You Are Not A Can Of Soup

A can of soup has no passion. It has no aspirations, no point of view, no motivation—it simply takes up shelf space waiting to be chosen.

You are not a can of soup.

But you are a brand.

A living, breathing embodiment of all that you hold dear.

And while you can sometimes take a few pointers from the soup-sellers, marketing yourself is a different ballgame.

So why not focus instead on four critical pillars to build your personal brand and drive your sales and revenue?

Stand for something that matters. This means developing an exquisitely clear point of view—what you believe about your expertise, your value, your clients and your work. You can morph that into a manifesto or simply bake it into everything you say and do, on-line and off. Are you noted for your rocket-scientist intellect? Then poorly researched content had better not find its way into your output. Think literally hard-coding your DNA into every story, every action and every visual.

Remember, you’re an “I”, not a “we”. And your audience is “you”. Switching to first person is often the first change I make when overhauling marketing messaging for soloists and freelancers. In our age of less formality, this simple switch can instantly make you more accessible, more likeable and more modern. It allows you to connect with your readers on a much more intimate level, allowing trust to build faster, most especially on-line.

Know your core purpose BEYOND making a profit. Yes of course you’re in business to make money, but you also have a larger purpose. And it’s with that higher purpose—a calling if you will—that you not only connect with your audience, but generate the energetic fuel that keeps you going. Connect your core purpose to your big idea to your marketing messages and you’ve got a stellar brand-in-the-making.

Content marketing beats advertising. A foray into Facebook or Google advertising may make sense to bring new contacts into your orbit, but advertising by itself is rarely your game-changer. To build your personal brand requires many—often quite tiny—experiences that reinforce your value in the minds of your ideal audience. That’s why content marketing—consistent, strategic creation and distribution of relevant, valuable content—is often the right tactic for the personal branding of experts and advisors.

Just remember, you’re way past being chosen from a shelf.

You’re about claiming the territory in your marketplace that only you can command.

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