That is the exterior feeling of a brand. But people just like with humans, I have to like, what’s going on on the inside. I want to know that there’s substance to a person. I want to know what makes them tick. I want to know what makes them unique. So a great brand is it’s again, it’s how you make others feel. It’s your character. It’s how you serve others. It’s what you bring. It’s it’s what sets you apart. It’s what people don’t say. When they’re talking about social media platforms, they’re not going to say, oh, is she the one with that really dark, moody preset filter. They don’t normally say that. They’re going to say, is she the one that it’s about blank, blank, blank. Is she the one that, you know who feels really strongly about this platform? Yes. And it’s usually a core mission statement, core values, a good brand said, this is what I’m here for.
Kristen Boss (12:21):
And this is how I can serve you. This is what I bring to the table. A great brand is how we make other people feel when they come into class contact with our platforms, a great brand is more than just style. A great brand. For me, the magic formula is style, substance, and service. If you want to have a stellar brand, have those three things. So your personal brand, it’s how your customers find you. People are drawn to people they resonate with, or they aspire to be, or they have a lot of things in common with your brand helps people figure you out very quickly. You have a very short period of time from when they come to your Facebook and come to your Instagram for the, for them to get an idea of who you are, who you serve, how and what you’re about and make a decision on.
Kristen Boss (13:29):
If they want to follow you very quickly. So a personal brand says, this is what I’m here for. And it helps your people, especially your ideal customers, your dream team, your dream customers helps them find you. They’re drawn to a brand before drawn to a product. So important for you to know that people are drawn to a brand before they’re drawn to a product, really they’re drawn to a person. The person is the brand. Having a personal brand is the way to sell them. It’s no longer like, Hey, once you get to a certain paycheck or a certain place in your business, that you decided to have a brand it’s. If you want to sell online, having a personal brand is what sets you. Apart from someone who’s selling the exact same thing. You, you’re not the only person selling your product service or offer out there again.
Kristen Boss (14:22):
I guarantee it. Now, what makes your offer unique is you you’re offering your brand, your personality, your core values. That’s what’s sets you apart also because I’ve heard that people purchase from people that they like know and trust having a personal brand, accelerates like know trust factor. People want to look at a platform again. It’s how they feel, what they think of you. And they’re like, yeah, she reminds me of me. Oh, and look, it says that she serves people like me. I’m supposed to be here. I’ll follow. I’ll read along. I want to see what she has to say. A personal brand is the foundation of attraction based marketing. If you have been messaging people and spamming over in the DMS and you’re not getting any response, look at your personal brand. Do you have a strong one? Is it compelling? Do they feel special that you reached out to them or do they feel spammed to different feelings?
Kristen Boss (15:30):
And the strong personal brand is what gives backbone to you communicating with people and building relationships. Because I want you to picture this. I want you to picture two scenarios here. It a picture of two people on Instagram offering a similar service. One of the girls has a really strong brand. She says, she knows what she’s about. She has her core pillars that she talks about. She has her mission statement. She shows up consistently. She has a nice blend of style. So she’s, she puts some effort. You can see, she put some effort into the color and the frame and all that stuff. But she also has substances in her content. She serves, okay. There’s that? That’s girl, a girl B, she’s got pictures of her dog, a picture of her avocado toast in the morning. And she’s not a health and wellness account. She’s not a nutritionist.
Kristen Boss (16:30):
She’s got pictures of like a weird dark room in her house that she’s looking at renovating, but she doesn’t have a home decor account. It’s kind of just scattered and everywhere. And then she’s got 15 pictures of all the products she’s taking. Right. And it just, and her and her bio says, you know, I love coffee. I love dogs. And I love Colorado. Okay. So you’ve got person a that I just described and person B, if they both message the same person and say, Hey, I’ve been following you for awhile. Really love what you’re about. I’d love to get to know you more. Also, I’d love to tell you about a product that I’m loving right now. First of all, I teach on cold messaging and that’s not the way to do it, but let’s just say they both do this. Who do you think that person will respond to?
Kristen Boss (17:25):
Likely the person with the better brand and less and less, unless she’s like, Hey, she has the same kind of dog I do. Hey, I had avocado toast this morning, but likely she’s going to view the person that has more intention and purpose and her platform as the one that’s more trustworthy. This is just human psychology. And if you want people to resonate with you and follow you and hear what you have to say, put effort into the brand. Okay? So a couple, couple secret things. And I cover this a ton in my purposeful platform. Online course, like I walk you through the, the, your mission statement, your core values. How do I, how do identify your niche, how to position yourself as an expert, how to position, you know, do the hero, the hero’s journey for your customer and how to write content.
Kristen Boss (18:19):
It’s all about building the strong personal platform, a purposeful platform. You have to do it purposefully. People want to buy from people who do things with intention and purpose and joy and service have a personal brand that does that. So let me tell you something about personal brand. I think you need to know it. Be yourself. Don’t get caught up in trying to be like everyone else, be yourself, figure out what could I talk about all day long? That energizes me, that fills my cup because you know, when a personal brand becomes exhausting, when nothing that you post about is actually personal to you, when nothing you post about is actually something you really care about, create a platform about things that bring you joy, that you could talk all day long about. Cause then contents not exhausting. Then you’re attracting people who also could talk about the same thing all day long and they value what you’re putting out there.
Kristen Boss (19:20):
That’s when it’s so fun. That’s when you show up and be like, I love, I love sharing these things and people follow you because they’re like, oh, I love it. When you share these things and it becomes this really great relationship between the influencer and the follower and the buyer and the seller. So today personal brand is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. And I’m talking to you if, if, if you were here because you want to grow a significant thriving social media platform that contributes seriously to your income and building a thriving business and having profit, you need to brand like someone who wants that. Some of you say, I want to do this. I want to make a hundred thousand a year. I want to be a six figure earner, but your brand and your social media platform, doesn’t say that to me, it looks haphazard.
Kristen Boss (20:16):
It looks like it’s randomly put together. There’s no, there’s no flow and story and structure going on there. You don’t get to six figure income on accident. You get there with intention and purpose and your platform is to have intention and purpose. You want to do something amazing. And I tell people this, I tell my clients is I tell my community, this build a six-figure brand before you have a six-figure paycheck. Think about that. Think how a six-figure earner brands themselves, how they show up the efforts, the care, the intention they put into the things. They talk about, how they talk to their audience, how they inspire others. It’s easy to think. Okay, well, when I make that income, then I’ll brand myself. Then I’ll do those things. No, you need to put the intention in now, again, you’re, you’re getting caught in like the website, the logo design, the colors, the presets.
Kristen Boss (21:13):
That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s like having intention, little forethought cleaning up the storefront, your social platform is your storefront. What does it say about you? Does it say, Hey, I’m here to serve and impact and influence and grow and inspire people. Or does it say I sell product? I have a dog. Sometimes I’ll share a weird food picture and I sell stuff, but I really want that six figure paycheck, your brand needs to match your ambitions. Ooh, that’s a good one. Put that on a t-shirt your brand needs to match your ambitions, but be authentic. If you’re like, Kristen, I don’t want to be somebody. I’m not, I’m not asking you to be somebody or not. I’m encouraging you to step into the person. You are becoming the bigger version of yourself. The inspired, confident version of yourself. That’s out there impacting people before the money comes in, be the six-figure business owner.
Kristen Boss (22:20):
Before the money comes in, show up with joy and authenticity and service and impact that comes through in a brand. Remember when I say a brand is what people say about you. When you’ve left the room, remember a brand is how you make others feel about themselves. You can do that no matter what paycheck you have, you can inspire people. It costs you nothing to motivate, inspire, uplift, empower, speak, truth, be yourself. It costs you nothing but vulnerability and choosing to be visible. And that’s terrifying. I get that visibility and vulnerability go hand in hand. That’s another episode.
Kristen Boss (23:04):
We just have to be willing. We have to be brave enough. I think a personal brand take some measure of bravery because anytime we put ourselves out there, we make ourselves open for attack. And trust me, I’ve been there. It’s scary. I get it. But again, this isn’t about us in our comfort. This is about who we’re out there serving. This is about who we’re inspiring and who we are aiming to serve and make their lives better. You want to know you have a powerful, personal brand as when people are saying, Hey, thank you. Thank you for that story you shared or saying, this really resonated with me. I always, and me personally, I aim to make someone feel something or think something. Every post my coach once said to me, she said, Kristen, you’re kind of known for making a splash and the Facebook groups you’re in. You go in there, you make a post. People like it, or they hate it. But you make a splash and you leave an impression. Be brave enough to leave an impression on people. You cannot control what people think or their outcomes. You can’t control that, but you can control what you put out there.
Kristen Boss (24:19):
You can be inspiring and you can be brave. Be brave, have a good personal brand. What’s going to set you apart again. Good brand style, substance and service. That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with the review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done at different way. And if you’re ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals in the academy. You get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or been in the industry for awhile. This is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
