When I decided to stop taking on design clients after being a designer for 7 years, I underestimated how rapidly my personal brand would grow. I had expected to take a hit to my income and have a few “struggle months” as I continued to establish myself as an online educator. (Read: The truth about how I make a living as a blogger)
But in my first month without design clients, I cut my workload in half and doubled my income. Whaaat? I thought it was a fluke. But it happened for months and months and months. My email list and online following kept growing. I started to form a tribe and accumulate “fans”. It was all really cool and new…
After a couple of years into that growth spurt, I started to have a strange feeling. A feeling that led to complacency and doubt.
Fear.
Fear that I was losing my humility.
Being humble is honorable, but it starts to lose it’s appeal when you obsess over it. You see, my humility became so important to me that it blocked me from seeing the weight of impact that I could truly have. I started to believe this lie that if I exceeded a certain level that I could no longer remain humble.
Oh no, I made $10,000 this month. Boom. No longer humble.
Oh no, I hit 13,200 followers on Instagram. Boom. No longer humble.
Oh no, I got invited to speak on the main stage of an amazing conference. Boom. No longer humble.
And because of that lie, I tried to slow down my growth.
Subconsciously, I started sending less emails, launching my products less, and highlighting my failures.
For some reason my brain couldn’t make sense of remaining humble while expanding my brand.
But impact doesn’t work like that.
The depth of my impact has nothing to do with the amount of people I reach. Just like the amount of people I reach has nothing to do with my level of humility. It’s the simplest things (not the amount of followers you accumulate) that create the deepest impact.
[Tweet ““The depth of your impact has nothing to do with the amount of people you reach.””]
[Tweet ““The amount of people you reach has nothing to do with your level of humility.””]
So I thought to myself, outside of numbers, what are the MAIN things that allow me to make an impact?
3 Things You Need To Do To Be Impactful
1. Have a vision.
How do you want to see the world change? It’s easier for me to create a clear vision with I picture my full story. I think about where I started professionally, where it’s led me to now, and where I want to see myself. Doing visualization exercises can be really helpful if you’re feeling stuck.
2. Put people first.
Who do you want to help the most? As a good person, I know you want to help ALL people. Take the time to think about the people who are most connected to you, though. As an African American Christian woman, over 85% of my audience are African American women who believe spirituality is important to their brand. Draw near to the people that feel close to you. Even though I KNOW my strategies could help ANYONE who wants to build a personal brand, I cater to the people who feel the deepest connection with me.
3. Use your voice.
What message do you need to share? I want my audience to know that their voice matters, and it’s okay to make money with their purpose. I teach them why it’s important and how they can do it. I talk about the same things over and over and over through blogs, videos, and social media. I love using my voice to uplift my audience and change the world.
This is what it takes to be impactful at your job, in your home, and in your community.
9 Elements Of Building An Income-generating Personal Brand Online
1. Brand Clarity
This requires you to be clear on your niche, your audience, your message, and how you want to impact the world. Everything else consist of the strategies and systems to expand that impact. Clarity is the most important component to impact.
2. Lead Magnet for List Building
Give your audience something of value in exchange for an email address to immediately build trust AND generate new leads. What’s something they’re struggling with that you can provide a quick solution for? (i.e. Free 7 Day Challenge To A More Productive Morning Routine)
3. Social Media Strategy
What platform(s) do you need to be on in order to share your story with your audience? When you’re clear on who you’re meant to BEST serve, you’ll know where they spend their time online.
4. Content Marketing Strategy
What platforms do you need to be on in order to establish your authority and maximize your reach? Your content can be blogging, podcasting, live video, and more. The more consistent you are with your content creation, you’ll learn which content converts best for you. Your audience may enjoy consuming written text more than they do watching videos.
5. Website Strategy
Your website is a place for you to house everything that positions you as an expert. It’s a place where people can go to learn about why you matter AND the place people should go to pay you. There’s “success stories” of people becoming profitable on one platform, but you should never EVER fully rely on a social media platform to uphold your online business. When that platform dies, your business should still live.
6. Visibility Strategy
Whether you’re new or seasoned to the online space, getting in front of your audience is something you need to do consistently to remain relevant. How will you be seen? Outside of my own content, I’m most visible when I do podcast and online summit interviews. It gets me in front of a new audience and positions me as a expert.
7. Signature Product
You need something to sell in order to be an actual business. How can you package up your message into a product that you can launch? A product can also be a service. You can offer one-on-one coaching, a group coaching program, VA services, design services, online course, a workshop, an online membership, etc.
8. Product Suite
Once you’ve built a proven product and a trusted audience, you need to brainstorm ways that you can diversify your income. You want to create different levels/tiers of products to get people to your signature product. Then you want to create a level after your signature product that you can lead them to. This helps you with client/customer retention. Rather than always focusing on getting NEW client/customers (which is good), you can also increase your income with your EXISTING clients and customers.
9. Business Systems
In order for all of your strategies to work together in a streamlined fashion, you need the right software to uphold all of your business growth systems. I have system for every aspect of my business so I can stay focused on what matter most… my audience. From Google Drive (free) to Ontraport ($297/month), every software I use is meant to help me become more productive and/or profitable.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve been online for 3 months or 3 years. This is the framework to build a personal brand that is impactful AND profitable.
I created the 2017 Guide To Building An Impactful Personal Brand Online that outlines the 9 core elements that I listed above. I want you to start filling out this guide ASAP and see where you could be improving and what you still need to start on.
Wow Maya! This is powerful!