The Complete Guilde For Self Branding

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Introduction
WHAT IS BRANDING?
My parents like to tell a story from my childhood. When I was a toddler they would
put me in the backseat of the car in child’s car seat when they would take me
somewhere like to the store or to a friend’s house. When we would drive down the
highway, I would see golden arches through the car window and yell, “Donald’s!”
Now, I was only two or three years old at the time. I wasn’t old enough
to read. I could barely see high enough to see through the car window.
But when I saw those arches it meant something to me.
My parents would sometimes take me to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal.
I would associate the burger and fries with the golden arches.
That is branding.
A brand is anything—a symbol, design, name, sound, reputation, emotion, employees,
tone, and much more—that separates one thing from another. In the case of
McDonald’s, the golden arches became part of the brand. Those arches separate their
product from all other fast food restaurants and they’re a recognizable symbol even
with kids.
Branding on a businesslevel is common, but today branding is becoming just as
important on a personal level. After all, you might work for a business that works with
other businesses, but it’s people working with people and that’s what makes business
relationships valuable.
WHY SHOULD YOU BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND?

Building a recognizable personal brand opens professional opportunities.
Creating a vision for your future and implementing that vision can lead
to:
A better job
Better contacts and clients for your company
Industry recognition
And more
If you’re looking for a better job, you want your potential boss at your
ideal company to associate your personal brand with something that
she needs on her team.
If you’re looking to grow the sales for a company, you want potential
clients to associate your personal brand with a feeling of trust and
longterm success and satisfaction.
This guide will take your through all the steps you need to take to create a your unique
personal brand. In today’s job market and entrepreneurial landscape, there is no room
for being another face in the crowd. You have to separate yourself from the
competition. You have to be more appealing to your target audience and you can
achieve it by creating a recognizable personal brand.
NOT EVERYTHING IN THIS GUIDE WILL APPLY TO YOU

This is an advanced guide to building your personal brand. There is a lot of
information covering many different steps you can take to build your personal brand.
However, not everything in this guide needs to be followed to reach your goals. Not
everything in the guide applies to everyone so if you notice something that doesn’t fit
your vision or your goals it’s okay.
The purpose of this guide is to cover as much as possible about the process of building
a personal brand. In the final chapter, we discuss why it’s important to be yourself.
You can take the information here as a guide, but use the information in your own
way. Follow steps exactly or use certain information and create your own steps for
finding success.
Expert Roundup: Quotes From Successful & Influential Individuals

For this guide we wanted to include quotes from wellknown individuals in the online
world. These are people that have been the reason for the success of some of the most
successful brands in the world. They know what it takes to succeed and that includes
their feelings on building a personal brand.
We asked three questions:
1. What one action, decision, or choice has had the single biggest impact in the
growth of your personal brand?
2. If you were building an online presence from scratch today, what 3 things would
you consider to provide the biggest ROI on your time and money?
3. For those looking to create a strong online brand, which 3 online influencers
would you recommend they follow?
Throughout this guide you’ll find the answers along with actionable steps you can take
to follow the advice of these experts.
CHAPTER ONE
How To Create Your Personal Brand Vision

Businesses create vision and mission statements. Creating a personal brand begins
much the same way by creating a personal vision.
Only you can determine how you want your life to unfold. You can’t control every
aspect of your life, but you can create a longterm vision and develop steps to achieve
that vision.
Your life’s vision should include how you see yourself in 10, 20 and even 50 years.
Consider the elements in life that would make you happy—a family, a beach house, a
challenging corporate job?
There are no right or wrong answers and in this chapter we’ll guide you through the
steps necessary to create your personal vision.
TAKE ME TO CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
How To Define Your Target Audience

Once you have your vision, it’s time to determine who your target audience is. Most
professionals are selling something to someone. If you’re looking for a job, you’re
selling yourself to a potential employer. If you want to start your own business, you’re
selling yourself to potential clients.
But your target audience goes beyond an employer and customer. You’re looking to
build a community of people—employers, peers, influencers, etc.—who can all be
assets in different ways.
In this chapter, we’ll show you how to define your target audience. Knowing the exact
person you’re selling to makes it easier for you to communicate your brand message.
TAKE ME TO CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
How To Build Up Your Online And Offline Assets

Thee are a number of assets that require attention when you’re building your
personal brand. You’ll need to secure domain names and websites to help
control your personal brand on search. You’ll need to secure social media
accounts to control your personal brand on social networks.
And you’ll need to know how to build these assets so you can build your
overall network. In this chapter, we’ll go over the most important online and offline
assets for building your personal brand and give you stepbystep instructions for
securing and building each up with a strong community.
TAKE ME TO CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
How To Build Your Brand Through Outreach

When you start building your personal brand it’s difficult to get exposure. It’s
necessary to get exposure in the places where your target audience is spending
time.
In this chapter, we’re going to explain how you can gain exposure through earned
media, advertising and a few other strategies. Following the steps in this chapter will
give you formulas for creating content that is appealing to your target audience while
establishing you as an authority.
TAKE ME TO CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
How To Get Free Press Coverage

Another way to gain exposure is to get free press coverage. There are a number of tools
that make it easy to build connections with journalists, bloggers and moderators.
Building these relationships and understanding what the press wants gives you the
power to get free press.
TAKE ME TO CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
How To Connect With Mentors

One key to success is continued learning. Even the smartest people in the world can
become smarter and more skilled in certain aspects of life.
Mentors are great assets for professionals looking to build a personal brand. You can
learn how they became success or how they view the world and use the strategies to
build your own success.
In this chapter, we’ll show you how to find mentors and how to approach them so
they will help you with your personal brand.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
How To Monitor Your Brand

Once you’ve established what you want personal brand to be and you’re working to
grow it you’ll need to monitor the growth and the perception. It’s important to see how
your target audience associates you with your industry and how they feel about you in
general.
In this chapter, we’ll share monitoring tools with you and we’ll show you how to use
those tools so you know what your audience thinks about you.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
Be Yourself Because Everyone Else Is Taken

We’re going to close the guide with an important chapter on being unique. You want
to take influence from others including your mentors, but it’s important that you be
yourself. That’s how you’ll separate yourself from the competition.
In this chapter we’ll give you steps for further identifying why you’re different and how
to embrace differences to attract people to you in a positive way.
TAKE ME TO CHAPTER EIGHT
Are you ready to build your personal brand?
This guide will take you through ever step to building the professional and personal
life you want.
GO AHEAD AND
GET STARTED!
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CHAPTER ONE
How To Create Your Personal Brand Vision

Welcome to the first chapter on how to build your personal brand!
If you’ve made it this far you’re likely interested in creating and building
up your personal brand so you can do one (or more than one) of the
following:
Find a better job so you can earn more money and be happy to go to work every day
Win more clients for your company to increase sales and increase your earnings
Land better clients for your company to make your company more efficient
Grow your professional network so you open more professional opportunities
Build online communities to further increase professional opportunities
Lay the foundation for future success; however you define it
Your personal brand is what separates you from everyone else in the world.
The first step to creating your personal brand is to organize your thoughts and create
your personal brand vision. This is the way you want yourself to be perceived by others
and also how you want to live your professional and personal life.
Lisa Cruz (@lisaredshoespr) didn’t want to be another bland PR executive so she
injected personality into her personal brand vision:
To be the best in public relations while having fun, kicking @#$, and always
pushing the envelope for employees, clients and myself. To use communications
to make the world a better place.
In this chapter, we’ll take you through the steps to create your brand vision.
Who You Are

Lida Citroen (@LIDA360) said on Social Media Today:
The foundation of personal branding rests on

authenticity: The ability to tap into your genuine,
humble, and individual human qualities from which
your identity, personality, and character stem.
The following steps will give you a better understanding of who
you are today and from there you can more easily figure out
where you want to be in the future. Lida Citroen (@LIDA360)
said on Social Media Today:
STEP ONE SET YOUR VALUES
Your values are the things that drive your life. They’re at the core of
your being and you refer to them when making decisions. Maybe
you don’t always refer to them, everybody makes bad decisions
sometimes, but you when you make your best decisions in life you
usually consider your values.
For example, a person might have the follow set of values:
Family
Friends
Community
Ambition
Intelligence
These values define the things that are most important to the person. When faced with
a decision such as taking a new job, the person would consult with their personal
values. They would ask themselves what the best choice would be in terms of their
family, their friends and the other values on the list.
There is no limit to the values you include can include on your list. They are your
values. Consider the people, feelings and situations in life that make you most happy.
That is usually the place where you’ll find your values.
STEP TWO PRIORITIZE YOUR VALUES
According to JVS Chicago (@JVSChicago), values are important for businesses:
It’s wise to hire people whose values are similar to the company’s. Candidates
who have values similar to the hiring company’s are more likely to meet the
company’s needs, and they tend to adapt faster to a new role.
As you go through the things that make you happy in life you’ll realize that your
values aren’t all created equal. The list in the previous step could be listed in priority
based on the things that person values the most starting with family.
There will be situations in life when you’ll be faced with decisions
that put your values at odds. For example, you might be
considering a new job. It might fit into your ambition and
intelligence values, but if might require more time away from
your family and the job might not have the same community
values that you have.
The goal of building your personal brand is not just to get a better job or to grow your
company. It’s about finding happiness with your professional life. The decisions you
make will be more likely to lead to happiness and follow your values.
Many of us know people that have success in their profession, but lack happiness
because they didn’t realize how highly they valued their family life. And it works the
other way too. There are people that have a wonderful family, but they feel unfulfilled
because they lack professional challenges.
Prioritize your values and you’ll know how to approach your personal brand vision.
STEP THREE IDENTIFY YOUR PASSIONS
Your passions are the things that you like doing with your time. Some
of your passions may overlap with your values, but they are generally
different.
For example, your top value might be your family and one of your
passions might be going to dinner with your spouse or playing with
your kids. The value and the passion intersect, but there is a slight
difference. In this step you’re task is to identify your passions so you can figure out the
activities that give you the most reward in life. A key to creating a successful personal
brand is to identify your passions and make it your goal to experience those passions
in your professional life.
A passion is something that interests you. Passions intrigue you and make you want to
investigate. They make you want to get better for personally driven reasons. A passion
is something you would do even if you weren’t being paid or even something that you
would pay for yourself if you had to.
Passions can be both personal and professional. For this exercise, you should identify
both personal and professional passions. This will give you an idea of the things that
drive your professional life, but also the things that you want to be doing when you’re
not working.
For example, a person might have the following professional passions:
Design
Smartphones
Technology
The personal passions for this person might be:
Family
Travel
Outdoors
These passions, along with the person’s values provide a clearer vision for where the
person wants to be in two, five or even twenty years. Once you’ve identified your
passions it starts to become clear the type of profession you’re best suited for and one
that would bring you happiness.
You can tell in the example above that the person would probably be happy in a
profession that involved designing smartphone technology for the travel or outdoor
industry, but the profession would have to leave time for spending time with family
and probably for taking family vacations.
STEP FOUR IDENTIFY YOUR IDEAL TRAITS
The next step is to identify your traits. These are the unique aspects
of your personality that help to shape the person you are. Traits are
things that give others a key inside your brain.
There are a few different theories on personality traits. One is the Big Five
Personality Traits.
The Big Five include the following traits:
Openness to experience
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Each of the traits is measured or assessed on a scale. Each person falls
somewhere on the different scales and that makes up your personality.
You can take a test on the Big Five Personality Traits for free here
where you’ll be asked to answer questions based on your scale of
agreeability.
This test will give you insight into your personality and your traits. It’s hard to disagree
with the results and you’ve probably been relatively the same for your entire life.
However, if you want to make a change in your personality you can identify the ideal
traits that will make up your personal brand.
For example, if you’re relatively closed off to new experiences it might be to your
benefit to work on being open to the possibility of trying new things if that’s the person
you want to be as you build your professional brand. The test might also show that you
don’t have a high level of organization. This could be another area to focus on with
your personal brand.
Again, there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to traits. You’re simply
identifying where you stand now and how you want to develop your personal brand.
You can always change, but it’s good to know where you are now so you can make a
plan for change if you feel you need to change.
STEP FIVE DISCUSS WHO YOU ARE WITH FAMILY, FRIENDS AND PEERS
Finally, discuss your findings with those that are closest to
you – family, friends and peers. There are you own
assessments of who you are and those are important, but
it’s good to get an idea of who you are from others too.
Ask people what their perceptions of you are. Ask them about what they think your
values are, what your passions are and what your traits are. The outside perception
might differ from your perceptions or they might align closely.
Either way, you’ll have more information about the person you are and you’ll be better
able to understand where you can make changes to go where you want to be in your
professional and personal life.
This guide is about building your personal brand so you can find a better job, get more
clients for your business and to live a happier, more fulfilling life. You might think that
your own perception of yourself is the one that matters, but building your personal
brand is about how others are going to view you and what you stand for.
So it’s essential to get feedback from family, friends and peers so you understand how
to align your personal brand with your goals.
Where You Want To Be

Now that you have an understanding of who you are you can move into the stage of
figuring out where you want to be. This is both for your professional and personal life.
For example, from the previous section you may have realized that design is an
important element of who you are. This understanding can start to lay the foundation
for where you want to be, which could be a design lead for a smartphone application
design and programming firm.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. There are a series of steps to take to figure out
where you want to be and how you can layout a path to get there. In this section we’ll
take you through these steps and by the end it should be clearer on the type of career
and life that will give you the most enjoyment and satisfaction both professionally and
personally.
STEP ONE DETERMINE THE ASPECTS OF YOUR LIFE THAT HAVE BEEN REWARDING
You might not like your current job. You might not like the jobs
you’ve had in the past. However, there is a good chance that there
were points in your life that made you happy. We’ve already taken
you through the steps to identify the things that make you happy
and that give you passion in life. Use those memories to find the
aspects of your life that have been rewarding.
For example, you might have worked in customer service. Dealing with angry
customers can be a challenge and maybe you didn’t enjoy that aspect. In fact, maybe
you disliked it very much. However, maybe you took pride in finding a solution for
customers that made them satisfied and that was beneficial for the company. You
might not want to be a customer service representative in the future, but maybe a
career path in sales with the eventual goal of becoming a sales executive or top
ranking executive in a business is a desirable path.
Likewise, this is about more than your professional life. Assess the aspects of your
personal life that have been the most rewarding. Use those experiences to help define
the type of personal life you want to have in the future.
Create a list of these aspects. Don’t limit the list. This is like a brainstorming exercise.
List out all the things in life that have positive until you’ve gone through every stage of
your life.
STEP TWO NARROW DOWN THE ASPECTS TO A POTENTIAL VISION
Go through your entire list of positive aspects and put them in
categories. Then narrow the categories another time and another until
you get to just a few categories. At this point, you’ll start to see a
potential profession that would make you satisfied in your professional
life.
STEP THREE CREATE AN IDEAL CAREER ENDING
Now that you’ve narrowed down the list to a few
categories you’ll start to see the type of profession that
will make you happy. The purpose of the previous steps
was to narrow the focus from a vague idea to something
more specific.
For example, you might have had an idea that you wanted to be a marketing executive
at the start of this chapter, but now you will have the understanding of yourself that
you want to be a marketing executive for a technology firm and specifically a firm that
works in mobile technology.
Create a description of your career ending. This is what you’ll be doing on the day you
retire or when you start winding your career down or even at the end of your life if you
plan to work until the day you. Be as specific as possible. Yes, things likely won’t go
exactly the way you write them down, but by writing them down you’ll give yourself a
clear vision of what will make you happy and satisfied in life.
STEP FOUR TAKE STEPS BACK FROM THE CAREER ENDING TO THE PRESENT
Once you’ve determined where you want to end up in life you
can start winding the steps back. You might want to end up as
the marketing executive in a mobile technology firm, but you
likely won’t get there tomorrow. There will likely be many steps in
the way to get there.
Start with your end date and list out the next step that comes before it. It might be
that before becoming the marketing executive that you are a sales director. Before that
you might be the lead of a sales team. Before that you might be the top sales
representative for a specific region and before that a midlevel sales associate and
before that an entrylevel sales associate.
There might be multiple paths to your eventual ending. You can lay out different
paths, but rank them in priority by the one that is most likely to yield your ideal ending
and the one that has the most appeal to you because you’ll spend much of your life
working in these positions.
STEP FIVE COMPARE THE VISION AGAINST YOUR VALUES
Now that you have the steps laid out for your career you have to
compare it to your values. You’ll probably be excited about the
prospects in your career now, but you have to check with your values
before getting started.
For example, you might want to be a marketing executive, but if it requires you to
spend enormous amounts of time away from your family or if it takes away time from
your community involvement and those are two important values then you’ll have to
reassess your path to your career ending.
There is usually a balance in your career that can yield both success and satisfaction as
it relates to your aspirations and your values. Check your career path against your
values and find the balance and path that will give you the most satisfaction in all
areas of your life.
Others Worth Emulating

Think you need to start from scratch? Think again.
I remember spending a good amount of time watching and learning, and then
emulating what others were doing. It was natural to copy what seemed to be
working. But over time you branch out, do your own thing, experiment and your
own personality, brand, value emerges.into email subscribers & leads.
Ben Yoskovitz (@byosko)
Throughout this process you’ve probably had people in your mind that have provided
inspiration. It might have been a parent that set a good example for you and who is
someone you look up to in life. Maybe it’s another relative or someone that you admire
from a far in an industry that you’re passionate about.
STEP ONE LIST THE PEOPLE YOU ADMIRE
As we said, by now you probably have had people in your
mind that you admire. You’ve been thinking about their
careers as you’ve built the vision for your life. But now it’s
time to take those thoughts to a deeper level; a level where
you can take action on the knowledge you have of those
people and their careers.
So take each of the people you’ve been thinking about and create a list. Next to each of
the names add descriptions about the people and what they’re doing in their lives
now. Also include reasons why you admire the person.
STEP TWO TAKE A DEEPER LOOK AT THEIR LIVES
Once you’ve listed out the people for your list it’s time to take a
deeper look. Many of us tend to look at other people’s lives and
only see what we want to see. Or we might see only what they want
us to see. Either way, it’s easy to focus on the positives in someone
else’s life and forget that they have problems and frustrations like
everyone else.
This step is about taking a deeper look into each person on the list to figure out if you
missed something obvious that would not fit into your personal brand vision. Often
you’ll find that someone you admire is very successful in their professional career, but
that they might not have a family or maybe they’ve had struggles in their personal life
with one aspect or another.
STEP THREE RANK THE PEOPLE WITH CAREER ARCS SIMILAR TO YOUR ASPIRATIONS
After looking at each person on your list on a deeper level you’ll know
the people that best fit with the career arc similar to the one you’ve
been developing up to this point. You’ll probably find a few surprises in
your research. These surprises will be people that have had aspects of a
life that you may have wanted to emulate, but after further inspection
you realized that maybe their life isn’t the life for you.
Rank the people on your list based on your developing brand vision. Find the ones
that closely resemble yours. It will be difficult to find ones that perfectly fit your vision
and that’s okay.
STEP FOUR LEARN THE STEPS THESE PEOPLE TOOK
Once you have a ranking of the people you admire most
and that you’d most want to emulate it’s time to dig deeper
into the those that rank highest. At this point you’re going
to look into the steps that the top people on your list took
to achieve their results.
For example, a person on your list may be the CEO of a very successful company. You
admire the person they are now, but nobody achieves greatness overnight. They may
have an accelerated path later, but there was likely a slow build early on in the
process.
At this point it’s your task to look at the steps the top people on your list took to get to
their current place in life. This gives you insight into how others have done it. You can
compare it to the path you laid out for yourself earlier in this chapter.
STEP FIVE MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO IMPROVE ON THEIR PATHS
The final step in this process is to make adjustments to the paths of
those you admire the most. At this stage you should have a couple
people on your list that are worth emulating. But you don’t want to
follow their paths exactly.
Innovation works best when people look at what people have done before and make
improvements on those previous achievements. So at this point you’re looking at
taking the paths of the people you want to emulate and look for realistic ways to
improve on their paths.
Developing Your Professional Image

Think your professional image is good enough?
One study found that: Only 15 percent of hiring
managers say nearly all or most job seekers have the skills
and traits their companies are looking for in candidates.
Throughout this chapter you’ve been doing some
introspective thinking and work to determine who you want
to be and where you want to go. At this point you should
have a very good idea of those things and you can start
taking action on carrying out the steps necessary to achieve
your desired life goals.
In this chapter we’re going to give you exactly the tools you need to develop your
professional image. This is another step in building your brand vision and carrying out
the early stages of building your personal brand so you can experience success in your
professional life.
Consistency
American football is the most popular professional sporting event in the United
States. Each spring, executives from each team evaluate young players for the NFL
Draft. These executives are faced with all types of decisions. One type of decision
faced each year is the question of talent versus consistency.
In the 2014 NFL Draft there are two players. One, Jadeveon
Clowney is seen as an extremely gifted and talented player.
Another, Khalil Mack is also seen as talented, but not on the
same level as Clowney. However, some executives prefer Mack
to Clowney because Mack is seen as being more consistent.
While Clowney has unmatched talent, executives often prefer someone they can count
on to bring the same level of performance to each game. Clowney has the potential to
show flashes of brilliance, but he is also prone to more downswings in play that would
leave teams at a disadvantage.
People in many arenas value consistency including business. People are generally more
comfortable working with someone they can count on to bring the same level of
commitment each day to the office.
You want to be someone that people can count on. You want to
be consistent. This means committing to work routines and
sticking to it all the time no matter what. Going in to the office
every day at the same time and leaving at the same time. Being
consistent with the time you take to respond to emails and
phone calls.
Even doing something like creating your own blog and publishing regular blog posts.
The same is true with social media. Being consistent with the type of content you take,
the tone of the updates and the publishing schedule you keep are all things people
look at when evaluating your character.
Make consistency part of your personal brand vision and practice it diligently. It will
serve you well whether you’re looking for a better job or if you’re looking to attract new
clients.
Creativity
Creativity is another quality people look for in those they want to work and associate
with. People generally feel they have a certain level of creativity. But most know that
there is a limit to creativity. Most people that go far in business have realized the
power of tapping into the creativity of others. This is where you can show your
creativity and pique the curiosity of potential employers and business partners.
The Internet has made it much easier to showcase your creativity
on a public and accessible platform. People that successfully
build their personal brands will launch their own personal
websites (more on this later). On those websites, people will
create portfolios that showcase previous work. The websites also
often have blogs where the owner can write consistent posts on
various ideas in their chosen industry. It’s a way to share
thoughts and ideas with the industry including those that the
person might work with in the future.
For those looking to take their careers to a new level it can be difficult finding work to
include in a portfolio. It’s especially difficult if you really haven’t liked your current
job. Find what you can from your current and previous jobs. Turn the work into case
studies. Tell the story of the project including the challenge you and the team were
presented with and describe the path to overcoming the challenge and finding a
solution.
Once you’ve done that, look for ways to build your portfolio. You can do this outside of
your current job. You might find parttime paying work on a project basis. For some
things you might have to work for little or no money. Think of it as an investment of
your time in your future. There are such things as portfolio building experiences and
it’s a reality you’ll need to accept in the early stages of your new career.
Build your portfolio with an eye on your career vision and keep building as you reach
each next step.
Memorable
It’s easy to say that one should “be memorable”. Most of us want to be
memorable, but we also recognize that it’s not as easy to do, as it is to
say. The fact is that to move up in the world and to achieve your new
career goals you will have to be memorable especially to the people that
will play a role in your ascension.
There are lots of ways to be memorable. You can’t do them all so the
best way to be memorable to people is to do things that are unordinary
as part of your regular routine. These things will be regular to you, but
seen as different and therefore memorable to the people you encounter.
In business, people that take things a little further are memorable.
Think of the typical job application process. 95% of the applicants will
send their resumes, letters and do the interviews. The 5% that are
memorable are the ones that further investigate the company and provide a proposal
on how they can help the company increase sales and profit. They’re also the people
that send a follow up thank you note after the interview.
You can also be memorable by having a unique hobby. Earlier
we went through the exercise of identifying your passions
including the things you like to do outside of work. It’s good to
have hobbies and it’s good to share stories from those hobbies
with the people you meet. Instead of just another candidate for
a job you will be the candidate that has a flourishing vegetable
garden or the candidate that plays jazz piano at local lounges
on the weekends.
To be memorable, go one step further in your relationships than others typically go.
That will make you stand out and be passionate about your passions in life. You don’t
need to do something crazy, but talk about your hobbies with the people you meet.
They will be more likely to remember more about you if they actually know more about
you.
Professional Photos
Professional Photos
We asked Kristi Hines of Kikolani this question:
What one action, decision, or choice has had the single biggest impact in
the growth of your personal brand?
Her response:
I noticed that my personal brand improved greatly when I started using a
professional headshot across all of my social networks, author bios, and so forth.
When I first made the switch, I received lots of compliments. And now, I get a lot of
new client inquiries that include how the client found me based on seeing my posts on
blogs and status updates throughout the web. I’m sure having that one, professional
headshot is the reason people are able to easily identify me.
She further stated her case for professional headshots with the answer to this
question:
If you were building an online presence from scratch today, what 3 things
would you consider to provide the biggest ROI on your time and money?
Her response:
If I started from scratch, I would build all of my profiles and main blog using my
real name instead of my blog name. I’d use that one great professional headshot
from the start so that all of my mentions online would start with a professional look.
And I’d come up with a great 160 character elevator pitch about myself that I could
use on all of my profiles and author bios to brand myself.
It’s not too often that your casual photos will look professional enough to impress
people. Even if you’re pretty good with your smartphone, that selfie won’t do for a
professional photo to represent your brand. Even the photos your spouse, family
member or friend takes likely won’t cut it. It’s worth the investment to have a
professional photographer setup a shoot and take a few headshots. You want the
photo to show who you are. If you want to be an executive you’ll want to wear a suit or
proper business attire. The photographer will know how to setup the lighting and how
to edit the photo to make you look professional.
Professional photography can be expensive. A photo shoot can cost
sever hundred dollars. You’re taking up the photographer’s time
and when it comes to finding a better job and moving up in the
world, it’s worth a few hundred dollars to create a photo that will
help get you where you want to go.
Pay the money if you can afford it. If it’s out of your budget, find a photographer that
will work on trade. Offer to do some kind of work that they need in exchange for their
work. You might be able to do some accounting work. Maybe you can write a few blog
posts for their blog. Do yard work around their house if you have to. It is worth it to
have a professional photo that you can use for years on all of your branding material
including a well designed website, social media profiles and more.
Professional Website
Social media profiles are important for building a professional brand. Social
networks have large communities and you should be active in the ones that are
important for professionals (LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, etc.), but having your own
website is just as or more important.
We just talked about being memorable and taking things at least one step further
than everyone else in your industry. Having a website is one step you can take that
some people aren’t willing to take. Many do have websites, but many don’t and it’s
an area you’ll need if you want to have a memorable personal brand.
In the next chapter we will discuss about building your personal assets including your
website so stay tuned for more details, but know that a website is a requirement for
building your personal brand. The website will need a professional design and content
on the about page that effectively describes who you are and what you have to offer.
You will also use your website to showcase your portfolio of work that we’ve covered
and it’s where you’ll host your blog.
Here are our personal websites:
NeilPatel.com
AaronAgius.com
We’ll talk about these more in the next chapter, but you’ll notice that each website is
professionally designed. Each has professional headshots as well as professional
branding and logos. If you want to be recognized as a brand you have to do all the
branding for yourself including professional design.
Email Signature
What kind of email signature do you have? Does it have your name, title, company
and maybe a cute little quote about living each day to the fullest or about how success
only comes before work in the dictionary?
These things are okay, but they’re either the basics or they’re something that everyone
does. A proper email signature needs to have all the correct information and it needs
to be designed so it looks professional while loading quickly on any email inbox server.
A great tool for building your professional email signature is Wisestamp.
Wisestamp has a number of templates for creating your signature. The templates are
professionally designed and include all the correct information and assets to
communicate who you are and what you stand for.
Items included on the Wisestamp signature include:
Photo
Name
Title
Company
Phone
Website
Email
Address
Social Profiles w/icons
These are all the essentials for a properly branded email signature. With Wisestamp,
you can easily integrate these signatures into your personal and business emails. Now,
when you send and receive emails with people they’ll have all the information they
need to learn about you and to contact you if they’re interested in meeting or having a
conversation.
Build Credibility
Credibility can be as simple as answer pressing questions with great answers.
We asked Chris Ducker the following question:

His response was:

I’d invest time on creating as much valuefilled content as possible. People need
answers to questions and solutions to problems. If you truly want to build a brand
and be seen as a genuine expert and the goto person in your industry, you need to
exude everything about the industry in a commandable and memorable way –
creating content that people genuinely want to consume and, more importantly
share to their peers, is paramount.
Some of the items we’ve been discussion are included in your credibility. All the official
items like a website, social profiles, professional photography and an appropriate
email signature give your personal brand credibility.
But credibility can also be built by associating yourself with others. There are probably
people in your industry that you can work with and associate yourself with to improve
your credibility. If you can, you could offer to work on a project with another person.
An example would be a designer and a programmer working together on a project.
But you don’t even have to work with someone to build your credibility.
We mentioned blogging a couple times in this chapter. Blogging or
publishing any kind of content is a great way to build your
credibility especially if you coauthor posts with someone else or if
you guest post on respected blogs.
You’ve probably seen logos on personal websites before or even on business websites.
These logos are used to show companies the brand associates with. Businesses do it to
show their clients and individuals often do it for publications where they’ve had
articles published.
You can do the same thing for your brand. Offer to write guest posts
on popular blogs. You’ll have to write your absolute best work to get
included on the best blogs. It’s a lot of effort, but once the article is
published you’ll always be able to associate yourself with the blog. That
is a great way to earn credibility by association.
From here you can take steps to work with people and to continue to associate with
other credible people in your industry. Through all of that you can continue to work in
your job as a reliable person that can be counted on for quality work. These are the
things that build credibility and that is an essential component of a great personal
brand.
In the next chapter we’ll give you the steps you need to define your target audience.
But before we get into that, we asked some of our friends with recognizable personal
brands the following question:
For those looking to create a strong online brand, which 3 online influencers would
you recommend they follow?
Here are the responses:
Chris Ducker ChrisDucker.com

Michael Hyatt – He’s the leaders leader.
Pat Flynn – He’s leading the way, the smart way.
Richard Branson – He’s a walking, talking personal brand personified.
Brian Dean Backlinko
Marie Forleo —Possibly the best personal brander online right now. 250k email
subscribers can’t be wrong.
Pat Flynn—A brilliant marketer and all around great guy. Most of his readers
feel like they know him even though they’ve never met him (myself included!).
Steve Kamb—Steve grew his site into one of the top fitness blogs online on the
back of his strong, fearless personal brand.
Lewis Howes LewisHowes.com

Marie Forleo
Josh Shipp
Tony Robbins
Rand Fishkin Moz

Dharmesh Shah—Hubspot
Nathalie Nahai—(aka The Web Psychologist)
Maria Popova—Editor of Brainpickings
Guy Kawasaki
There is only one person I would recommend that people follower:
PegFitzpatrick—She is the best implementer on socialmedia today. I would put
her up against entire digital agencies. The upper right hand corner of her home
page has links to her socialmedia accounts. People should click on the Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ links to see how she operates.
John Chow
John Chow
Neil Patel
Jeremy Schoemaker
Jon Morrow Boost Blog Traffic

Neil Patel
Jon Morrow
Derek Halpern
James Schramko Super Fast Business

Neil Patel—prolific content and audience builder
James Schramko—long term profit strategy
John Lee Dumas—massive traction in a short time
Pat Flynn Smart Passive Income

Derek Halpern
Amy Porterfield
Michael Hyatt
Gagan Biyani Udemy

Elon Musk —Everyone knows him as an incredible CEO, but he’s also built a far
reaching personal brand.
Dan Martel —Dan is a personal friend and mentor so I’ve really enjoyed seeing
him build his brand for the last few years.
Eric Ries—Clearly Eric is a gold standard when it comes to personal branding.
The lean startup movement is a fantastic example for missiondriven personal
brands.
Yaro Starak Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

I’d recommend following the leaders in your space. The people who have established
brands talking to the audience you want to reach are the best examples of RELEVANT
success you can find.
Darren Rowse
Pat Flynn
Derek Halpern
Yanik Silver Founder Maverick1000 & author ‘34 Rules for Maverick
Entrepreneurs’
Tim Ferriss
Marcus Sheridan
Richard Branson
TAKE ME TO TAKE ME TO
THE INTRO CHAPTER TWO

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE
CHAPTER TWO
How To Define Your Target Audience

One of the biggest mistakes that budding personal branders make is trying to
appeal to everyone. Think about the game of darts: You have to aim in order to
hit the board. (If you let your darts go without aiming them, you probably won’t
be very popular.) If you hit the board, you score. And if your aim is very good
and you hit the bull’s eye, even better!
Susan Chritton (@SusanChritton), Personal Branding For Dummies
You know that defining a target audience is a business best practice. But defining a
target audience is a best practice for anyone that needs others to give them something.
It might be a salary, an investment or money in exchange for a product or service.
Whenever you need something from someone you go through at least some of the
steps in defining a target audience.
We go through the target audience process even at an early age. Think back to when
you were a kid. When you wanted a treat you went through the target audience
process. You knew that your dad probably wouldn’t be the one to approve your
request so you went to your mom and you made sure to catch her in the right mood.
That’s an example of defining your target audience. It’s a basic example, but
businesses go through that process so they have more success. It doesn’t make sense to
try to please everyone. Your time, energy and money are better invested in a target
audience. And that goes for defining the target audience for your personal brand too.
In this chapter we’re going to take you through the steps you’ll need to follow to define
the target audience for your personal brand. We’ll cover a few of the basics, but we’ll
also include more advanced steps for making sure you’re targeting the exact people
that can help you achieve your goals.
Building Relationships: Give A Lot To Get A Lot

We asked Yaro Starak of EntrepreneursJourney.com the following question:
If you were building an online presence from scratch today, what 3 things would
you consider to provide the biggest ROI on your time and money?
The items on his list were focused on the idea of an audience:
In terms of ROI, the most important three things if I was starting
from the beginning are
1. I’d first focus on establishing a crystalclear empathy with the
audience I was planning to serve, so I know what their problem is,
how they feel about it and what they currently do to try and solve it.
The best way to learn this in my experience is in person, over the
phone or a distant third is via monitoring discussions in groups, blog
comments, forums and social media.
If I don’t do this step well, I won’t have an audience or make any
sales down the line, so it’s the vital first step for ROI.
2. Once I know my audience I would craft a clear offer based on the
position I want to take within an industry and focus on making sales
as soon as possible. In my case, since I know blogging and email
marketing, that offer would be reflected in the new blog and
newsletter optin form I would set up, as well as the email sequence
and blog posts that follow. All these things lead people to the product
or service I was selling so I could attract buyers.
I want to know I have buyers before I build out the rest of my
platform and cement my brand.
3. Assuming I’ve done these tests and I know I have a buying audience,
then my focus is simple improve traffic and conversion. I expand
what is already working, add more traffic sources, make more offers
and run split tests to improve results.
This guide is about building your personal brand so it’s naturally going to focus on
what you can do to help yourself. There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve
your status in life and achieve the goals that will make you happy.
But for this chapter the focus shifts a bit to building relationships with your target
audience. Relationships are essential to living a fulfilling life. In fact, studies have
shown that we need people to be well and to thrive. Without people, all the money in
the world wouldn’t make you happy.
The cliché in the world of relationships is: You Get What You Give.
We all focus on our families and ourselves. It’s natural and it’s okay,
but if in order to have good things come to you, such as quality
professional relationships, you need to give to the people that you
want to connect with.
We’re going to go through a step in this chapter where you will focus on the
motivations of your target audience. The reason for this is for you to focus on what
others want from you. Once you know what that something is you can give it to that
person and show that you have their best interests in mind.
In life and in business, when you help others achieve their goals they’ll be more likely
to help you achieve yours. You want something from your target audience, but in this
chapter you’ll only get what you give.
The Person That Will Pay You

There are basically three people that fit into your personal brand’s target audience:
The Person That Will Pay You
The Person That Influences The Person That Pays You
Your Supporter
The first person on the list, the one that pays you, is your main focus. This might be
your current boss or your next boss. It might be the target customer of your current
business or your next business. It could also be an investor or a bank.
After Chapter 1, you have your vision and you have a good idea of the person that will
pay you and help you get to your goal. These next steps will take you through the
necessary process of refining your target audience to make your brand
implementation more effective.
STEP ONE IDENTIFY THE PERSON THAT DETERMINES IF YOU CAN ADVANCE
(Boss, Investor, Client, etc.)
In Chapter 1 you laid out a path to your ultimate career goal.
There are steps along the way to help you achieve that goal and
along that path there will be people that will determine if and
when you can take it to the next level.
If you’re looking to reach an executive level with a company then the person that
decides how you move up in the business is each of your bosses along the way. For
example, you might start as a sales associate. Your target audience is your immediate
superior or the lead your sales team or division.
Identify the person that is in charge of the next step in your career. It might be an
investor. It might be a client. Or it could be the boss we just mentioned. It could be a
specific person that you have in mind or it could be the vision of a person. Whatever it
is, identify that person and move to the next step.
STEP TWO CREATE A COMPLETE DESCRIPTION
Next, create a complete description of the person. Marketers and
business leaders do this all the time with their customers. They put
comprehensive descriptions together of their target customers to
create detailed, vivid images of the exact person their employees will
think about when making every decision in the business. Now, you
will do the same with your target audience.
Open a document and start writing the description. Include things like:
Name
Age
Gender
Job Description
Hobbies
Etc.
Go into extreme detail. Talk about the daily tasks the person does at their job. Talk
about they do on the weekends with their family and friends. The more details you can
include the easier it will be for you to target this person as you implement your
personal brand strategy. Go as far as including a photo of the person. If it’s a real
person, find their photo. If it’s not a real person, find a photo online that fits your
vision and include it in the profile.
STEP THREE IDENTIFY THE PERSON’S MOTIVATIONS
(Professional And Personal)
As you build the profile of your target audience you’ll get inside their head
and figure out their motivations. This is important because, as we said
earlier, when you know what this person’s motivations are you can help
them achieve their goals as a way to achieve your own goals (you get what
you give).
For example, if your target audience is your current boss, the sales team leader. Their
motivation might be twofold: 1) move up to the next position in the business, which is
probably regional sales manager or a similar position and 2) more free time to spend
with his or her growing family.
Knowing these motivations, you can help your boss achieve his or her
goals. You can lead new initiatives to increase sales across the team.
You can improve the efficiencies of processes to cut down on time
spent in the office.
Another example, your target audience is your next new client. Your client’s
motivation is to grow their business, which means more sales and more profit. If you
can help your client achieve those goals they’ll be happy to pay you for your products
and services, which helps you achieve your goals (you get what you give).
Identify the motivations of your target audience and from there you can identify your
opportunities to help them and improve your position on the way to your ultimate
goal.
STEP FOUR IDENTIFY YOUR POTENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Once you know what motivates your target audience it’s time to
formulate ways to help them achieve their goals, thus helping
yourself achieve your own goals. You can do this on your own, but
another way to find opportunities is to go to your target audience
and have a conversation with them.
For example, if you’re on the sales team and you want to help your boss, the sales
team leader, achieve a sales goal, go to him or her and discuss what the goals are.
Discuss ways that the team has succeeded in the past. Ask about any ideas the team
has had recently for increasing sales. This conversation will bring opportunities to light
and you’ll know exactly what you can work on to achieve results.
STEP FIVE CREATE A GAME PLAN
Next, leave the meeting and put together a game plan for
taking the opportunities and achieving results. Look at the way
others have done things before you. There is no reason to start
from scratch. Look for examples within your company. Look for
examples outside your company. Take the things others have
done to achieve results. See if there is room for any
improvements. Then start taking each step to achieve the desired results.
Once you’ve achieved the results you can go back to your boss and discuss the specific
steps you made to help the team and to help him or her. This kind of specific
improvement in your professional career is what will lead to you moving up and
achieving your ultimate goal.
The Person That Influences The Person That Pays You

When building your personal brand, the key point is that you should have a set of 10 to 20
influencers that you are targeting in order to extend the reach of your content and personal
brand.
Amanda Maksymiw (@AmandaMaks), Content Marketing Institute
The number one person that you’re targeting with your
personal brand is the person that will pay you: employer,
investor, client, etc. However, that’s not the only person in your target
audience. The second person on your target audience list is the person
that influences the person that pays you.
Influencers include any person that holds another person’s attention in some way. It
might be a business partner. It might be an industry writer or an industry speaker. It
could be a mentor, client or vendor. These people hold attention and influence the
decisions that your number one target audience makes. And that’s why you need to
pay attention to the influencers. If you can earn their trust, their approval then you
can win them over and they can influence the person that will pay you.
We asked Pat Flynn the following question:
His response included a note about influencers:

Free content that is obviously worth paying for.
A product or software of my own that would serve my target audience by
providing a solution to a very specific need.
Free, higherlevel help to influencers in the industry to start to build those
important relationships.
Here are the steps to follow to identify the influencers and win their approval.
STEP ONE IDENTIFY THE INFLUENCER
There are a few ways to figure out the people that influence
the person that pays you.
First, look at the social media profiles of your target. If it’s a
real person you can look at theirs and if it’s not a real person
you can identify a handful of people that fit your description
and look at their social media profiles. You’re looking at the
people this person is following or connected with. Twitter is a
great indicator for this especially if your target is active on Twitter. The people they
follow are people that occupy their attention. Also look at connections on LinkedIn.
These two social networks are usually the two most commonly used by professionals.
Next, look for online publications that have readership demographics that match your
target from the first section. Professionals usually have industry magazines and
websites that they follow and subscribe to. The writers on these sites hold great
influence over your target, but also pay attention to the people included in the articles.
Industry publications often contain quotes, interviews and mentions of people in the
industry including business owners, managers, consultants and others. These could
also be influencers of your main target.
STEP TWO CREATE DESCRIPTIONS
Create a description of each person that influences your target. Make
a description for each of the important connections on social media as
well as the people involved in the publications. These descriptions, like
the ones in the first section, will help you to better understand who
these people are and how you can earn their trust and get them to
mention you when talking to your target.
STEP THREE CREATE A CONTACT PLAN
Once you understand who the influencers are and where they are
online you can put together your contact plan. This will be your
way to connect with the influencer and help them with the things
that motivate them.
The basics would include connecting on social media like LinkedIn and Twitter. It also
includes following any blogs the people write or contribute to. Follow the blogs,
comment on the articles and make yourself visible to the influencer.
The next step is to get more aggressive with the way you reach out to
make connections with influencers. Now you’ll start using contact
forms and emails to reach out and connect. You’re looking to build
a relationship with the influencers so you can be top of mind when
they’re influencing the person that you want to pay you.
Think back to the motivations discussion in the earlier section. You need to figure out
what motivates these influencers. If their business peers of your target then find out
what would help them make more sales. If they’re vendors then figure out how to help
them get more clients or figure out how to help them improve their standing with your
target. If they’re writers then figure out how to help them get more pageviews. When
you know what motivates people, you have a better chance of making a connection.
Your Supporters
In my Amazing Career Project coaching program and in my client work, I’m fortunate to witness
first-hand hundreds of dreams and visions being birthed into the world – new products and
services, new businesses launching, new books and films under development, new methods for
teaching, leading, and educating, and more. There is so much creativity and innovation today in
our world—it’s inspiring.
I’ve also seen many new inventions and ideas die on the vine without the proper support,
encouragement and feedback. The most important form of support that keeps an idea going and
brings it into being is your support network—your “ambassadors”—people who believe in you
without reservation and spread the word about the value and importance of your endeavors, and
open crucial doors for you.
Kathy Caprino (@KathyCaprino), Forbes
Finally, we have to remember your support team. These are the people that support
you in your effort to move through your professional plan to achieve your brand
vision. Supporters can include family members, friends, colleagues, coworkers,
mentors and anybody that can offer support as you work your way to your vision.
The team is important because you can believe in yourself, but it’s good to have people
providing reassurance when you get frustrated. It’s good to have people there to tell
you the truth if they see something in your effort that they feel could be better. You’re
only one person and without supporters, you won’t have all the tools necessary to
achieve your goals.
STEP ONE IDENTIFY YOUR SUPPORT TEAM
The first step is to simply identify your support team. We just
mentioned some of the potential people that can make up your
support team. Reach out to a select few that you trust the most. You
want these people to be both support, but honest when dealing with
you. You don’t want a group of “yes” people that only agree with what
you’re doing and what you think is best. You want people that will
challenge you and push you to be your best.
Chances are good that most of the people you reach out to will be open to your
professional goals and they’ll be willing to help you. Let them know that it will require
conversations and feedback on their part and that it will last for a long time. Most will
agree, but don’t be offended if not everybody agrees to help.
STEP TWO LET THEM KNOW YOUR GOALS
Next, once you have a handful of people on your support team
you tell them what your goals are. These are the goals you
established in the first chapter of this guide. Share your plan
with your support team so they can see your vision. Ask them
for feedback on your goals. Some might question parts of your
plan and that’s good. The purpose of the team is to challenge
you and to provide different perspectives on what you’re trying to accomplish.
STEP THREE PROVIDE REGULAR UPDATES
Next, setup regular updates with your support team. Monthly might
be good for those closest to you, but it might be much for those that
are less close. In general, quarterly or even every six months is good
to keep your supporters updated.
You want to tell them how your progress is going. Tell them the specific things you’re
working on and how it’s going to contribute to achieving your professional goals.
They’ll give you feedback and encouragement, which will be important because you’ll
run into setbacks along the way and knowing that you have people supporting you is
great.
The updates will also keep you motivated. People can be motivated on their own to do
well and you probably are, but it’s good to feel like you have other people watching
you. This gives you an added benefit to keep moving forward, to keep working on
those projects to make each step along the way.
Give Back To Your Supporters By Asking Questions

It’s not a oneway street with your support team. People want to help you, but to get
the most out of the relationship you’ll need to reciprocate the efforts for them. They
might also have goals for their professional life and you can work together to help
each other reach those goals. You can be each other’s support team. You can offer
advice, criticism and challenge each other.
Another common thing that professionals are doing today is setting up their own
groups or boards. It might be a group of startup entrepreneurs that meet every
quarter even if it’s a Google Hangout or something where they go over the important
aspects of each other’s businesses. They checkin with other and report on progress,
but they also ask questions and get opinions on strategy. It’s a real help for
professionals because you get input from successful people on what you’re doing and
it also keeps you motivated because you want to do well each time you checkin with
your group.
In the next chapter we’ll give you steps to build up and protect your personal brand
assets.
CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE
CHAPTER THREE
How To Build Your Online And Offline Assets

In terms of personal branding, assets are the things you own that will communicate
your brand message to your target audience. Assets are things like your own website
and blog, but they can also be things like your Twitter username and your LinkedIn
profile. Offline assets are things like business cards and or traditional newsletters that
you send out.
In this chapter, we’ll show you how to secure assets, develop them and secure them so
they are protected for the longterm.
Building Social Communities

We asked James Schramko the following question:
He responded with notes on the importance of building social communities:
Podcast (rich media) because it gets you on iTunes showing in related shows
Feature blog to host rich media (podcast + videos) to build a list
Emailing my customers a lot to create a bond and cause action
Regular Facebook updates (because everyone is there)
The first assets to secure and build are your social communities. Today, it’s
important to secure social usernames, URLs and more that fit with your personal
brand. Some people have unique names that will likely be available when they
signup for social communities, but others have more common names that can be
unavailable, which makes it more of a challenge to find appropriate usernames.
STEP ONE CHECK USERNAME AVAILABILITY
There are two tools that help with claiming social profiles and seeing if someone else is
using your name on social media.
The first is knowem. It’s a tool that searches for how your name or brand is being used
by others on social media, domain names and even in the USPTO trademark database.
The next is NameChk. This tool checks to see if your desired
username is available on hundreds of social media communities,
networks and bookmarking sites. NameChk also gives you a list of
available domain names, which we’ll talk about in the next
section.
Use these tools to search for your regular name and username. The ideal result would
be that your full name and subsequent username is available on the biggest social
networks.
STEP TWO CLAIM YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES
If you have an unpopular name you’ll be able to claim your profiles on most or even all
of the social media sites shown on knowem and NameChk. On knowem, there is a
premium service that will allow you to quickly claim your usernames, trademarks and
domains while NameChk provides links for each of the sites and networks so you can
make your claims one at a time.
If you have a popular name you’ll probably struggle to find
accounts where you can use your regular name as your
username. There are some options including middle names,
dashes, underscores and adding additional branding that can
work for your username.
A good general rule to follow is to keep your username as short as possible when you
can’t use your full regular first and last name. Shorter usernames as easier to
remember, easier to type and easier to put on assets like websites.
Here are some suggestions for username formats:
Aaronagius
AaronMatthew
AaronMatthewAgius
Aaron_Agius
AaronAgius
IAmAaronAgius
AAgius
AaronA
AaronPA
MarketingAaron
The list could go on. There are a number of formats you could use. Keep it short. Make
it something that’s easy to type and easy to remember. Also make sure you can grow
with your username. A name like “MarketingAaron” might work well now, but if you
expand in the future away from just marketing your name will limit you.
Unique names are helpful and they stand out.
We asked Yaro Starak of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com the following question:

His answer included a note about his unique name:

The decision to start a blog (and also a podcast shortly after). I didn’t have a
personal brand before I started my blog and since then my entire business has been
based on the trust established via blogging and podcasting, and to a lessor extent
YouTube videos (I don’t do as many).
It also helps that I have a weird name and used to have long hair, which made me
easy to remember back when I started. I’m not sure that’s exactly a “tactic” for
personal branding everyone can replicate though :).
STEP THREE THE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL PROFILES

There are hundreds of social networks and communities. If you use knowem and
NameChk you’ll see that you can secure hundreds of usernames on these social
communities. You can use knowem’s premium option to secure all available
usernames at once, but if you want to secure them all individually it makes sense to
start with the most important first.
We asked Yanik Silver, Founder Maverick1000 and author ‘34 Rules for
Maverick Entrepreneurs’ this question:
He responded:
Focus on type of social media channel. No doubt, social media is huge but it gets
too overwhelming for someone to try and do and be everything. So if I was really
excited about making videos, I’d use YouTube. If I liked to write, I’d lean towards
a blog, etc.
I’d create an iconic event. You want to become the ‘hub’ or connection point as
much as possible to build your presence in an industry or marketplace. For me,
that was creating an event called the Underground®. The focus was bringing in
actual realworld successes sharing what they were doing online instead of some
of the usual suspects in the online world. I had put on this event for 10 years
before I retired it and I really worked hard to bring in a unique mix of icons and
power players to make it THE event worth attending. Plus, there was a huge
experience component to it that people would ‘credit’ me for intros and
connections from that event even if I wasn’t personally responsible.
Build your reputation/authority status. This goes along with #1 and #2 – but to
me, there’s still an window open to write a book and do guest blog posts or
articles in media. These things still count (a lot) for your personal brand.
LinkedIn is a good place to start. It’s the biggest social network aimed
at professionals. The community is growing and if you’re looking to
improve your job standing or even if you’re looking for business
clients then LinkedIn is the best place to start. Secure your username
here and start building your profile.
Twitter and Facebook and the next two big names in the social media world and while
you don’t necessarily need to use these, but it’s good to secure a username on them as
soon as possible.
However, while it’s good to secure usernames on the big social networks, it’s important
to secure as many as you can. This protects your brand and gives you the ability to
examine niche social communities and be prepared if you move to build a community
on one of those niche sites.
YouTube and other video sites are important and are becoming more important.
We asked Brian Dean of Backlinko the following question:
His response included a note about the importance of video:

I’d make more videos. Videos are THE best way to grow your personal brand.
Period. There’s no other medium that’s even close. I plan on creating 25 highquality
videos this year so that readers get to know me better.
STEP FOUR SECURING USERNAMES ON NEW SOCIAL COMMUNITIES

Finally, subscribe to the updates on sites like TechCrunch and Mashable. These two
sites provide the latest information on new companies and new happenings in the tech
world including social media. Not every new social media site will make it. In fact,
most will launch and fail, but it’s good to keep tabs on make it a habit to secure your
username when new social communities launch. You never know when the next
Twitter or Pinterest will launch and if that happens you want to make sure your
preferred username is available.
Examples:
@IAmAaronAgius
@NeilPatel
+AaronAgius
+NeilPatel
Domain Buying Strategy

Your personal website is the most important part of your brand strategy. Securing
social accounts and doing other things in this chapter are important, but securing
your own domain name is number one on the list. The reason is that you own the
content on your own site and you control the platform.
Think of your online personal brand strategy like a large tree. The trunk of the tree is
the strongest. It’s the center of your entire strategy. The tree trunk is your personal
website. You can control the tree. You can nurture it and make sure it’s strong for a
long time.
If you were to build your personal brand strategy around a Facebook page or Twitter
account you would be giving control of the tree trunk to those entities. We’ve all seen
the changes Facebook and Twitter have made. They’re often for the better, but they
leave people scrambling to make adjustments.
And to top it all off, you don’t really own the content you create on Twitter, Facebook
and other social networks. When you publish content on your own domain, you are
the owner.
We recommend getting an exactmatch domain for your brand name. There is a
general bias toward exactmatching domains for brands including personal brands.
People generally trust a website URL that matches your name as close as possible.
Here are the steps to buying your personal domain.
STEP ONE CHECK DOMAIN NAME AVAILABILITY
There are a number of tools for checking domain name availability including Check
Domain, Instant Domain Search and others. However, Go Daddy is another good
place to check domains. While Go Daddy has gotten some flak over the years they
have become a solid domain registrar, host and even provide other services for those
interested in launching a website. Their customer service and website uptime have
even improved.
Do an advanced domain search on Go Daddy to see what domains are available as
they relate to your personal brand.
The best possible domain is the one that fits your preferred name. For
example:
NeilPatel.com
AaronAgius.com
STEP TWO SECURE DOMAIN NAME AND SIMILAR DOMAINS
You also want to go with .com, which is the most recognized
domain toplevel domain or domain suffix.
If you’re preferred domain name is already registered you have
a few options.
First, you could secure another domain that is similar to your preferred name. You
could also choose to go with a different extensions such as .net or .co. Some of these
extensions are more expensive and others are related to different countries.
Registrars like Go Daddy also offer options for buying domains from
their owners. This is easier if the owner of the domain is not using it and
has it parked on the server without any website information on the
actual domain when you visit.
Go with your preferred name when possible. If not, see if you can deal with the
current owner. If not, secure a name that is similar and use the .com suffix if at all
possible.
Finally, it is wise to secure similar domains to your domain and to redirect those to
your main domain. For example, securing AaronAgius.net and forwarding it to
AaronAgius.com gives you a more indepth ownership of your online assets. This
further protects your brand.
Build A Professional Website

You can buy your professional domain and sit on it, but that won’t do you any good
other than securing it so that no one else can claim it. The prudent thing to do is to
build a professional website. This gives you a platform to communicate with your
target audience on a platform where you have complete control.
Unlike social media where the designs change, rules change and the platforms
change, your own website is a blank canvas. You can control the design. You control
the content and you can control who sees it through your promotion.
There are many different ways to build a website and more opinions on what is best.
This is our opinion on how you can best succeed in building your professional website.
STEP ONE DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL WORDPRESS
WordPress is the number one most used content management system (CMS) in the
world. A number of top sites now use WordPress not only for their blogs, but also as
the management software for their entire website. It’s the best CMS for your personal
website.
Once you have your domain, download WordPress and install it with your website
host. Because WordPress is so popular, many hosts have 1click setups for hosting and
using WordPress. Go Daddy is one host where you can buy a domain and have a
WordPress site setup with hosting in less than a day.
The domain will cost you about ~$12/year. The hosting will cost about $~100/year for
introductory hosting and WordPress is free to use.
STEP TWO SELECT A FREE THEME
The design of your website matters.
We asked Lewis Howes the question:

His first response was:

Branding—more people talk about my site design each week than anything else and
they want to design theirs based on it. It’s flattering, but more importantly, branding
matters and increases your personal branding influence.
There are three levels that you can choose from for the design of your
website:
Free Theme
Paid Theme
Custom Design/Theme
The WordPress community has provided a good number of free themes. This a good
place to start for your first website. You get a theme that has all the basic functionality
you need and you can customize it to a certain point. The biggest way you can
customize a free theme is with professional photos of yourself.
Paid themes generally cost around $100. They come with a bit more functionality and
customization options. They can have a little more upkeep from the providers, which
can include more security from phishing and hacking threats.
Paid themes can also come with functionality to make it easier for
you to manage your website. Depending on your understanding of
coding and WordPress, the easier functionality with some paid themes can be an
asset.
A custom theme would be having a professional designer create
something for you from scratch. The designer would work with you
to understand your personal brand. They would discuss your goals
and your target audience. From there they would create your theme
and they could probably even create an entire branding package that
included a business card, professional photos, images and other
items.
A custom theme is the ultimate goal for a professional website, but you do not need
one to have a nice looking website. Many people use free themes for a long time while
others start with free themes and invest in more custom designs as time goes by.
We recommend starting with the professional theme to launch your professional
website. Professional themes generally cost in the ~$100 USD range.
STEP THREE ADDING CONTENT TO YOUR THEME
One of the benefits of a premium them is that the template is laid out for a
personal brand website. By choosing one of these themes you are setup with
something very similar to a CV, which provides an overview of who you are
and what you do.
The Personality theme from Gabfire Themes is one example.
With a premium theme like this you can easily enter information into the homepage.
Each section is easy to fillin and easy to change should you choose to. You’ll need
little to no coding or development experience; another advantage of going with a
premium theme.
Before starting on the content, think about what you want a brand new visitor to the
homepage to know about you. And consider how they can figure out what you want
them to know within a second or two.
We asked Brian Dean of Backlinko:

He responded:
To put my face front and center on the homepage. To build a personal brand people
need to see your face plastered all over your site.
And there’s no better place than your homepage. That way, when people come to
your site for the first time they instantly know who’s behind the site.
That’s why I make the “feature box” at the top of the homepage a large picture of me.
It might not as convert as well as if I had a picture of a free ebook, but it’s a tradeoff
I’m willing to make to build my personal brand.
First, add a professional photo of yourself. We discussed your
professional photo in the first chapter of this guide. Your photo
should represent the image you want to cast to your target audience.
Wear the type of clothes people wear in the position that you want to attain. With
clothes, it’s good to go standard colors and styles with the basics and add personality
(if you want) with accessories. For example, you would wear a basic shirt and maybe
add personality with a necklace (for women) and maybe a watch (for men or women).
It’s a little thing, but we also recommend smiling. A nice, genuine smile makes you
appear friendly and approachable, which is what people like to see.
Next, add your name. This is obvious, but on occasion you’ll land
on an individual’s website and you won’t instantly know who’s site
it is. When someone comes to your site you want him or her to see
your name and your photo. That’s instant recognition.
Somewhere by your name you want to write what it is you are or what you do. For
example, the site AaronAgius.com has the information:
Aaron Agius | Online Marketer, Web Strategist, Entrepreneur
As soon as a visitor looks at that information they know what Aaron Agius does.
One note with titles, description and taglines: you can get creative, but be aware of the
fact that you don’t want to confuse people. You want people to instantly know what
you do or who you are. Keep it as simple and descriptive as possible. You can further
describe what you do later on the homepage or on the about page.
At this point you have a couple different options for organizing your
content. A trend with websites and personal websites today is to put all
the information on one page that has different sections.
The more traditional setup would be to have separate pages on your site. You can set it
up either way and achieve the same effect. We’ll describe the content you need as if
you’re creating pages, but this information can be used if you’re creating sections on a
single page too.
STEP FOUR SETUP THE ABOUT PAGE

The about page is where you tell your story. Go in chronological order. You can start
with where you were born and raised, but don’t go into too much detail more than a
few years back. You want the focus to be on where you are now and where you’re
going in the coming years.
When writing who you are now and what you do now use descriptive words instead of
filler words. Use words that your target audience understands. You don’t want to
confuse them with fancy titles or complicated explanations. It doesn’t make you look
more important. It only confuses people.
STEP FIVE CASE STUDIES
You don’t necessarily need a case studies page, but it can be very useful if you’re
looking for new job opportunities. Case studies are stories of projects you’ve worked
on. You want to tell the story starting with the initial problem or challenge and
describe how you or how your team found a solution.
Here are examples of how to develop case studies: Gawker,
Timothy Sykes and TechCrunch.
Companies use case studies to showcase their ability to solve problems for their target
customers. You can do the same to showcase your ability and make yourself more
appealing to potential employers.
STEP SIX SETUP THE CONTACT PAGE
Finally, a contact page or contact form on your homepage is key. Your site is about
luring people in, earning their interest and getting them to contact you with potential
opportunities. A contact form is professional and it’s a secure
way for people to reach out to you.
STEP SEVEN PROFESSIONAL EMAIL ADDRESS
It’s time to retire that email address that looks something like
crazeegurl6345@yahoo.com. Now that you have your own
website you can create a professional email. Simply use your first
same and the domain for your website for something like
aaron@aaronagius.com.
This is an email address you can put on the site and on other assets like your business
cards.
Build A Blog
Along with the fact that it’s the most popular CMS, we recommend using WordPress
for your personal website because it has blogging functionality.
With a blog, you can provide fresh, relevant content that appeals to your target
audience. You can showcase your expertise, experience and personality on an ongoing
basis. With a targeted blog strategy complete with blog promotion, you can attract
your target audience to your blog posts and to your website where they can read your
content, get to know you and become interested in what you do.
We’re not the only ones that believe in blogging.
We asked Rand Fishkin of Moz the question:

His response was:

I would invest in a blog where I regularly produced unique, useful information, a
regular video series, and a strong social media presence across at least Facebook,
Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn (and possibly others like Pinterest or Instagram
depending on the focus of my work).
Here are the steps to building your blog. With WordPress, a blog will be setup on your
site so you won’t need to do much, if any, technical setup. You can start with the
content strategy.
STEP ONE DEVELOP A BLOG STRATEGY
Your goal is to attract the attention of people that can give you money whether that’s a
potential employer or a potential client.
A blog strategy or content strategy should be really simple—address the questions and
solve the problems that your target reader has and that him or her is asking online.
A good place to find the questions your target audience is asking is to
go to on Quora. It’s a popular forum where all kinds of quality
questions are asked. Find the ones being asked by people that fit the
profile of your target audience.
On your blog, you’ll provide the answers to these questions.
You can also search industry websites and publications for popular articles. Look for
widgets on these publications that list “popular articles” or something similar. See
what your target audience is reading and write on those topics.
Another good format for your blog is to provide insight into current
events. When something happens in your industry, provide your
point of view on what it means for your target audience.
You can also interview industry influencers. Most people are open to being interviewed
for blogs especially if they have their own blog. Reach out to other bloggers and reach
out to influencers. These could be journalists, consultants or even executives.
Jon Morrow of Boost Blog Traffic had some good input into building a blog
strategy. We asked him the question:
He responded with:
Blogging, without a doubt, but not just any type of blogging. I wanted to go beyond
the short, meaningless little posts most bloggers publish and create content that
would touch people so powerfully it would stay with them forever, and they would
find themselves going back to read it again and again for decades. The result is I
don’t publish very much, but the posts I do publish get a TON of traffic. This one now
has over one million page views all by itself, and lots of others are in the sixfigure
range.
STEP TWO CONTENT SYNDICATION
Content syndication is when you share your blog content (in full or in part) on other
sites. A simple form of syndication is sharing the title of your blog post on Twitter
along with a link to the full post.
Much content syndication is about bringing traffic back to the original
source of the content. This is why sharing a link along with the title or first
paragraph of a blog post is good for sites that want traffic.
You want traffic to your personal site, but your overall goal is to raise your personal
profile. You want to be recognized throughout your industry. To build that reputation
you don’t necessarily need to bring traffic back to your site.
For you, sharing more content off your site can work because you eliminate a step and
provide great information right where your target audience is spending their time.
For example, instead of sharing the title and link from your post on a
forum, you can share an entire section or even the entire post on an
industry forum (with a source link at the bottom).
You could do this on LinkedIn Groups, Google+ Groups and a number of others
places.
Guy Kawasaki believes that Google+ has greatly helped his brand. We asked him
the question:
Here was his response:

The action that had the single biggest impact on the growth of my personal brand
was jumping on Google+ during its launch period and pouring resources into it long
before it was proven to be more than “another Google Wave.” This led to early
success and visibility on the service which led to Google “blessing me” as a suggested
user which led to more than six million followers.
The concept with syndication is to share the entire wealth of information you possess.
Your website and blog are important, but you don’t necessarily need to bring people
there to raise your reputation.
STEP THREE CONTENT SHARING WITH BUFFER

Buffer allows you to easily share or to syndicate your blog content on various social
profiles from one location. You can share a blog title and URL or snippet on Buffer
and have it published to your social accounts including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
and more.
Guy Kawasaki is a fan. We asked him:

He responed with:
The three things that would provide the biggest ROI today are:
Pinterest
Google+
Using Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule posts
In other words, I would focus my efforts on these two sites, and I would
use Hootsuite or Buffer to implement my daily posts. As for content, I
would use Alltop to find stories, and Canva to build a graphic for every
post that wasn’t an embedded video or whose source didn’t have a
great, at least 500pixelswide picture. (Note: I am the cofounder of
Alltop and chief evangelist of Canva).
For every blog post you publish, you can create many updates to share on social
media. Take one hour out of your week to create snippets to share for the entire week
on your social profiles. Buffer makes it easy and it will be one of the most important
tools you use for your branding strategy. It’s a little over $100 annually for unlimited
queued posts.
STEP FOUR AUTOMATION WITH IFTTT
IFTTT is a clever tool that allows you to do multiple actions based on an occurrence.
The terminology on IFTTT includes actions and consequences to make recipes. For
example, your action is a new published blog post on your WordPress blog. The
consequence is to share a snippet of that post on Twitter or LinkedIn or Google+.
You can also use IFTTT to get ideas for your blog posts and many
other things, but we’ll focus on automating the sharing of your blog
content.
With Buffer, you can focus on new content, but the real power with
Buffer is the old content that you’ll develop over time.
And while you can use IFTTT with your old content, the real power of IFTTT is with
the new actions and new content you create.
Setup the following actions as a minimum with your IFTTT account:
New WordPress Post to Twitter
New WordPress Post to Facebook
New WordPress Post to Google+
New WordPress Post to LinkedIn
These recipes will get you started using IFTTT to promote your blog
posts. From there you can take things to the next level by adding
multiple layers to your recipes and using IFTTT to get ideas for your
WordPress blog.
You could even use IFTTT to help you get the type of job you’re looking for by using
the RSS feeds for specific searches on Craigslist sent to your inbox, but that’s for
another guide.
STEP FIVE ADDITIONAL BLOGGING TOOLS
Here are some additional tools to help you with your blogging efforts.
Flickr Creative Commons 2.0 has a huge collection of photos that you
can use as long as you provide attribution (a link to the photo’s page on
Flickr). You don’t want to use any photo you find on a Google search.
Aweber, MailChimp or similar email provider; an email list is something
you own and a blog is a great vehicle for starting an email list. You can
create a basic template and create a blog broadcast to automate regular
emails to your followers using your blog posts.
Email is very important. We asked Brian Dean of Backlinko this question:

His response included a note about the importance of email marketing:

I’d invest lots of time communicating with email subscribers. It boggles my mind that
people will talk to random people on social media...and send email subscribers
newsletters from “noreply@” email addresses. Your email list is your business’s #1
asset. And you can grow the value of that list by building relationships with people
that subscribe. When people sign up to my newsletter I ask them “tell me one thing
you’re struggling with?” and reply to EVERY single one. That way you’re growing
your personal brand by actually personally talking to your target audience.
Synthesis is hosting for WordPress. They provide you with the hosting
setup that will make your WordPress site blazing fast. It’s more
expensive than regular shared hosting, but if you want to impress your
visitors you want a site that is fast and always available.
Finally, your blog can include all types of content. We asked Rand Fishkin of
Moz the following question:
His response was:

The creation and promotion of a weekly video series called “Whiteboard Friday” in
which I explain web marketing concepts in front of a whiteboard each Friday was
likely the largest single impact endeavor for my personal branding. Whenever I
speak on stage or attend a conference or appear anywhere online in the marketing
world, people know and have seen Whiteboard Friday. Few people watch every
episode, but with ~10K unique views per episode, it’s common for many professionals
in the field to have watched at least a few of them. Video, in particular, is powerful
because it creates so much more of a personal connection with the audience, and
from a branding standpoint, being in those videos makes me someone they
remember and feel a connection with.
Additionally, a blog might not work for everyone. We asked Pat Flynn the
question:
His response was:

I started my podcast. In a survey (with a 7,500 person sample), I discovered that the
#1 way people first hear about me or my brand is through my podcast (21%),
followed by YouTube (19%) and links & mentions on other sites (18%). Not only has
the podcast given me more exposure, but it has also allowed me to connect on a
much deeper level with my audience. Whenever I go to conferences and talk to
people in my audience, they always mention the podcast and how much they enjoy it
—they hardly mention the blog anymore.
Get More Traffic With Ideas From The Content Marketing Guide
The guide you’re reading on personal branding is part of a series of advanced guides
on a variety of topics including a The Advanced Content Marketing Guide.
This guide is packed with information about how you
can use content to grow a business or in your case,
your personal brand.
The parts that will apply most are:
Creating A Planning Document For Your Content
Generating Ideas For Your Blog
Templates For Easy Content Creation
Optimizing Your Content For Search (SEO)
Promoting Your Content
We’ve covered a few of the early steps and a few of the promotion steps, but this guide
has more indepth information for this part of your efforts especially the information
about building connections with influencers in your industry and being comfortable
including them in your articles and emailing them to help you promote your content.
Traffic and clicks drive the Internet. In order to grow your brand online you
need to have the ability to drive traffic to your blog content through clicks.
You now have the steps to get your blog setup. This guide can help you
create amazing content and promote that content to get traffic.
We asked Yaro Starak of Entrepreneur-Journey.com the question:

His response included another great tip for traffic:

Assuming I’ve done these tests and I know I have a buying audience, then my focus is
simple—improve traffic and conversion. I expand what is already working, add
more traffic sources, make more offers and run split tests to improve results.
Get More Blog Followers From

The Complete Guide To Building Your Blog Audience
In addition, The Complete Guide To Building Your Blog Audience will show you how
to build an audience for your blog. When you’re starting out, you have zero followers.
That’s obviously not going to help you achieve your personal branding goals.
Some of the best strategies include:
Writing about influencers and getting them to share your posts
Implementing the right social sharing buttons on your blog
Joining the right online communities
Syndicating your content
Repurposing your content
A blog is the way you can reach your target audience. The strategies in
the guide above can help you build your audience so that your stature
in the industry grows, which will lead to the opportunities you’re
seeking.
A great way to build your personal brand is to guest post on influential websites. The
guide above discusses guest blogging and we discuss it more in the next chapter.
You gain access to the best websites by providing amazing
content that readers love and in return you get to grow your
brand by exposing your personality, expertise and story to the
audience.
What kind of content connects with your audience?
We asked Brian Dean of Backlinko the question:

His response included a great bit about blogging:

I’d write blog posts like Neil. Neil’s writing style is compelling because it reads like
he’s having a conversation with you. And he sprinkles in anecdotes from his life and
business. When people read copy like that they feel like they’re getting to know you.
Business Cards And Other Offline Assets

Business Cards And Other Offline Assets
The first part of this chapter has focused on building your online assets, which
are incredibly important, but don’t forget about your potential offline assets.
These can be just as important to your personal brand especially when you’re
meeting people in person.
Collection Of Amazing Business Cards
Here are some examples of great personal business cards:
Source: neatdesigns.net via Lloyd on Pinterest and Mashable
Source: A Card With Good Fornt Style and slodive
Source: The Black Chef Card via slodive
Source: Creative Bloq
Source: Stav Garts—Photographer via 1st Web Designer
Source: Steven Whitely via 1st Web Designer
You’ll notice that each of these cards is unique, creative and original. For your
personal brand, it’s about standing out from the crowd and being different from the
competition. We touch on standing out in more detail in the last chapter of the guide.
STEP ONE BUILD INTRIGUE WITH YOUR BUSINESS CARD

Keep business cards on you at all times. You never know
when you’re going to run into someone that has an
opportunity.
As you can imagine, meetings like this are often
spontaneous and the person you see will look at your card
for about two seconds before they put it in their pocket or
bag. Your card has to communicate who you are and what
you can provide within that twosecond window.
Your business card design should follow the same basic formula as your website. Your
name, title and short description should be included. These answer the basic questions
of who you are and what you do.
Your contact information should be easy to find on the front of the
card and it should include your professional email address, which
you created when you started your website. Also include the address
for your personal website. And include your phone number because
some people prefer to make phone calls to sending emails.
On a high quality business card, your photo can work well. Instead of using a business
logo for a business card, you can use your professionally taken photo as your personal
brand logo.
The back of your business card is another asset that is often overlooked. For pennies
more you can add a nice bold pattern to the back of your card with a benefit for your
targeted audience listed.
For example, a salesperson looking for better opportunities will
put the benefit statement—Get more sales. Visit
salesperson.com. Make the saying on the back about the person
you hand the card to, which is your target audience member.
To recap, the front of your card should have a white background with black or dark
text and your professional photo, title and contact information.
The back should have a dark, bold color background with white type that highlights a
benefit statement with your website URL listed.
Your card gives your audience a way to contact you, but it also intrigues them and gets
them to take action by visiting your website or by calling you.
STEP TWO IMPROVE YOUR APPEARANCE WITH PROPER DIET, EXERCISE AND SLEEP
Don’t negate the importance of your appearance for your personal
brand. Your appearance is highly important for how people perceive
you. When you’re building your career you’re having a lot of first
impressions and the way you look has an instant effect on people.
Studies show that if you dress nicely, brush your hair, maintain your skin and look
alert that you’ll be more likely to succeed and make positive connections with people.
The only way to do these things is to take proper care of yourself.
Take control of your diet by limiting your carbs and sugars. They
can give you a rush of energy, but that energy quickly fades and
you will feel sluggish. Carbs and sugar also contribute to fat
growth throughout your body including around your vital organs
like your brain. You want to stay sharp. Eat healthy fats, proteins
and vegetables.
Exercise regularly. This doesn’t mean that you have to become a body builder. Make
walking a regular part of your routine. Walk outside for 20 minutes at least four days
per week and do it during peak sunlight hours. Sun is great for your body and so is
regular walking. It also gives you time to think and ponder your life. Also do body
weight workouts like pushups and situps. And try spring exercising 23 times per
week.
Finally, get at least seven hours of sleep per night. This
is not easy especially for business professionals, but it’s
essential.
A recent study found that getting a good night’s sleep allows the brain to flush toxins
and makes it more likely that you’ll learn and retain information.
If you don’t allow yourself to sleep you’re robbing your brain of its ability to function
and you won’t be operating at peak performance. Turn the world off in the evening.
Don’t check your email after 5:00 PM. The evening is a time to wind down and get
ready to sleep. Seven hours is great. Eight is even better. Even if there is an emergency
you’re better off dealing with it in the morning when you’ve had a full night’s sleep.
Do these things and you’ll be healthier, happier and in a much better place mentally to
grow as a person. This leads to more confidence and better performance on the job,
which leads to advancement.
There are other offline activities you can do to improve your personal brand. We
asked John Chow:
He responded with:
The action with the biggest impact on my personal brand has been to write my own
book. I’m talking about a real book, not an eBook. My published books include Make
Money Online: Roadmap of a Dot Com Mogul and Blogging Secrets. Both are
available at Amazon.com and major book stores. Nothing scream expert status than
being published. It is the ultimate business card.
If I were starting from scratch today, I would use Amazon Create Space to get my first
book published. Then I would leverage that book to get Tier 1 media exposure. Having
my own book was how I got featured on Entrepreneur magazine.
CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER FOUR

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE
CHAPTER FOUR
How To Build Your Brand Through Outreach

Assets like your website and blog act as the hub of your personal branding efforts.
They are the places of truth where people can go to get information about you straight
from the source. But it’s difficult to build an audience if you only use your efforts on
those two channels.
To build your brand and move toward your professional goals you need to go where
your target audience is and you have to get their attention. Outreach is the act of
providing value to those that have established audiences filled with the people you
want to reach. You provide value and in exchange they give you the chance to sell
yourself to the audience.
In this chapter we’ll show you how to use outreach to grow your audience while
increasing opportunities that can lead to professional advancement as you work
toward your personal branding goals.
How To Build Relationships That Lead To Opportunities

How To Build Relationships That Lead To Opportunities
We asked Lewis Howes the following question:
If you were building an online presence from scratch today, what
3 things would you consider to provide the biggest ROI on your
time and money?
His response included an important point about building relationships:

Making Friends: Become friends with influencers... don’t just network with
them. Take the time to develop a bond that is stronger than a business deal.
When you do this, your friends will “take a bullet” for you... and the business deal or
promoting you is a nobrainer as well.
Many opportunities arise out of first connections. You can sit back waiting for those
connections to happen by chance such as waiting for ads to appear for new jobs or for
the right lead to magically come in through your website or you can go out and make
connections happen for you.
As you know, the second option is better. Life waits for nobody so if you want to kick
your career into overdrive you’re going to have to go out and make connections
because every connection could be the one that leads to your next opportunity.
Here are the steps and methods to making connections and building professional
relationships.
STEP ONE FIND PEOPLE WILLING TO CONNECT AT LOCAL EVENTS
Local events in your city or community are still some of the best
places to meet people and build connections and relationships that
lead to opportunities. A lot of people focus on the power of social
media and social media certainly is important (we’re talking about
it in the next step), but facetoface interaction is still an essential
way to foster opportunity in your professional life.
Here is a little trick to use to find local events where you can find people willing to
connect.
Go to Google.
Type in the following phrase, but don’t hit “Enter” just yet:
[your city] business
That’s it. Obviously add your city to make it something like “Seattle Business” or
“Bangkok Business”. Let Google’s suggested searches reveal potential connecting
events.
Sometimes, just using the word “business” won’t be enough. You might have to add
the word “event” to the end or something similar to get the proper suggestions. You
could also substitute the word “professional” for business and add “event” or
something close to get even more results.
For example, typing in Seattle Business Events will yield the following
suggestions:
Seattle Business Events
Seattle Business Events This Week
Seattle Business Networking Events
Seattle Business Events Calendar
And more
Next, hit “enter” on a few of the suggested searches that look the most relevant to your
situation. You should discover a number of opportunities where people like you are
going to connect with others.
There are a variety of different events. Some will be casual gatherings like
cocktails with professionals where you can mingle with professionals from
the area, free to discuss anything you like. Other events will be more
scheduled with speakers and question and answer sessions.
Find the events that best fit your professional niche. Go to a variety of events; ones
that are more casual and ones with speakers and schedules. Find opportunities to
connect with people and learn what others are doing in their professional lives.
Your goal is to make connections and see if there is opportunity to build a
relationship. You’re looking for people that share similar aspirations as you and that
are involved in similar fields. For example, an accountant will look for others that have
an interest in accounting and business. He or she would connect with those people,
get to know them and through that relationship job opportunities may arise whether
it’s a fulltime position, a freelance position or even an opportunity to start a new firm.
STEP TWO DISCOVER PEOPLE WILLING TO ENGAGE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Now we can get into social media. There is a lot of opportunity
to make connections on social media that can lead to
professional opportunities. You can connect with people that
could make potential employers, employees, business partners,
clients and more.
However, for professional relationships, not all social media networks
are created equal.
Twitter is a good network for connecting with people. Many are willing
to respond to their mentions especially if you engage with intriguing
conversation. There’s an easy way to get people to respond to your
tweets on Twitter.
First, find someone that is well known in your industry. You probably already follow
people like this on Twitter. Look at their timeline to see the types of tweets that they
have responded to and interacted with in the past. These are clues to the type of
updates that interest them.
Next, write the same type of updates that have gotten engagement from your target in
the past.
For example, you notice that your target has commented multiple
times on an industry news event. They’ve shared multiple articles.
They’ve replied to tweets with their opinion on the topic. To start your
engagement, simply comment on the topic with a similar viewpoint to
the one your target has shared. It’s obviously better if you share the
same opinion because this makes the potential relationship a genuine one so look for
something that you care about. Make your comment. The person will likely respond
and a relationship can grow from there.
Relationships happen in real life following this method all the time. It starts with one
common interest or shared experience and grows from there. With Twitter, you have a
huge platform full of potential relationships and you can target connections based on
your interests. Identify people in your industry, follow them and comment on the
things they care about. It’s that simple.
Repeat the same efforts on Facebook, Google+ and other social networks.
STEP THREE HOW TO CONNECT WITH PEOPLE IN GROUPS AND ON FORUMS
Before LinkedIn, Facebook and even MySpace there was a very
social culture online. People would congregate in forums and
chat rooms with others that shared similar interests. These
groups and forums are still some of the biggest communities
online and you can use them to your advantage.
Chances are there are a number of these online communities for your professional
niche. Go to Google and search for things like [your niche] forum or replace “forum”
with words like “community” or put the word “online” in front of the search to find
relevant communities.
For example, search for “online accounting discussion forum” and you’ll get a result
for AccountingForums.com. This forum is full of discussion among accountants.
To get started in the discussion, find the conversations where you’re comfortable and
add your thoughts and opinions. Aim to help those with questions where you feel
comfortable providing advice. If you’re not comfortable answering questions you can
always ask your own questions. Even if you feel your questions are rudimentary you’ll
usually find many people willing to offer advice.
From these discussions you can build relationships that can turn into opportunities.
How To Get Exposure By Guest Blogging

Google’s head of the spam team Matt Cutts made a declaration that guest
posting had become spammy. And if you’re up on the SEO industry you know
that spammy guest posting has been on the rise.
However, Google seems to simply be acknowledging the fact that many have
abused guest linking for the sole purpose of gaining links. As a way to scale
efforts, people would write guest posts with little value and post them on
whatever site that would accept the articles.
Thankfully, Google appears to have targeted this type of guest posting leaving
opportunity for real authorities to publish high quality guest posts for the purpose of
SEO and branding.
Guest blogging still works. In fact, we asked Jon Morrow of GuestBlogging.com

the following question:
His response included a note about guest blogging:

If you wiped my mind, and I had to start over TOTALLY from scratch, I would
probably start with guest blogging. In my opinion, it’s the best way to improve your
writing skills while simultaneously building a core audience.
As you build your personal brand you can use guest posting to gain exposure to
audiences and to build the profile of yourself as a writer and the profile of your
website and blog. Here is how you can accomplish this with a guest posting strategy.
STEP ONE HOW TO FIND WEBSITES THAT ACCEPT HIGH QUALITY GUEST POSTS
There are a number of websites that still accept guest posts, but
the ones with strong audiences, the kind of audiences you want
to reach, are becoming more picky about the people they let
guest post. The best sites only want the best content so go into
this effort with the idea that you’ll have to write your best stuff
ever for these topnotch websites.
Use social media, search engines and search tools like Topsy to identify the top
websites in your niche. Nearly every industry has industry journals, blogs and websites
dedicated specifically to topics for that industry. These are the best places to publish
guest posts and many will have opportunities for outside writers.
Create a list of potential websites where you can guest post. Next, see if
they have a procedure for submitting ideas for articles for complete
articles. Some of the sites will have pages titled “Write For Us” or
“Contribute”.
If you don’t see pages like this, don’t worry. There are still ways to publish on these
sites. The clue will be the number of different authors you see on site. Usually the site
will have regular writers, but often they’ll accept outside writers and usually those with
experience in the industry have a good shot at getting a guest post accepted.
If you don’t see a “Write For Us” page look for a “Contact” page. This page will usually
have a form or a series of email addresses including one for the editor or associate
editor.
If you still can’t find this information, use a search engine or LinkedIn to find people
associated with the publication. You could even click on the authors’ names on the
articles on the site to see if they have author pages. These pages will often have links to
Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.
STEP TWO HOW TO WRITE EMAILS THAT GET RESPONSES
If the sites have official procedures for guest posting then follow the rules
and submit your best content. Even if your content is turned down,
respond with by asking what would have made the article worth
accepting. Ask for specific things. Then go back and improve your article
or write a new article following every item addressed in the response.
When you follow specific instructions laid out you’re more likely to be
accepted so always ask for specific feedback.
If the sites have contact forms and email addresses you’ll have to write emails to work
your way toward a guest posting opportunity. The key to these emails is building a
relationship with the person you’re emailing as you work your way toward a guest
posting opportunity.
To start your email, use the word “because” early. This gives the recipient a specific
reason for the email and makes them more likely to keep reading and to answer your
questions and to accept your submission.
For example, you would write:
Hi,
I’m writing because I saw that [publication name] has accepted article
contributions from outside writers including [article name].
What is the procedure for submitting an article for review and what criteria are
used to accept submissions?
The word “because” is used early and the message asks for specific criteria for the
submission. This way you know exactly what you have to do in order to get an article
accepted.
Even if you hear that the publication is not accepting articles, continue your efforts. If
the person says that articles are no longer accepted, respond with something such as,
“What would make an article appealing for publication on your site?” and similar
questions to see if you can get a response with specific information.
The responses you get can lead to openings for your article to be accepted as long as
you write the type of article the person describes in their correspondence.
STEP THREE HOW TO WRITE HIGH QUALITY GUEST POSTS
Only the best articles are accepted on the best industry websites. The
easiest way to figure out what is required on the sites you identify is to
review the top articles on the site.
On some sites you’ll find areas in the sidebar next to the articles where “Popular
Articles” are listed. You might also see variations of this with something like “Most
Viewed”, “Most Emailed” and similar lists. These are indicators to the most popular
content on the site.
If a particular type of post has been popular for the site in the past you
know the site’s owners are looking for more content like that. Identify
the top content and create an article that is just as good or even better.
If you can’t find a “Popular Articles” list anywhere on the site, look at the social shares
for recent articles. Most publications today have share buttons with counters. Look for
the articles with significantly more shares than others. You can also look for posts with
the most comments.
If you still can’t find the popular articles, go back to the people that you’ve contacted
at the site and ask them for a short list of the best articles on their site. They might just
send you the top five articles and from that you can extrapolate an idea for an article
that can be just as good.
For example, an account finds that three popular articles on an
industry website all relate to entrepreneurs and new business taxes.
The accountant would create a title idea that would involve
common tax mistakes made by new businesses and firsttime
entrepreneurs. It’s a great topic and one that the site would likely
accept.
However, make your article all encompassing and indepth. Cover every angle and
provide actionable steps for readers. The best articles establish a benefit for the reader
in the title (ex: Save Money On Your Taxes By Avoiding These 5 FirstTime Business
Owner Mistakes). And provide actionable steps with each of the mistakes. See what’s
been written before about the topic and improve on those ideas. Don’t just copy
previous ideas. Find out what ideas have worked and make them better.
There are two tools that can help you find popular articles and topics so you can
expand upon them and earn interest in your personal brand.
The first is SocialCrawlytics, which allows you to identify popular posts and topics.
Enter in the URL of popular industry influencers, the people you aspire to be like and
popular industry websites. This tool will show you the most popular content. From
those results, identify the topics you can write about. Then use The Skyscraper
Technique to create something even better. The site you submit the guest post to will
be blown away and will love to publish and promote your content.
The second tool is Ahrefs, which allows you to explore URLs, posts and other content
specifically the sites that link to the content. When you find a blog, look for popular
posts and use Ahrefs to examine the backlinks coming to the post. Website owners love
backlinks. By finding posts with the most backlinks you can create similar content
ensuring that you’ll get backlinks to your article.
By finding where the backlinks come from you will also find potential people to reach
out to and share your guest post with once it’s published.
How To Get Exposure Through Article Contributions & Interviews

Guest posting isn’t the only way to contribute content to outside audiences. You can
contribute to articles with other authors and you can make yourself available for
interviews.
We’ll talk more in the next chapter about getting press coverage and using HARO
(Help A Reporter Out), which is a great tool for interviews. In this section we’ll cover a
few different ways outside of HARO that you can use to contribute to articles and get
exposure through interviews.
STEP ONE FIND AUTHORS THAT NEED RESEARCH OR WORK DONE FOR THEIR ARTICLES
From the list of websites you’ve created for your industry, identify authors
that have included research and other time consuming work in their
articles. Reach out to these authors asking if they could use help with the
research for future articles.
Often, the authors will have ideas for research for new articles, but they won’t have
time to do the research themselves. They can provide you with direction and you can
carry out the research as a way to help them. In return, they will often credit you with
helping on the article and while it might not be a coauthor status it can lead to co
written articles in the future and a positive relationship that could lead to other
opportunities.
STEP TWO FIND BLOGGERS THAT PUBLISH INTERVIEWS & REACH OUT
Most interviews start with the owner of a website reaching out to potential
interviewees. When you’re just starting out on your personal branding effort you’re not
going to have anyone reaching out to you for interviews. Don’t wait for your profile to
build in the industry. Reach out to website owners seeing if they
would be interested in interviewing you for their website.
When emailing website owners you have to make the message about
them. Describe the benefits for their website and for their profile. You
want to say that you’ll share the article with your entire network of
followers and that you’ll link to the interview from your website.
You also have to make your story sound appealing. Start by asking what type of
interview the person would be most interested. Ask what makes an appealing interview
for their readers. Then tweak your story to fit the criteria and you’ll be more likely to be
accepted for an interview on the site.
How To Get Exposure Through Partner Webinars

We asked Jon Morrow the question:
If you were building an online presence from scratch today, what 3
things would you consider to provide the biggest ROI on your time and
money?
His response included a big note on webinars:

I’m assuming I get to keep all of the knowledge and skills I’ve developed over the
past few years?
If so, I would do webinars for companies who don’t know how to do it right, and I
would ask for a commission on all sales. For example, I was recently talking to a
guy who did webinars for a hamster food company, showing their customers how to
clean the hamster cages, train the hamsters to do tricks, and so on. The hamster food
company promoted the webinar, he did the presentation, and then at the end, they
offered a $10 per month program where the hamster food would be delivered to
your door. Over the course of a month, they had 3,000 people join, creating $30,000
per month in sales. His commission was 10%—about $3000 per month. Not bad for
doing three or four webinars.
Granted, webinars are complicated. I average $40,000 in sales per webinar these
days because I’m really good at them, but if I had to start from scratch WITHOUT
the knowledge and experience I have now, there’s no way I could do that well.
Webinars have been growing in popularity. Webinars are live, online presentations
where there are usually multiple hosts discussing a specific topic. Companies are
using webinars to educate current and customers on specific topics.
Individuals can also use webinars to raise their profiles. As an individual, you can offer
your services to cohost a webinar with someone that has an audience. It can be
difficult to host a webinar on your own so many people are looking for cohosts. If you
go beyond the usual contribution of a cohost you can get a good reputation as a
webinar presenter and get exposure to multiple audiences.
Here’s how:
STEP ONE IDENTIFY KEY WEBINAR CONTRIBUTORS IN YOUR NICHE
The most popular publications in your industry along with businesses and other
organizations will be the places to look for webinars. Another place to find webinars is
industry conference websites. These sites might not have webinars,
but they often have past speakers listed. Do a Google search for the
speaker’s name plus “webinar” and you’ll often find webinars the
speakers have done.
Through this research you should find a few people that contribute
regularly to webinars and that are current with their webinar participation. These are
your potential targets for cohosted webinars.
STEP TWO RESEARCH THE MOST POPULAR WEBINARS
After you identify popular webinar hosts, find popular webinars in
your industry. You can tell this by looking at the number of comments
and shares on webinar pages. Webinars are often published after
they’ve gone live for ongoing streaming. The most popular webinars
will be shared often and commented on by a number of followers.
Find the most popular webinars and extrapolate popular topics. From these topics,
create an idea for a webinar that will become popular with people in your industry.
STEP THREE REACH OUT TO HOSTS THAT HAVE USED OUTSIDE CO-HOSTS
Now that you have an idea for a great webinar, go back to your list
of webinar hosts and reach out with your idea. Again, focus on the
world “because” early in your email and mention your idea for the
webinar. You can include the reason why you want to cover the
topic (because it’s popular).
Also offer to do all the grunt work to get the webinar ready to go. Offer to create an
outline and provide research points for the webinar for the cohost. Make it easy for
them to accept your offer. It may take a few emails to get things rolling so start the
first email by introducing yourself and what you’re interested in doing. From there you
can discuss the details.
Here is an example of a first email message to send:
Hi,
My name is Aaron. I’m writing because I watched your webinar on [webinar
topic]. It was a great presentation and I learned a lot.
I’ve been researching popular webinars in our industry and would like to get
your thoughts on [your webinar idea].
I’m currently compiling research and putting together an outline and was
wondering if you would be interested in co-hosting the webinar with me?
Cheers,
Aaron
Find out more about me at aaronagius.com
The link to your personal website is a way for the recipient to find out more about you.
How To Build Your Brand Using LinkedIn
LinkedIn is built as a network where you can reach out to people in your target
audience to make connections. You want to connect with your target audience as a
start. You want to optimize your profile and join relevant groups, but there are more
advanced ways, ways that experts have used, to get better results from LinkedIn.
STEP ONE FOLLOW LEWIS HOWES’ FIVE TIPS FOR USING LINKEDIN
Lewis Howes is recognized as one of the experts on LinkedIn. He has built his own
businesses using connections on LinkedIn and consults others on how to do the same
along with speaking at numerous events.
Lewis has five steps for getting the most out of LinkedIn if you’re looking to grow your
personal brand.
First, complete your profile. LinkedIn gives you a guide for filling out
your profile, but Lewis found that to really get the most out of your
profile you need to tell your story complete with who you are, who you
help and how you help them. This allows potential connections to see if
you can help them and if they are compelled they’ll reach out to you.
Lewis has filled out his profile completely in every way including
uploading videos and projects.
Second, Lewis recommends connecting with everyone. This includes
people in your industry especially industry leaders. Don’t be afraid to
ask for a connection from important people because people are
generally accepting on LinkedIn and as your connections grow the
people you ask will see that you have shared connections making them
even more likely to accept your request.
Third, endorse and recommend others. A big part of Lewis and his
success with LinkedIn is helping others. He suggestions endorsing
others for the things they care about most. He also suggests
recommending people for the areas they are most involved in. These
endorsements aren’t just good for the people you give them to; they can
be good for you as well because people often reciprocate.
Fourth, create a niche group within your industry like the Marketing
Leaders of Australia.
As the owner of a group you have the potential to build another online
asset that can be part of your personal brand. Reach out to people in
your industry to get them interested in participating. Give them specific
topics to write about within the group to get things started. Moderate
the group so there isn’t any article sharing spam. You want the group
to be a place where people can go to ask questions and to provide
answers if they feel they can help. You can even start writing your own
articles specifically for your LinkedIn group. Publishing it only in the
group adds value for the members and can entice others to join to get
access to the content.
Finally, add keywords to your profile to optimize it for search both
within LinkedIn and for your public profile that can be found on
external search engines like Google. If you’re an accountant, add
keywords that employers might search for to your profile both within
your description and summary and as a list of your specialties.
STEP TWO
USE LINKEDSELLING & LINKEDUNIVERSITY TO EXPAND YOUR LINKEDIN EFFORTS
LinkedSelling and LinkedUniversity are two companies focused on
helping businesses get leads and sales using LinkedIn. There is free
content available along with premium content and you can hire
them to manage your LinkedIn campaigns.
For now, you can start by using their basic steps to connecting with your targeted
connections.
First, by this point you’ll already have connections with your target connections and
you’ll have started building your niche group like Lewis Howes mentioned in the
previous step. At this point, you’re going to start messaging these people. LinkedIn
gives you the ability to message your connections and members of your group. The
first step is not asking these people for a job or to become your client. You have to
build the relationship. With the first email you can simply introduce yourself by
explaining who you are, the people you help and how you help them. That’s it.
Next, you’ll move through the process of selling your brand on LinkedIn, which are
your profile and your group. For your group, you can share weekly messages complete
with the best discussions, shared articles and the comments.
Over time, you’ll build trust with your followers. If your profile is setup to be appealing
and your connections know what you’re about and what you offer they will reach out
to you.
How To Control Your Personal Brand With Online Advertising

Finally, online advertising is a way for you to both protect and promote your brand.
The pricing for your specific name will usually be fairly low unless you have a name
that is close to a popular topic or brand name.
STEP ONE SECURE AN AD ON GOOGLE AND OTHER SEARCH ENGINES
Secure the ad spots on Google for the keyword phrase that matches
your exact name. Also bid on a few keywords similar to your name
especially misspellings that people might search. Link these ads to your
new personal website and use appropriate titles and descriptions in the
ads. Think of the ads as minibusiness cards. Use your name, title and
short description to attract attention. You could even include your phone number in
the ad to encourage people to contact you.
STEP TWO SECURE AD SPACE ON FACEBOOK FOR YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
You can get very specific on the people you target with Facebook ads.
If you don’t have a large budget you can start with as little as $1 a day
and target your exact target audience. It might be sales managers in
specific cities where you want to work. If your budget is larger you
can expand the audience and increase the budget size per day.
Use the same approach to the ads. Use your professional picture and use a benefit
focused call in the text. Write something such as:
Aaron Agius—Professional Marketer
Get more leads and sales—Call Today
Not many people use advertising to build their personal brand, but people with strong
brand recognition use it with success and you should too.
Don’t think taking out a Facebook Ad will really work?
Ian Greenleigh first used Facebook Ads to get interviews and within a few weeks he
landed a new job. But he didn’t stop there. He wanted to further test how well
Facebook Ads would work so he ran ads targeted at one of the top companies in the
world: Google. He targeted specific people that worked at Google and earned 48
clicks. Those clicks represent interest in him as a candidate and it all came from a
simple Facebook Ad. He later used the technique to get a new job as a VP Of
Marketing. For this campaign he targeted the company’s CEO directly with his ad.
In the next chapter we discuss how to get free press coverage.
CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FIVE

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE
CHAPTER FIVE
How To Get Free Press Coverage

Getting press coverage can establish you as an authority in your industry. You can get
access to audiences full of the people that can hire you as an employee, partner and
vendor. Getting free press coverage as an individual can be a challenge, but it can be
done and be done effectively leading to the opportunities you seek as you work to grow
your personal brand profile.
In this chapter, we’re going to give you a process that others have used to increase
their own profiles. The next time you see someone on TV or featured in an article you’ll
know that you possess the ability to get the same kind of coverage.
How Tim Ferriss Gets Free Press

Tim Ferriss had a dilemma when he was preparing for the release of his nowpopular
book, The 4Hour Workweek. Tim and his publisher wanted Tim to do the media
rounds, but nobody wants to talk to someone for this type of publicity unless the
public knows them or if they have speaking experience with other big media outlets.
It’s obviously difficult to become known by the public and to get coverage by media
outlets if you can’t find a way to get started. That’s why Tim became creative with his
approach to getting free press.
In a post on his blog, From First TV to Dr. Oz —How to Get Local Media…Then
National Media, Tim outlines the process he used and the process you can use to get
free press for yourself.
First, Tim looked at the current news landscape to see what was
happening in the world. He found something that the media was
interested in at the moment and found a connection between his
expertise and the topic.
Second, Tim contacted local TV stations that were affiliates of the
national channels—ABC, CBS and NBC. He made his pitch that he
was an expert on the news topic and that he had a different opinion
from the common thought and could provide his input for viewers.
He didn’t hear back from many, but did hear back from one.
Third, the opposing opinion was key for Tim. It made him stand out
as someone with a different view on the current event. And that one,
local TV affiliate spot was the proof he needed to show others in the
media that he would speak clearly and effectively when on TV, radio,
etc.
The rest of Tim’s blog post talks about how you can dive into the topic and create your
talking points. It’s worth your time to read through the entire article, but for now we’re
going to take a step back and discuss how you can become an expert in your industry
so you can make yourself available to speak with the media when current events arise.
Here is the process as outlined in Tim’s book, The 4Hour Workweek:
STEP ONE SIGNUP FOR OFFICIAL INDUSTRY ORGANIZATIONS
Source: The American Accounting Association
Becoming an expert simply means being recognized for your accomplishments in a
specific topic. It doesn’t mean that you have the best job, the best business or have
even worked in an industry very long. It’s simply the recognition that you’ve done
certain things and have the proof to back up your accomplishments.
The first step to building your expertise and recognition is to signup for official
industry organizations. We won’t say that every industry, but many industries have
official organizations that represent the affairs that happen in that industry. People
recognize these establishments and if you’re associated with them you gain social
proof by associating yourself with them.
STEP TWO READ THREE BESTSELLING INDUSTRY BOOKS
Next, read the most popular books every published in your industry.
If you’re going to be speaking to the press in interviews you’re going
to need to know the history of the industry. Find the most popular
books and read them front to back and make sure you can recall the
information later on. You want to be able to reference the best
material in your industry when you’re talking about current events. It
gives you credibility and that can earn you higher expert status with
your audience.
STEP THREE GIVE A ONE-HOUR SEMINAR
Next, offer to do a free seminar at your local college or university.
The seminar will be a howto on things in your industry. You’re
looking to help students or anyone that wants to attend how they
can get involved in your industry and what they can do to succeed.
It’s also recommended that you speak at a local business involved
in your industry if possible, but doing it at a university is good for
your portfolio to start.
The reason you’re giving this seminar is that you can put it on your profile and use it
to gain access to media interviews and other contributions as an expert. Giving
seminars and being part of organizations show those in the media that you’re not only
an expert, but that you can speak in public and do so effectively; so effectively that a
university had you in for a seminar.
STEP FOUR WRITE AN ARTICLE FOR A TRADE MAGAZINE
Finally, write an article for a trade
magazine. Use the credentials you’ve
been building through this process to
gain access to writing an article for a
trade magazine. Again, being publish in
an industry magazine is another feather
in your cap that you can use to work
your way up the chain with free press
(more on the chain later).
To start, find a popular topic in the industry and provide a contrarian view from
what’s being offered by other experts now. Back up your view, of course, but offer
something different because the media likes bringing in something different that will
get the attention of their followers.
If you can’t get accepted to write about a hot topic in the industry then offer to
interview someone in the industry to get their opinion on a topic. You might not be
able to give your own thoughts, but you’ll still be credentialed in the magazine and you
can use that to gain more press coverage.
One final note from Tim, on another post on his blog, How to Get
National Press With No Budget, Tim has Reddit cofounder,
Alexis Ohanian, contribute his process for getting free press
coverage. The key to what Alexis was able to do for his press
coverage early on was to always pay it forward. He would meet with those in the
media and really with everybody he could and always look for ways to help them.
Alexis looked at this like he was putting a penny in his piggy bank.
Each time he helped someone out he would be adding a penny to the
bank and over time he had built up enough good will with people
throughout the media that they were more than happy to return the
favor to him and discuss his exciting new startup, which turned out to
be Reddit.
Read the entire article from Alexis. He gives great advice including details on how to
form your pitches around “pegs” or the big items of the day that are getting press
coverage. By attaching yourself to pegs you can get your “in” with the media and build
your way up to getting big (and free) coverage.
How To Use HARO To Get Incredible Press Exposure
Help A Reporter Out or HARO, is a service that connects sources or experts with
journalists. As someone growing their personal brand, you can use HARO to connect
with journalists to get free press. Using Tim’s advice from the previous section you can
establish your credibility and build your expert status so you’re more likely to be
accepted by the journalists using HARO.
Here are a few steps complete with case studies on how to best use HARO so that
you’re getting your name in the press and building your profile.
STEP ONE SIGNUP FOR HARO

HARO Basic is free. With the basic version you get three emails
each day filled with queries from journalists and content
producers. You can signup for the premium packages if you
want to have more ability with the service such as filtering the
queries by specific keywords and to build your profile.
STEP TWO SETUP CRITERIA FOR RESPONDING TO QUERIES
Not all queries on HARO are created equal. To gain traction and get free press there is
a fine balance of finding quality queries that are also likely to use your quote as you
work your way up the chain (more on this later).
There are two factors that go into your criteria for responding.
First, the publication should have your target audience. If you feel
the publication will put your name in front of the people that could
hire you or that would want to become clients, then it’s worth your
time.
Second, the publication should look good on your personal website
or it should look good when you email other publications to show
proof that you’ve been covered in the press before. Obviously the
publication could have widespread recognition and be good, but
even if the name is recognizable and official sounding it can be
worthwhile for you to respond to the query.
STEP THREE RESPOND QUICKLY TO INCREASE CHANCES OF BEING PUBLISHED
All types of content creators use HARO. Some are working on long
term projects, but others and probably the majority are working on
tight deadlines. They might have looked for sources through other
channels and have come to HARO as a last resort. They need quick
feedback from experts to meet deadlines.
Always be thorough with your responses. You want to provide appealing answers, but
be cognizant of the time you take to respond. The Basic HARO emails go out early in
the morning, around noon and in the evening. If you can respond within an hour or a
few hours of the query you’re more likely to get a response.
STEP FOUR USE YOUR PREVIOUS CREDENTIALS
As briefly mentioned, use your credentials of the previous places where
you’ve been published or have been included in the articles. If you’re
just starting out, join the industry organizations and do the seminar to
build your credentials.
Other things you can do include guest posting or offering to help with articles on blogs
and other publications. Look for ways to get your name published as part of articles,
videos and other items. These are proof that you can safely be quoted and used in
articles.
The journalists using HARO are on a deadline, but they still have to be careful with
their sources. They look for credentials to give them peace of mind about including
you or anyone else.
STEP FIVE FOLLOW UP WHEN YOU’RE QUOTES ARE USED
Normally you’ll hear from the journalist when they include you in the
article. Find the article and share it on your social media profiles and
add it to the credential list on your website and use it for future queries.
And once that’s over make sure to reply to the email the journalist sends you with a
note saying thanks. Even if you don’t get an email, but your quotes are published go
ahead and send a thank you note in an email. It’s always good to finish with positive
vibes and end with saying that you’re always available for quotes on future articles.
How To Use ProfNet by PR Newswire To Get Even More

Press Exposure
ProfNet by PR Newswire is a service that journalists use to get input from experts for
articles. The journalists can use the service to find credible sources for articles. When
there is a hot topic in an industry a journalist can go to ProfNet and have the experts
respond to queries. It’s like HARO and it’s another opportunity for you to gain access
to journalists including those writing about your industry.
Here is the recommended process for using ProfNet and getting free press by
responding to journalists in a way that will make them want to include you in their
articles.
STEP ONE REQUEST INFORMATION ABOUT SUBSCRIBING TO PROFNET
There is a cost to join ProfNet as an expert. You signup here to get
information about what fee you will need to pay to get full access. If it’s
within your budget it’s worthwhile to signup for the full service. You’ll
have more access to the journalists using the service, but there is a free
alternative that can work too.
STEP TWO SIGNUP FOR PROFNET CONNECT

ProfNet Connect is an online community of journalists and experts.
With ProfNet Connect, you create content to prove your expertise. You
answer questions in forums, publish other content and connect with
other experts and with journalists.
STEP THREE FILL YOUR PROFILE WITH YOUR CREDENTIALS
The content that you share and publish on ProfNet is important
obviously, but just as important is the way you fill out your profile.
Journalists will look at your content, but they’ll want to know who
you are. They won’t just feature anybody in their articles and
stories.
To be appealing you have to use the credentials you’ve built in this chapter to your
advantage. Cite the organizations that you’re part of and mention the seminar that
you did at the university. As you go through this process you’ll get mentions on
publications. List those publications with something like “As seen in…” on your profile
and on the content you publish on ProfNet.
Do the same thing with ProfNet if you join the full service. When
emailing the journalists with responses to their queries, list your
credentials right in the email. These credentials will intrigue the
journalists and they’ll read your content.
Finally, a note on the content you share whether it’s on ProfNet Connect or via email—
do thorough research when responding to queries. The journalists will get tons of
responses and in order for yours to be one they use you’ll have to showcase your
credentials, but your content will also have to be researched on the topic. Show that
you know what you’re talking about and try to present a contrarian point of view
when you can. This makes you stand out and that’s what journalists generally want.
How To Trade Up The Chain Like A True Media Superstar

Ryan Holiday wrote the book Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions Of A Media
Manipulator. In the book, Holiday wrote about his experiences in the new online
media world where he could manipulate people and systems to get press coverage and
attention for his personal brand and the companies he worked for and represented.
Manipulate can seem like a strong word and it was probably used to manipulate
potential readers into thinking Holiday was some kind of con man to sell more books.
But some of the methods mentioned in the book were solid strategies for getting free
press including one called, “Trading Up The Chain”.
If you’re starting out on the process of building your reputation then trading up the
chain is the perfect strategy for getting media coverage and move toward bigger and
bigger publications. Tim Ferriss mentioned it and we’ve alluded to it a couple times.
Here is the process.
PRE-STEP BUILDING YOUR STORIES
Each time you want to get free press you have to develop a story.
Stories are the things bloggers and journalists latch on to and take to
their audiences. You have to become good at telling a story that your
audience would be interested in hearing.
Your story could be something you’re doing in the local community. It could be a
charity event for a popular cause or an interesting project you’re participating in to
help the community. These events turn into stories that journalists want to talk about.
Look for things in your local news that are getting attention. Also look at popular
topics that you can latch on to that are hot right now. Journalists want sure things for
their reporting so using popular topics and trends in your stories gives them
something they know their audience will care about.
Once you have your story you can begin trading it up the chain.
STEP ONE IDENTIFY SMALL BLOGS IN YOUR INDUSTRY
Trading up the chain begins with small blogs. There are blogs for nearly every industry
in existing. Do a simple Google search to find the blogs related to your industry. You’ll
probably find the bigger blogs at first, but go to sites like Alltop and Technorati to find
blogs that are in your industry, but not quite as popular as those on the front page of
Google. Also look for local blogs in your area.
When you’ve identified the small blogs in your industry, reach out to them and present
your story. Look at what they’ve done in the past and latch your idea on to their idea
with an email message like:
I saw you’ve posted an article on this. I’m writing because I’m working on a
project similar in our area and I thought you would be interested. If you have
time I’d love to share more details. I think your readers would like the story.
That can get the attention of the smaller bloggers because they’re looking to break
news. It gives them an opportunity to report news that the bigger media channels
might miss in the early stages.
The key to trading up the chain is getting your story published on a small blog, any
blog. Getting that first publication or first few publications are key because once you
have them you can use it to work your way to bigger outlets.
STEP TWO TRADE UP TO LOCAL MEDIA AND LARGE NETWORK AFFILIATES
Once you have small blog coverage you’re looking to build up to
something with a little more coverage area, but something that also
has a connection to something even bigger. This might be a local
news station that is an affiliate of a larger national network like
CBS, ABC and NBC. It also might be a local newspaper that has
connections to larger publications throughout the nation or the world.
Reach out to these publications with the same type of email message, but use the
coverage from the smaller blogs as a way to prove that your story has something worth
discussing. When you can show that others have thought enough of you to publish it
gives the bigger publications comfort and they’ll be more likely to publish your story in
their own words.
In his book, Holliday talks about sometimes using fake email addresses and fake
names to give these larger publications tips on the stories published by the bloggers.
It’s a little more dishonest, but if you’re struggling to get through with your regular
messages then you could try using anonymous names.
STEP THREE GETTING THE BIG PUBLICATIONS TO WRITE ABOUT YOU
Once you get bloggers and the local media to cover your story you can
look to have national media cover your story.
The key is having the connection with the nationally recognized publication. For
example, if you’re able to get coverage on a local CBS affiliate you’ll be able to use the
CBS logo in your emails when you’re reaching out to larger publications whether it’s a
national blog or large newspaper. Journalists recognize those types of logos and they’ll
be interested to see why you’re associated with that logo.
Trading up the chain can be used to manipulate the media for unethical things, but if
you’re doing it for the right reasons like discussing charity or business events in you’re
area and you just happen to be getting your name out there it’s winwin situation.
Start with your story. Get it covered by small bloggers. Then go to bigger blogs and
local media and work your way up to larger publications.
With each step you’re building your credentials and that can go a long way when it
comes to finding a new job or looking to get new clients.
CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER SIX

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE
CHAPTER SIX
How To Connect With Mentors

According to one study:
74 percent of hiring managers say job seekers should have a mentor, counselor
or job coach to talk to about whether their skills and experience match those
required for the jobs they are interested in yet, only 40 percent of job seekers
report having a similar professional resource.
In fact, the proportion of job seekers who would rely on their own experience to
decide what information to include on applications, resumes and cover letters
rather than seek advice from others including career counselors or instructors
has grown from 58 percent in 2012 to 67 percent in 2013.
“Job seekers are doing themselves a huge disservice by ignoring the wealth of
guidance and insight a mentor could provide,” said Madeleine Slutsky, chairman
of the Career Advisory Board and vice president of career services at DeVry
University. “Cultivating relationships with individuals who have experience with
the current employment landscape can be a tremendous help in the job search
process.”
Some of the most successful people in the world have had mentors. Bill Gates had Dr.
Ed Roberts. Steve Jobs have Robert Friedland. Tiger woods had his father. Elizabeth
Taylor had Aubrey Hepburn.
A mentor is someone that can provide guidance and friendship for your life. They
might have experience in the exact life path you want to pursue, but that quality is not
a requirement. Often, the best mentors are simply good listeners, educators and
friends.
In respect to your personal brand, we recommend finding a mentor. In this guide we’ll
take you through the reasons a mentor is needed for your professional and personal
growth and the process you can use to find the perfect mentor for you and your
situation. Finally, we’ll cover how you can approach potential mentors, earn their
interest and trust and get them to help you with your pursuits.
Why Mentors Are Needed For Professional Success

Rachel Louise Ensign (@RachelEnsignWSJ) of the Wall Street Journal said:
A mentor can help a young worker answer tough questions about his or
her career path and get perspective on the industry. The relationship
may even help you eventually land a new job.
Throughout your life you’re going to face a number of decisions. Some are relatively
easy, but many pose difficult choices. There are times when the facts might tell you to
do one thing while your emotions tell you another. It’s a constant challenge to figure
out what you should do especially when there is a lot riding on the choice.
For example, throughout this guide we’ve gone through the stages of setting you up
for a strong brand in the industry of your choosing. As you go through the steps in the
guide you’ll come across choices regarding your professional life. Should you take that
job? Should you wait for something else? Should you leave your job and start your own
business? Should you start the business on the side?
Throughout your life you’ll constantly have questions. Here are some of the reasons
why a mentor will be one of your biggest assets for professional and even for personal
success.
REASON ONE SOMEONE THAT WILL LISTEN
Life can be a lonely place especially when it comes to your professional
life. If you have a great spouse or partner then you have someone that
will listen, but a mentor can be a great complement to your professional
career.
Good mentors are great listeners. They’ve often been great listeners for their entire
lives. They’ve understood that listening is more important than talking. They’ve heard
many people tell different stories and share different experiences.
During your life you’ll simply need someone to listen to your struggles, your triumphs
and everything in between. A mentor can be the person you go to when you need
someone to simply listen.
REASON TWO SOMEONE THAT WILL SHARE STORIES
There is a difference between someone that will tell you what you
should do and someone that will share stories with you from their life.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone where they’ve simply told interesting
stories and you’ve walked away feeling like you’ve learned so much? Their story doesn’t
even have to relate exactly to you and your life, but good storytellers are able to make
you feel like you can pull nuggets of wisdom and take lessons and apply them to your
life.
REASON THREE SOMEONE THAT WILL KEEP YOU FOCUSED
One of the challenges in life, especially for people that are drive, is
keeping focused on specific goals. If you’re a dreamer or if you
always have ideas floating around in your head you’re going to
struggle to stay focused on the important things.
A mentor can help you keep the focus. They can guide you in developing your goals
for your professional career. They’ll help you hone the plan for executing your
professional path to achieve those goals. Throughout your life it will be normal to have
new ideas on how you should change what you’re doing. As you know, the most
successful people are not the ones that make changes all the time. Successful people
stick to their plans and steadily make progress.
A mentor can keep you focused on your goals. They’ll help you bring your focus back
to your plan while maybe making subtle changes, but without lurching around from
one strategy to another. It’s hard for people to do this alone. Some can do it, but many
need an outside perspective to remind them to bring things back into focus.
REASON FOUR SOMEONE TO PUSH YOU TO DO A LITTLE MORE & A LITTLE MORE
Some people are driven to succeed like nothing else. It doesn’t
matter what is going on in their life, they always seem to keep
pushing to succeed. But even the most driven people need
reminders to keep pushing especially after experiencing some
success.
It’s good to enjoy success and it’s okay to reflect on failure, but you can get caught up
in those emotions for long. Successful people know they have to keep pushing to get
one step further in their careers.
Mentors help push successful people to the next step. When the person achieves
something the mentor will be there, giving them another challenge. When the person
struggles with something the mentor will be there, reminding them that the next
achievement is not far off.
REASON FIVE SOMEONE TO PROVIDE PERSPECTIVE, BUT NOT AN ANSWER

You don’t want people that will give you answers and tell you
what to do. To become successful you’ll have to become adept
at making decisions on your own.
However, mentors provide perspective when it comes to
decisions. They can share their experiences. They give
understanding of the situation and from that perspective you
can figure out the best course to take for your situation.
Mentors are experts in many things, but ultimately they are educators. They give
perspective and guidance and help the people they work with to get to the next step
and to keep pushing to reach goals through success and failure.
Why Mentors Are Needed For Professional Success

According to one study:
80% of CEOs polled have stated they have had mentors
By now you know that a mentor is recommended and really a necessity to having
success in your professional career. In this section of the chapter we’re going to take
you through the process of finding a mentor that can work with you through your
professional life as you build your brand and achieve the goals you set for yourself.
SOURCE ONE FAMILY AND FRIENDS
Along with his dad, Tiger asked Arnold Palmer for guidance early in his career. Credit: TigerWoods.com
Tiger Woods learned about life and golf from his father. His father wasn’t a
professional golfer, but he served as his son’s mentor well into Tiger’s adult life. Tiger
looked to his father for guidance as he reached each of the milestones in his career all
the way from his early years to the later years when he was winning major golf
tournaments.
A mentor can come from within your own family or
from a close group of friends. Parents can serve as great
mentors. They generally have your best interests in
mind, but they also usually aren’t your friends. They’ll
challenge you. They aren’t afraid to share their honest
feelings and most importantly they’ll often listen to you
when you need someone to talk to.
If your mentor is going to come from within your family or close group of friends you
probably already know whom that person is. It will be someone you can trust to listen,
to share their experiences with you and someone that will challenge you and push you
to be your best.
SOURCE TWO COLLEAGUES, BOSSES AND EXTENDED NETWORK
If you have a job you might have a boss that could serve as a
great mentor. Bosses are people in our lives that have generally
had more experience than ourselves. They are in the same
industry so they can provide really detailed and relevant stories
and experiences.
You could also contact a boss that you’ve had in the past that
you respected and looked up to. It doesn’t need to be your
current boss and it might work better if you’re not as directly
involved with the person anymore in your job.
Colleagues can also make great mentors. These would be people that you work with,
have worked with or people you know in your industry. It might be someone that has
followed the same career path that you would like to pursue.
Also, look into your extended network. Ask friends, family and colleagues if they know
anyone that they would recommend as a potential mentor. Getting a recommendation
can be your key to finding someone that has experience being a mentor and that
would be interested in helping someone out again.
SOURCE THREE LOCAL PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Your local chamber of commerce or business organization can be
a place to find a potential mentor. These organisations are full of
other professionals that want to be involved in the community.
They can help you with what you want to do in your professional
life and in the community.
It can be an advantage to find someone that lives in the same
area and someone that has been involved in the community and
the local professional world. People in local organizations also
have connections and those connections could turn into
opportunities for you if you find a great mentor and earn their
trust and show them our skill.
SOURCE FOUR INDUSTRY ORGANIZATIONS AND TRADE ASSOCIATIONS

Industry organizations and trade associations often have
mentor programs and can listen to what you need in a mentor
and provide a suggestion for someone that would make a good
mentor.
In previous chapters we’ve discussed the opportunities that industry organizations
present. As a member, you can build your credibility and now you also have the
opportunity to meet a mentor that could help you throughout your career.
SOURCE FIVE SOCIAL MEDIA CONNECTIONS
Finally, your social media connections could be mentors as well.
Perhaps the best social network to find a mentor is LinkedIn.
You could go through your connections or look through the
groups you’re involved in to find someone that has shown a
willingness to engage and someone that would be a good fit for
your professional efforts.
The world is a much smaller place now so look through your social networks to see if
there is someone that could provide mentorship. With technology like video chat,
email and more, you can now have successful mentorships remotely even with
someone across the world.
How To Approach Mentors And Earn Their Respect

Now that you know why a mentor is important and the potential sources to find a
mentor we can get into approaching a mentor.
Identifying a potential mentor or mentors is a big step and once you find someone
that you want to reach out to it’s important to reach out in the correct way. You want
the person to be interested in working with you to develop your career. It can be a
difficult spot because you’re asking someone to help you and to use their time for
something that might not give them much in return.
So you have to frame it in a way that is interesting to them and even fulfilling to them.
Here are the steps you can take to do just that when reaching out and approaching
your target mentor.
STEP ONE DO YOUR RESEARCH
Before approach your potential mentor you have to put in your
research. You have to know what the person has done in their life,
what they are doing now and even a little about their family and other
personal details. You might find that the person likes a particular sport
or that they have a particular hobby. These can all be items and points
of discussion when you start your efforts to reach out.
Above all else, you need to show interest in the person. If you put forth the effort to get
to know them even before reaching out you’re showing them that you are willing to
work for what you want in life. That effort can lead to a mentor seeing potential or
seeing right through unfound enthusiasm.
STEP TWO EXPLAIN THE REASON YOU’RE GETTING IN TOUCH
After doing your research you’ll be just about ready to reach out and
get in touch. The most important element of your first correspondence
is having a reason for getting in contact. People don’t like to be
bothered, but research shows that if you provide a reason for doing
something that you’re more likely to get a favorable response.
There are a number of acceptable reasons you can use when reaching out to a
potential mentor. Getting a referral from someone you know is a good reason. You can
reach out to the mentor and let them know that a mutual friend or acquaintance
referred you to them.
Even something as simple as saying that you saw the person at a local
even and didn’t have time to introduce yourself can be an acceptable
reason. Or maybe you’re reaching out because you follow the person on
social media and find yourself agreeing with them on a number of
items.
Whatever the reason is make sure you at least have one and use it when reaching out.
You’ll be much more likely to hear back form the mentor than if you reach out and get
right into asking them to be your mentor.
STEP THREE SHARE YOUR INTENTIONS AND DESIRE FOR HELP
Once you’ve made contact with the mentor and they’ve acknowledged
you, you’ll want to share your intentions. There is something to be said for
getting to know them whether it’s via email, phone conversation or face
toface meeting, but you want to let them know early on that you’re
looking for someone that can provide guidance or just a listening ear as
you look to grow into your professional life.
We recommend starting the conversation by stating your reason for reaching out. Ask
the person a few questions about themselves. Lead into their professional life and look
for a way to move the conversation into your desires for them to be your mentor.
For example, ask the person about something they’re working on now. Once you’ve
given them time to tell their story or to explain the situation, mention your interest in
the topic and move into your desires as a professional. This is the perfect way to find
common ground and show that a potential relationship can make sense.
STEP FOUR DISCUSS YOUR GOALS AND WHAT YOU WANT TO WORK ON
As you move through the discussion about a potential mentorship
and you’re getting the person to somewhat agree to help you out
you’ll want to begin discussing your goals. Discuss the plan you’ve
laid out for yourself up to this point and where you’d like to be
toward the end of your professional life.
From there you can discuss what you’re doing right now to work toward your goals.
This give your mentor an idea of what you want to do and it will show them that
you’re already working toward your goal. Through this discussion you’ll need to work
in mention that with the help of this person that you’ll be able to find success.
STEP FIVE SETUP AN ONGOING MENTORSHIP SCHEDULE AND PROCESS

Now that the mentor has agreed to help you’ll have to add formality
to your arrangement. You’ll want to setup regular meetings.
Regular checkins—monthly is good—provide structure to the
relationship. You can checkin with the person and discuss your
goals, both long and shortterm.
The schedule and structure gives the mentor a clear way to work with you and it will
also give you the push you need each month to keep working toward your goal.
Without formal structure, relationships like this tend to get lost in the shuffle. You
might talk from time to time, but you’ll lose focus of your goals, especially the short
term goals.
What Makes A Mentor Want To Work With You

Finally, it’s good to know why someone would want to work with you and help you
achieve your professional goals. There are a few reasons why someone would have
a vested interest in helping you out. For one, if the person is a family member,
especially a parent, they’ll have a natural desire to see you succeed. Your success
will, in a way, be their success.
That’s the key to finding a mentor and getting them to buyin to helping you. You
have a find a way to give them satisfaction in seeing you find success. Your boss or
colleague would likely want to see you succeed because your success within the same
organization would likely correspond with the company’s success, which would benefit
them.
Someone outside your family or organization might want to work with you because
you show passion for fresh ideas and technology. Sometimes, veterans in industries
look to form friendships with younger people so they can learn from them along with
providing guidance and mentorship.
In the early discussions you have with your potential mentor you can ask them what
they are hoping to get out of the relationship. It’s not all about you and if you can
figure out why the person is interested in spending time with you; you can form a
better structure for your ongoing relationship. This understanding can make the
relationship more successful and fulfilling for both parties.
CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SEVEN

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE
CHAPTER SEVEN
How To Monitor Your Brand

By this point in the guide you have all the knowledge to start building your brand in
all areas. One of those areas will be online where you’ll have your website, blog and
social profiles. These assets will help you control your personal brand online, but you’ll
still need to monitor your brand.
In this chapter we’ll go through the reasons why it’s important to monitor your brand
along with how you can monitor your brand and take action if and when various
situations arise. There are tools you can use, both free and premium, that can help you
monitor your brand effectively and we’ll share the best ones and how you can use
them.
Why You Need Control Over Your Name

Your personal brand revolves around your name. You need control over your
name if you want to gain recognition in your industry. Having that recognition
can make it easier for people to find you when they search for your information
online.
Throughout your career you’ll come across opportunities including people that
might hire you for a new position. These people now use the Internet to find
information about you. You want the content they find to represent you well and to be
relevant to the person you want to be as a professional.
Having embarrassing results, results with other people or even no results can reflect
poorly on your character making it more difficult for someone to hire you or to offer
you opportunities. Your online reputation might not be the difference between getting
an opportunity, but there is no reason to not have control over your name online
today.
People use the Internet to research others. Don’t give them any reason to not make
you an offer for an opportunity. You want them to find the content that you control.
STEP ONE CONTROLLING YOUR BRAND IN SEARCH
When you search for Aaron Agius on Google (in most countries)
you’ll see that nearly all results that appear on the first page are
desirable. Efforts mentioned throughout this guide are all reasons for
these results, but you’ll notice that Google has introduced Authorship
and Rich Snippets. These enhance results especially for personally
branded search terms like names.
Here is an example of Google Authorship in action:
The image next to the Louder Online result adds trust to the result. The image also
makes the result stand out more, even more than the results above it on the page. This
is incredibly powerful.
Another rich snippet that can often appear is a snapshot from a video:
You can use Authorship and Rich Snippets to your advantage when taking control of
your personal brand in the search results.
Manage how your name appears in search rankings including on search engines like
Google and Bing and also on search engines for popular websites like YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook.
Google’s own Google+ is part of the Authorship process, but
establishing a profile on Google+ can have more benefits.
Setup a Google+ account and profile. This gives Google the information it needs to
know who you are and what you do. Also include links to your other assets like your
website, blog and other social accounts so Google can associate you with those
accounts and as your brand grows you can have additional rich information in the
results:
These actions will all contribute to filling up the search results for your name.
Other ways to control your search results is to guest post on popular websites. We
mentioned guest posting earlier in this guide. If you can get published on popular
websites, you can use the authority of those websites to build your profile. Those sites
are highly regarded in search engines and those articles will likely appear high in the
results for searches relating to your name. A wellwritten article on an authoritative
website can be a great result to have when potential employers, partners, clients,
investors, etc. are searching for information about you.
STEP TWO SEPARATING YOUR NAME FROM OTHERS THAT SHARE YOUR NAME
Controlling your name becomes more difficult when you have a
common name or have a name that matches or could be confused
for another popular brand name. If this is the case for you then
you’ll need to work your brand name a little different.
For example, if you are building your career as an entrepreneur, you’ll want your
name and likeness to be associated with your name and your industry. Now, if you
have a name that is the same as someone, especially someone that is well known, you’ll
struggle to be known only for your name. This is where you can be “John Smith The
Entrepreneur” instead of “John Smith The Movie Star” or whatever the famous person
is known for.
You could also make use of a middle name to separate yourself with the same name.
You could also forego your last name and go by your first and middle name only. You
could also use your middle and first initials and your last name to separate yourself.
It’s a challenge to find a name that will work, but we’ll talk in the next chapter about
the importance of differentiating yourself from others in the world and especially in
your industry. You want to be known and you want people to think of you when they
see and hear your name.
STEP THREE KEEPING YOUR WEBSITE AND SOCIAL PROFILES UPDATED
If you search for the names of people you admire, people with strong personal brands,
you’ll notice that their personal websites and blogs appear high in the results, but
you’ll also notice their social profiles.
The reason social profiles rank highly is that they are popular
websites. The engines recognize the relevance of social media
profiles now and return those profiles in name searches
because they provide good information for the searchers.
However, one wrinkle in the search results is that it will often be the person’s most
updated social profile that ranks highly when searching for their name. The one
exception might be Google+, but often you’ll see that the Twitter profile will rank high
for someone that uses Twitter.
One key to controlling your search results is to maintain your website with fresh
content. A blog is a good way to do this. You can also control the social profile that
ranks highly for your name by keeping your preferred social profile updated and
fresh.
How To Remove Less-Than-Ideal Search Listings

One of the biggest frustrations with online brand management is finding and
removing lessthanideal search listings. Nobody is perfect and in today’s world it’s
very possible that an unflattering photo, video or article might find it’s way to the top
of the search results.
If you search for your name and find results that could potential damage your brand
you’ll want to get it removed. Here are the steps you can take to remove those listings
as a way to control your online brand and make sure people are seeing what you want
them to see.
STEP ONE REACH OUT TO THE CONTENT OWNER
Let’s say your friend posted a photo of you from college or from a
night of celebration. It’s not your best photo and you want to remove
it. Or let’s say you wrote a political blog post on someone else’s blog
many years ago that was really a rant and doesn’t make you look
good today.
The first step to remove these negative results is to reach out the owners of the websites
or profiles and ask them if they would remove the content. Explain the reason why
you would like the content to be removed. Most people will understand.
You can reach out via email if you have the person’s email
address. You could use contact forms to reach out to websites.
You can also use social media to reach out to people, but use
direct messages to keep the conversations somewhat private.
When reaching out, never be abrasive in your approach. You don’t want to give the
person a reason to keep the content on their site. Some will be difficult, but always be
cordial and appreciative. If they don’t agree to take the content down you can resort
to other methods mentioned below.
Avoid being confrontational at all costs. It can lead to more negative results and
negative reaction that can reflect worse on your character than the original content.
STEP TWO DELETE SOCIAL PROFILES YOURSELF OR CONTACT SOCIAL NETWORKS
Obviously if there is a social profile (maybe a MySpace profile) that
you want to take down you can delete it yourself. It might be an old
social network or maybe a forum account where you used to post
things that seemed fun five or ten years ago, but now they just seem
immature and inappropriate. If you can still gain access, do so and
delete the entire profile and all associated content.
If you can’t gain access you can usually contact the website or social network, explain
the situation and they will delete the content. Again, keep it cordial and nonabrasive
and you’ll have the best chance to have the content removed.
STEP THREE REPORT NEGATIVE MENTIONS IF THEY BREAK SITE CONDUCT
One item that is in your favor with negative content is that you can
usually get websites to remove it if the content breaks the site’s code
of conduct. If someone posts something about you that isn’t true or
that breaks the rules of the website, there is usually a course of action
to report the content.
If that is not available you can usually submit a contact form request or send an email
to the site’s administrators. Show them the offending content, mention the
appropriate rule in their code and ask for the content to be removed.
Often on social networks you’ll get negative mentions or mentions that are offensive.
These can reflect poorly on your brand. Usually you can let them go because people
can see through the person that wrote it, but if it gets out of hand the social network
will likely respond if you report the content.
STEP FOUR WORK TO BUILD POSITIVE RESULTS TO BURY NEGATIVE RESULTS
Finally, if the above courses of action don’t work you can still take
control of your results in search and on social media by creating
content that is more relevant and more likely to rank and be seen. You
can bury negative results with positive results.
Launch your personal website. Keep it updated with fresh content on a
blog. Start your social media profiles and keep them updated with fresh
content. These pages will start to rank and push negative results down
especially if you can build authority to the pages by getting links and
social shares.
Also look to do guest blogging on popular sites. We mentioned this earlier in the
chapter and it’s a good strategy. The more authority the website has the more likely it
will be ranked high for search results related to your name.
Tools That Help You Monitor Your Brand

Big brands need to know what’s going on with their brand online. It’s a challenge
to manually search for and find every mention related to a big brand online. That’s
why tools exist to help these brands monitor their brand names, products and
services.
But these monitoring tools aren’t made only for the big brands. Individuals can use
these tools to monitor mentions of names and other items including businesses
that you’d want to work for or with. You might want to monitor mentions of specific
job titles that might be mentioned across social media to keep track of openings. These
tools do all the work to find the information for you and allow you to find what you
need quickly so you can take action.
TOOL ONE GOOGLE ALERTS
Google Alerts is a free service provided by Google. Obviously, Google is one of the best
when it comes to crawling the Internet for information. For them, Google Alerts is a
nice service to provide users and it does a pretty good job of finding names, phrases
and keywords published anywhere that the Googlebot can access.
You need a Google account and a Gmail address to take advantage of Google Alerts.
The first alert to setup is the one for your name; the one you’ve
chosen to make for yourself as we discussed in a previous
chapter. Enter your name inside quotes. This ensures that you’ll
only get alerts for your exact name and not instances where your
first name appears in one location on a page and your last
somewhere else on the same page.
The default settings for receiving alerts are good. You’ll get updates once a day from
everywhere and anywhere your name is mentioned online. If you’d like you can set up
the alerts to go to your inbox astheyhappen, which is fine if you don’t get too many
results.
You can then setup and change Google Alerts to create a list of
words and phrases you want to monitor. It can be variations of
your name, business names, job titles, etc.
There are limitations with Google Alerts. You only get alerts for information that
Googlebot can access so information behind passwords, like on social networks, is not
detectable so you won’t know when you’re mentioned on those types of sites in some
case.
TOOL TWO RADIAN6
Radian6 was a standalone monitoring software that was acquired by Salesforce in
2011. The service allows you to track mentions of your name and other keywords
throughout the website on millions of different sites including sites like Facebook and
Twitter. It also tracks things like blog comments, forum posts and more.
With Salesforce, you can use Radian6 to track mentions of brand
names and work that into a sales campaign, bur it has value for those
with personal brand goals too.
You can input the same information that you would in Google Alerts including your
name, business name, etc. Then you can track for mentions of those keywords and
phrases. You’ll have access to the information on a dashboard.
When you see an opportunity you can leave to reply to a specific comment on a blog
or in a forum thread. You can reply to a new job posting and do all the other things
we’ve been discussing in this guide.
TOOL THREE MENTION

Mention is another social monitoring tool. It’s a standalone tool that works like Google
Alerts, but aims to go further than a free service. Although, with Mention you can get
your first alert for free so you can track mentions of your name throughout the web
including some social media sites for no cost.
The service even offers analytics and reporting on the
number of mentions your alerts get. This is great because it
allows you to set goals for the number of times you want
your name mentioned each month or each quarter and you
track your progress.
One of the goals for personal brand management is increasing awareness for your
name. Awareness can increase as you publish more blog posts, guest posts and
contribute comments and posts to blogs and forums. With Mention, you can track the
interaction with all those items including the number of shares your content receives
especially when you gust post.
TOOL FOUR TALKWALKER
Talkwalker is another monitoring tool. You can enter your name like the other tools,
but you can also enter relevant topics. So you could enter the industry that you work
in now or want to work in, in the future.
With Talkwalker, you can get really fresh updates about your industry so you can act
on the latest events and trends. When something popular comes along in the feed you
can quickly act to provide commentary on it with your social media updates or with a
blog post. You could also use the tool to track popular trends and quickly offer to write
guest posts for popular websites since they’ll be looking for hot topic items for their
sites.
TOOL FIVE HOOTSUITE

HootSuite is an entire social media management tool. You can track different
mentions of your name on social media, but you can also manage each of your social
profiles through the tool by sending updates, responses and more.
With Hootsuite, you can really combine all your social efforts
into one platform. This is the perfect tool for finding the people
you want to interact with on social media and really form
relationships with them. Interact with your target audience on
social media. Track those that respond and continue
interacting with them to build a relationship.
Write top lists on your blog. For example, write a post titled, “Top CMOs In Online
Retail”. Share the post on social media and mention those you’ve included in the post
when you share it on social media. Then, after those people reshare the post and
interact, continue responding to their updates and providing comments. Don’t be
annoying, but keep in touch and track the relationship using HootSuite.
TOOL SIX MOZ FRESH ALERTS
Moz Fresh Alerts is part of the Moz software package and specifically part of Fresh
Web Explorer. Fresh Alerts are meant to provide better results than you would get
with Google Alerts.
Moz provides great recommendations for their tool in this post. They
recommend using the tool as a way to build links. For example, when
someone mentions your name on a blog post, forum, etc., you can see it
with Fresh Alerts and contact them asking if they would link to your
personal website. This builds not only a link to your site for traffic, but it
increases the overall number of links to your site, which remains an
important SEO factor.
Moz suggests that you can also track competitors and you can track the success of
your content while discovering publishing opportunities and guest post opportunities.
TOOL SEVEN TWITTER SEARCH
Finally, don’t overlook Twitter Search. When you’re logged in to your
Twitter account you can use the search function to track any name,
keyword or phrase mentioned within the social network.
Obviously you can track your mentions on your Notifications feed, but to track simple
mentions of your name you need to use Twitter Search while searching for “your
name”. Keeping it in quotes brings back exact results for your query. You can also
search for your website and blog URLs. This way you can see any time someone shares
one of your pages or posts on Twitter without mentioning your Twitter handle.
How Not To Handle Negativity

When you build your personal brand online you’re going to come across negative
people with negative responses to your posts. Using social networks like Twitter,
LinkedIn and Facebook give you a platform, but it also gives other people a platform
to give their feelings toward you. It can happen on your own website and your blog as
well.
In order to build your personal brand you have to put yourself out there by giving your
thoughts and publishing content. People are going to like what you have to say. They
will find value in what you share, but some will have negative things to say and it’s
difficult to handle it.
The worst thing you can do with a negative person online is to try
and “correct” their feelings about you and your content. They have
generally made up their mind about you and what you’re doing so
there is very little chance of convincing them otherwise. Instead,
when you respond to their feedback you’re igniting their fire and
showing that you’ll engage with them. This opens the door for them
to continue to have fun at your account. They are out to get a rise
out of your emotions and when you respond, especially when you respond with high
emotion, you’re giving them exactly what they want.
In other instances you might find yourself receiving constructive
criticism. There is a difference between people that throw baseless
insults your way and people that provide things that are
constructive. This type of feedback is good online, but when taken
in the wrong context, people have fought back against criticism
and this can lead to huge blowups and very public and very
embarrassing situations.
There is one example with a couple that owned a restaurant. They appeared on a
popular television show where they heard constructive criticism. The couple took it as
negativity and fought back. They fought back on the show and people started
commenting on the couple’s Facebook page. The couple became outraged and fought
back with a barrage of comments. This made the people following the couple online
even more engaged and the online fight became worldwide news.
Here are a few more examples of people having meltdowns on
social media including celebrities.
This is an obvious example of a way not to handle negativity. Never fight back against
constructive criticism. You can choose on your own whether you use the feedback or
not, but you never want to fight back against it especially in a public forum like
Facebook or another social media site. You don’t even want to fight back against it in
the comments on your own blog. Again, you’re never going to “win” these fights or
convince the other person that they’re wrong and that you’re right.
How To Handle Negativity

Perhaps the best way to handle negativity is to ignore it. Negativity usually comes from
the very vocal minority of the audience that follows you. There are simply some people
in the world that get pleasure from making others feel bad. The important thing to
remember is that these people are not the ones in your target audience. You’re not
creating content for them. You’re not trying to get something from them or to form
relationships with them.
Ignore the negativity and focus on the people that really matter. When you can let go
of the negative people you can focus on what matters including constructive feedback,
which will come from the people that care about you.
There are other ways to handle negativity. Singer James Blunt had a high profile
reaction to negative people that interacted with him on Twitter. The singer took the
sarcastic approach to the negative people sending him replies on the social network.
People loved it, but it was a risky move. James Blunt was able to have fun without
really attacking the people he was responding too. Outside viewers could see what he
was doing and it came across well. It showed his personality a little bit and maybe
showed that he didn’t take himself too seriously.
Again, it’s risky to take this approach. The quiet approach usually works best when it
comes to negativity on social media. There is just so much risk to respond to it, but if
you’re genuine and honest while showing restraint you’ll usually have luck if you
engage with negative interaction online.
CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER EIGHT

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE
CHAPTER EIGHT
How To Be Unique
“Be yourself because everyone else is already taken.”
We asked Chris Ducker the question:

He responded with a great quote about being unique:

Truly being me. All the time. When I started blogging, I used to hide behind another
‘brand’ domain name, and always felt that I had to watch myself, in terms of what I
was saying, how I was saying it, etc. As someone that has many corporate clients, as
well as an amazing online tribe, I used to be concerned about what my clients would
think.
The moment I switched to blogging at chrisducker.com, I promised myself I was
going to be the ‘real’ Chris all the time. It’s allowed me to resonate with my followers
so much more and has opened the doors to more opportunities than I can shake a
stick at!
I like being me. Besides, I’m the only Chris Ducker out there —which makes me, my
thoughts, my personality and my style 100% original.
Think of the great people you admire—business leaders,
parents, family, friends and all the people in your life
that have done something worthy of praise. In all
likelihood, each of these people has pursued their own
path. They’ve taken lessons from those that came before,
but they’ve innovated on those lessons to create things
that are better.
The entire guide you’ve been reading is about building your personal brand. It’s not
about copying someone else’s brand. There is a lot of discovery in this guide. You’re
instructed to go through exercises that allow you to figure out what you’re passionate
about and what would make you happy in life if you sit back 50 years from now to
reflect.
In this final chapter we’re going to give you a few more directives on how to be unique.
It’s the most important point from this entire guide. The world needs more people that
are independent. It needs people willing to try new things and to find new ways of
making life more successful and more enjoyable for more people.
So follow these final steps and start your journey to discovering who you are and what
your vision is for your future.
Why It’s Necessary To Stand Out From The Crowd

We asked Lewis Howes this question:
If you were building an online presence from scratch today, what
3 things would you consider to provide the biggest ROI on your
time and money?
His response included a point about being unique and creating something
unique:
Creating Something Unique: This could be a book, podcast, software or even
a funny newsletter. Create something based around a specific topic/niche
and promote yourself everywhere as the goto for that niche. People get worried
about being stuck in one topic, but this is the best way to get known fast so you can
talk about whatever you want later where people will follow and listen to you.
Some of us have been conditioned throughout our lives to stay quiet and to fall into
the background. It’s safe in the background. When you’re in the background there
isn’t much that can harm you, but if you’ve spent any amount of time in the
background you’ve noticed that you can’t really accomplish much either.
People are attracted to uniqueness. Individuals, companies and organizations that
embrace uniqueness can make themselves more appealing by standing out from the
crowd.
For example, you to go a greenhouse to pick out flowers for your
kitchen table that you want to give as a gift to someone you care
about; you walk in the greenhouse and all they have are red roses.
As far as you can tell there is no difference between any of the
flowers so you go with the bunch that’s closest to you and you walk
out the door.
If you make a habit of being a red roses amongst other red roses you’ll be giving
yourself more competition than necessary. Red roses are great flowers. Any bunch
would be a good choice at least on the surface, but the person picking the flowers can’t
tell the difference.
Now, you go into a different greenhouse and see a bunch of red
roses once again. But this time you notice a beautiful bunch of
yellow roses. You immediately walk over and have a smell. You
admire their beauty and you’re compelled to choose them.
Being different gives you an advantage over the competition. In the rose example
there is nothing really different between a red rose and a yellow rose. They’re both
roses, but one simple difference like color can be enough to entice someone to notice
you.
If you want to succeed with the steps in each of the chapters in this guide you need to
figure out what makes you “yellow”. Being different gives you an advantage. There are
billions of people in this world are competing for the same jobs, the same clients and
the same promotions.
Your key to winning in your life is to figure out what makes you different, learning to
embrace that uniqueness and using it to get people to pay attention and to choose you
over everyone else.
Here are three short steps to figure out what makes you unique.
STEP ONE LIST YOUR QUIRKS, PASSIONS AND HISTORY
We asked Yanik Silver, Founder Maverick1000 and author ‘34 Rules for
Maverick Entrepreneurs’ this question:
He responded:
I realized people want to interact with people. That means being ‘real’. It’s too easy
to put a positive spin on everything but that’s not being genuine or authentic. I share
the good, the bad and sometimes the ‘ugly’. For instance, Sir Richard Branson is one
of my biggest business heroes. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to spend over 6+ weeks
with him and a group of Maverick entreprenurs I host on his private island. From
these excursions, I’ll share some of the stories and insights on my blog. Now on the
other side of the coin, I’ll also reveal things like how I fell through my attic. (Yes, I
had no idea I was only supposed to walk on the joints.)
Most people have unique quirks, passions and even a history
that makes them different. Create a list of all the things that
might make you unique. It might be a crooked smile or a certain
wave in your hair. You might have an incredible talent for
whistling or you might be an ace at bowling. Your history might
include working on your grandparents’ farm every summer or
participating in scores of swimming events through school and
even into your current years.
This is a brainstorming exercise so go through and list everything about yourself that is
quirky and different. Also list your passions, the things you care about more than
anything in the world.
STEP TWO PRIORITIZE YOUR UNIQUE LIST
Next, go through the list you’ve created and prioritize it. List the things
you care about the most or the things that you think separate your
from others. We all have unique things about us that might not be so
unique when we think about it.
Remember, you’re trying to separate yourself from the packs of other people vying for
the same things in life. If you have something incredibly different then you’ll want to
use that to your advantage.
STEP THREE BLEND YOUR UNIQUE TRAITS INTO YOUR PERSONAL BRAND GOALS
Once you have your priority list you can start working your most unique traits into
your personal brand goals. Basically, you’re adding your uniqueness into your vision
for the future.
For example, if you’re a private pilot that likes to
fly airplanes in your free time it’s probably
something you’re going to do throughout your life.
You’re committed to it because you get great
enjoyment from it. You could work this into your
personal brand goals in many different ways. You could start a column on your blog
where you share stories about your flying experiences. You could start a business that
has something to do with aviation. You could even make your love of aviation
something that people see when they meet you. You could wear a small airplane pin
on your shirt everywhere you go.
These things are all conversation starters. They come together to build your story and
stories are memorable. When you go that interview or sales meeting you’re competing
with many others, but the person you meet with might remember, “The candidate with
the great flying stories.”
That can mean the difference between getting a new job or being stuck in your old
one. It could mean the difference between huge sales growth or stagnant sales.
How To Develop Your Personal Story That Separates You

From Others
This is another business saying and when it comes to finding success in life you’re
always selling. You’re selling yourself to an employer. You’re selling goods to
consumers. If you can hone your personal story you’ll have a much easier and more
successful time succeeding in all facets of life.
You’ve already started creating your story with the previous step. Now it comes down
to honing a story that shares details about who you are. That let’s people in so they
can get to know you and when people know you they trust you and buy into what
you’re selling.
STEP ONE WHY ARE YOU HERE?
One of the most successful people when it comes to personal
brands is golfer, Arnold Palmer. He’s recognized throughout the
world for his image. A major part of his brand is his ability to golf
obviously, but since he first started building his brand he’s used the
story of his family and where he came from.
Palmer was the son of a farmer and golf course groundskeeper. He
come from meager means early on and some people might shy
away from sharing that aspect of one’s life with others, but Palmer
embraced it and people were drawn to him and his story.
Write down where you’ve come from. Be proud of the things you’ve
experienced and especially of the things you’ve overcome. People
latch on to these stories and they feel like they really know you
after you share information about your background and history.
STEP TWO WHAT IS YOUR VISION?
Next, people want to know where you’re going. We’re a
curious species in that we always want to know what’s
coming next. We’re always looking forward and you can feed
into that curiosity by telling people your vision for the future
including your own future.
A common question in job interviews is, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
You should be able to answer that question and surprisingly, few people can. We think
ahead, but we don’t really hone our vision. You can gain an edge by using your vision
to your advantage.
STEP THREE PRACTICE TELLING YOUR STORY AND WRITING YOUR STORY
You’ve worked on your vision throughout this guide. Now your task
is being able to tell your vision to others. Try it out with your friends
and family. Tell them your plans for life. Gauge their reaction. If
they’re asking questions it’s a good thing. If you see a sparkle of
interest in their eye it means you’re doing a good job.
Your story is going to set you apart from the competition. Start practicing your story
now and it will serve you well throughout your career.
How To Create A Personal Elevator Pitch That Wins

Over People You Meet
An elevator pitch is when you make your pitch to someone within the time it
takes to ride the elevator. They’re next to your riding in the car and you only
have about 30 seconds to make your case. When it comes to your personal
brand, it’s essential to be able to tell your story and express your value in the
time it takes to ride an elevator.
Throughout your professional life you’re going to be presented with
opportunities to meet people. You might even meet them riding in an elevator
in an office. These are opportunities to introduce yourself and get them
interested in what you do. They might hire you. They might partner with you.
They might be intrigued to the point of telling a colleague about you.
Here is how you can turn your story and value statement into an elevator pitch.
STEP ONE STATE WHAT YOU DO FOR PEOPLE
The person you meet will often ask for your name and ask what you do.
State what you do in terms of how it is a benefit for your target audience. You want
the person you’re giving your pitch to, to see the value in what you can offer them.
A plumber would have a few potential statements for this
opening: I fix plumbing issues and help people get out of messy
situations.
Or: I help people pick new plumbing fixtures and professionally install
everything.
STEP TWO PROVIDE PROOF OF YOUR VALUE
Proof can really set your elevator pitch apart. Have one or two
examples of work you’ve done that have been really successful and
keep those ready in your mind for your elevator pitch
opportunities.
You could share a recent project you worked on and how it increased profit for your
employer or how recent work you’ve done made your clients look great in front of their
family and friends.
For the plumber, he or she could say:
A recent client of ours recently had their kitchen featured in the local newspaper
“Best Of” section for a remodeling article.
STEP THREE END WITH A CALL TO ACTION
Finally, end each conversation with a call to action. You can
simply hand the person your business card and ask them to
contact you if they ever need work or if they anyone that
might need work.
Sometimes the difference between getting people to take action and never hearing
from them again is simply giving them an action to take.
How To Build Presentations For Telling Your Story
Your local university and professional groups are usually looking for speakers.
They want professionals to come in and talk to students and other professionals
in the community about experiences in the work force. Students are looking for
examples of how they can take on the professional world and there are usually
frustrated professionals seeking ways to improve their lot in life.
You can use these speaking engagements as opportunities to grow your brand in
front of your target audience. The speakers at these events not only get exposure
to students and other professionals, but also to professors and business owners.
At these events, you will usually be asked to bring a slide deck presentation that
you can use to aid your discussion. Setting up this presentation in the right way
can make you stand out from other speakers and presenters and make you appealing
to your target audience.
STEP ONE ADDRESS THE COMMON ISSUE THE AUDIENCE SHARES
Start your presentation by addressing the common issue each
person in the audience is having. If you were speaking to students
you would start by talking about the struggle to get a first job out of
college. If you were speaking to a group of frustrated professionals
you would touch on that frustration by stating how many people
are frustrated with their job, but don’t know where to start to get
something better.
By addressing the common issue, you speak right to each person in the audience and
grab their attention. They see the potential benefit for them and will pay attention.
STEP TWO SHARE YOUR STORY OF STRUGGLE
Next, move into your story of struggle. You have to prove your
credibility and earn interest. Your story accomplishes both of
these. You’ve already been working on your story throughout
this chapter. For each presentation, tweak your story so the
details focus on the topic of discussion.
Your story might not mirror those in the audience exactly, but stories give people a
way to understand a topic and they can work their own experiences and situations
into the story and see what the solutions might be by listening to you.
STEP THREE SHARE YOUR STORY OF SUCCESS
Start by sharing your story of success—I was a graduate struggling
to find the right job just a few years ago…—and then move into
your story of success. Talk about the steps you took to take control
or your life to achieve your goals.
STEP FOUR PROVIDE ACTION STEPS FOR THE AUDIENCE
Next, give the audience action steps. You can talk about these
throughout your story and presentation and then when you’re done
with the presentation, list the action steps the audience needs to take
to follow a path similar to yours. People like actionable presentations
and giving these steps will make you different than other speakers.
You want to be memorable and different.
STEP FIVE END WITH A CALL TO ACTION
Finally, end with a call to action. Always leave something in it for
you at the end. Share your contact information and ask people to
contact you if they have questions. Audience members might
contact you with a few follow up questions or someone in the
audience might ask you about a job opening they have.
How To Get Speaking Opportunities

Speaking has been important for people growing personal brands including
Chris Ducker. We asked, Chris the following question:
If you were building an online presence from scratch today, what 3
things would you consider to provide the biggest ROI on your time and
money?
His answer included a point about speaking opportunities:

I’d start looking at events and meetups where I could speak. Speaking allows you
to connect with people in a much more different way than that of blogging and
podcasting, for example. Provide tons of value in person and then getting to
speak with your audience immediately after you come off stage is not only very
gratifying, it’s a huge step forward in creating those P2P (People to People)
Relationships that mean more than anything else in brand building, I believe. Plus,
speaking in front of a crowd instantly puts you in the light of a leader, which is why
people are there to see you present in the first place.
James Schramko also had worthwhile information about finding speaking

opportunities. We asked him:
His response:
Travelling to bigger markets (USA from Australia) to expand my network. The led to
introductions and speaking from stage at large events.
The best places to seek speaking opportunities, as mentioned above, are local
universities and professional groups. Your city likely has a chamber of commerce.
Contact them and ask if they have any programs where local professionals can come
in and share their story.
Do the same with universities. Contact the university and ask if there are any classes or
any groups on campus that would enjoy hearing from a professional in your industry.
These speaking opportunities work to build your collection of credentials and they also
put you in front of your target audience. You could even get recognition from the local
press, expanding your reach even more.
Employers, clients, etc. are always looking for social proof and
getting speaking opportunities at official organizations like
universities and professional organizations are proof that you’re
an expert in your industry.
Lewis Howes also believes in the power of speaking. We asked him:

His response was:

Connecting with influencers at the key events they are speaking at and attending.
Be Yourself Because Everyone Else Is Taken

Being different could also include doing things others aren’t doing. For example,
we asked Gagan Biyani the following question:
His response was:

Starting the Growth Hackers Conference was the single most valuable action that
helped build my personal brand. Starting a conference allowed me to network with
and speak alongside a number of incredibly talented growth marketers. You can
only do that if you’re a credible speaker already, so really the trick to building a
personal brand is to have a track record first. After that, starting events and
conferences is a great next step.
Throughout this guide we give you the tools necessary to build YOUR personal brand.
You may take inspiration from others, but always keep thinking about building your
brand. Opportunities will come to you if you stand out from the crowd. Nobody is
going to hire you for a job, choose your company as a vendor or invest in your business
unless they understand why you’re different.
Use the items in this chapter and earlier in the guide to help you build your personal
brand. Then embrace the things that make you unique. Embracing your uniqueness
and being passionate about it makes you appealing to people. It makes you appear
more valuable than others that don’t embrace their own unique qualities.
Be yourself and be confident when interacting with people. That alone can lead to
amazing opportunities both in your professional and personal lives.
CHAPTER SEVEN THE INTRO

The Complete Guilde For Self Branding

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Blog Start

Here Consulting University Webinar Contact

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE

WHY SHOULD YOU BUILD YOUR PERSONAL BRAND?

NOT EVERYTHING IN THIS GUIDE WILL APPLY TO YOU

Expert Roundup: Quotes From Successful & Influential Individuals

How To Create Your Personal Brand Vision

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER ONE

How To Define Your Target Audience

How To Build Up Your Online And Offline Assets

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER THREE

How To Build Your Brand Through Outreach

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER FOUR

How To Get Free Press Coverage

How To Connect With Mentors

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER SIX

How To Monitor Your Brand

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER SEVEN

Be Yourself Because Everyone Else Is Taken

TAKE ME TO CHAPTER EIGHT

Are you ready to build your personal brand?

Copyright © by Quick Sprout, LLC Privacy Policy Terms of Service

FOUR WAYS TO SHARE

How To Create Your Personal Brand Vision

Who You Are

The foundation of personal branding rests on

STEP ONE SET YOUR VALUES

STEP THREE IDENTIFY YOUR PASSIONS

STEP FOUR IDENTIFY YOUR IDEAL TRAITS

Where You Want To Be

STEP TWO NARROW DOWN THE ASPECTS TO A POTENTIAL VISION

STEP THREE CREATE AN IDEAL CAREER ENDING

STEP FIVE COMPARE THE VISION AGAINST YOUR VALUES

Others Worth Emulating

Ben Yoskovitz (@byosko)

STEP ONE LIST THE PEOPLE YOU ADMIRE

STEP TWO TAKE A DEEPER LOOK AT THEIR LIVES

STEP FOUR LEARN THE STEPS THESE PEOPLE TOOK

STEP FIVE MAKE ADJUSTMENTS TO IMPROVE ON THEIR PATHS

Developing Your Professional Image

We asked Chris Ducker the following question:

His response was:

Chris Ducker ChrisDucker.com

Lewis Howes LewisHowes.com

Rand Fishkin Moz

Jon Morrow Boost Blog Traffic

James Schramko Super Fast Business

Pat Flynn Smart Passive Income

Gagan Biyani Udemy

Yaro Starak Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

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FOUR WAYS TO SHARE

How To Define Your Target Audience

Susan Chritton (@SusanChritton), Personal Branding For Dummies

Building Relationships: Give A Lot To Get A Lot

The Person That Will Pay You

(Boss, Investor, Client, etc.)

STEP TWO CREATE A COMPLETE DESCRIPTION

STEP THREE IDENTIFY THE PERSON’S MOTIVATIONS

(Professional And Personal)

STEP FIVE CREATE A GAME PLAN

The Person That Influences The Person That Pays You

Amanda Maksymiw (@AmandaMaks), Content Marketing Institute