The #1 personal branding mistake I made
Five years ago I launched my brand new consulting business with a champagne breakfast event.
Straight after the launch, it was totally rebranded and launched again…
Yep, I had made the BIGGEST branding mistake possible, which is pretty silly when you consider I’m a branding specialist!
I forget the #1 rule of personal branding.
Authenticity.
The consultancy and the program had awesome content (and yes the content is still used today it’s so good) but it had been branded all wrong.
An amazing creative (who coincidentally, had worked at Saatchi & Saatchi in Sydney at the same time I worked for them in New Zealand) had been fully briefed and he delivered an absolute genius of a brand identity — exactly what he had briefed to do.
But, it was never going to work.
You see the brief was very “Top Gun”…. Lots of funny puns about flight school and brand academy etc. including a logo that looked like airforce wings….I loved it (almost as much as I loved Maverick, Goose, Iceman and that beach volleyball scene).
But just days after launching the Ultimate Business Propellor, I met the guy who would become my coach for a few years, who saw it and asked me a simple question about my brand that totally changed my mind about the brand direction…
He said “So are you a pilot or something to do with aircraft?”
Of course I had zero background in that industry, it sounded cool (I had even downloaded the Top Gun soundtrack in preparation for my big stage entrance, in full jet pilot gear!!!) but the whole brand story was wrong!
Branding myself or my personal brand consultancy that way would be a big fat lie.
Entertaining yes, but zero integrity.
So it was back to the drawing board, where a new brand was born, one which reflected my single minded purpose to give service based professionals real momentum with clarity and confidence to live their brand.
It was TOUGH, there were tears and frustration.
Every single video had to be re-recorded and all the training material, ebooks and landing pages had to be rebranded. Months of work had to be done all over again.
Did I wish I had met the mentor before launching my brand? Of course.
But it was a vital lesson now share with clients, because so many of them come to my training and say “OMG I wish I had met you months ago, it would have saved me so much wasted time and money!”.
It doesn’t matter when you get it right, just make sure you make it real.
Because it’s just too hard to try to explain what you do and why someone should choose you, when your brand isn’t genuine.
I could have spent months telling people that “no I wasn’t a pilot, no I didn’t fly jets and no I wasn’t in the airforce”….trying to educate them about the real brand story, instead I knuckled down and started again from a fresh perspective.
And now I can live my brand, and it speaks for itself.
So the lesson is — Don’t Give Up!
Get really CLEAR about what you want to be known for being the best at.
Be yourself — everyone else is already taken.
Being you is far more important than being clever (of course you can be both!).
And keep it real. Your brand story is amazing because it’s true.
It doesn’t need to be rags to riches. It just needs to be yours.
Take the time to really dig deep into what makes your brand you, discover your brand DNA, what makes you so passionate about what you do, what really makes you mad or gets you upset about your industry, how would you love to lead some change., what sort of tribe do you want to naturally attract to your brand?
Take some time today and ask yourself…What do you want your brand to say for you?
If you want some help to find your True North and get the clarity and direction you need to have a strong authentic brand that naturally attracts the right clients who love what you do…
…I’ve recorded a special video tutorial of the simple step you can take today to naturally attract the right clients who instantly choose you…just click here to get the link: http://ultimatebusinesspropellor.com/free-tutorial/
I hope this has helped you get clear so you can rocket launch your personal brand!
Lauren and the team at UBP
PS: If there was one vital piece of advice you could do with right now about how to brand and promote you and your service…what would it be?
Email me and I’ll see if there’s something I can send you to help.
