How do you know when it’s time to rethink or refresh your personal brand? It’s something I’ve spent a fair bit of time thinking about lately. But before we dive into that, I think we first need to answer another question and that is what does “personal brand” even mean? According to Gary Vee, “Your personal brand is your reputation.” Another way he put it was, “Your brand is about how someone feels in the moment when they interact with you or your business.” On the other hand, Harvard Business Review says that your brand is not your reputation, which is based how other people see you, but rather how you want people to see you. Reputation is certainly part of it, but it’s not the whole picture.
So how do we communicate how we want people to see us? One of the ways to communicate your personal brand is with a brand statement, which summarizes who you are, what you do, and why you do it. It lets people know at a glance what moves you, your skills, and even your goals. Director and designer Chris Do, who I’ve been following for years, launched his company The Futur with a very ambitious goal: to teach 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love. In his personal brand statement, he says, “I’ve run an Emmy Award winning motion design/brand consultancy for over 23 years. Now, I teach the world how to value themselves and communicate their value to others through open platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.” In just two sentences, he manages to cover both reputation—an Emmy Award winner—and how he wants to be seen—as an educator, marketer, and social media expert. If you’re on social media, you may already have a brand statement in the form of your bio. It’s the first thing someone sees when they click on your avatar and it’s an opportunity to communicate not just what you do, but also how and why you do it.
A few Iterations ago I was talking about websites, specifically my website and what I wanted it to be or thought that it should be. In the Iteration—which I encourage you to read or listen to if you haven’t—I said, “My main site just needs to be some broad strokes about what I do and samples of my most recent paintings.” As I’ve been thinking about that and reflecting on the whole idea of a personal brand, I think I was wrong. Broad strokes are great at a glance, but that’s not really who I am. By not going any deeper, I leave out a lot of details and I think my details are what set me apart—they are certainly what drive me. I’m not interested in this or that. I’m interested in (and can do) this and that and that and that. Focusing on one or two things is great if those one or two things are all that you do—and I know quite a few people for whom that’s exactly the case, and it works great for them—but that’s not me. I am a multi-disciplinary audio and visual artist and I’ve spent the majority of my life exploring different aspects of the creative process. Reducing all that I have done down to “painter and podcaster” dismisses the fact that I’ve also spent years working in theatre, special effects, post production, web development, education, and even a movie studio. Those are the kinds of broad strokes I should be sharing, knowing that within each of them, I can drill down even further to share details that help to create the narrative that I’ve been adding to for decades.
There are a ton of resources out there that can help you with the mechanics of building a personal brand—some even lay out a series of bullet points for you to follow. Just plug in your information and away you go. For me, that feels a little too formulaic and maybe even calculated, which may be the perfect solution for some, but it feels like the wrong choice for me. I would rather take a more organic and maybe even a more conversational approach. What motivates me in this season of my life? What am I excited about getting out of bed to go do? What subjects, skills, or experiences am I curious about? Then it’s about sharing those stories (not to mention other people’s stories) in a way that will hopefully connect to and resonate with an audience, whether that’s through a podcast, through these Iterations, on social media, or on my own website. And to be clear, the things I said in the Iteration about Carrd are still true. I love the functionality and I love the fact that it isn’t trying to be everything to everyone—and my current site looks and performs really well for what it is. But as I also said, in paring my site down to broad strokes, partially in order to work within the functionality of the platform, I’m leaving a lot of my story off the table, which I think is a mistake. Still, refining my personal brand is more of a message issue than a platform issue, since I can likely make any of them work.
I think there’s value in sharing more of not just my backstory, but also the story that’s continuing to be lived. There’s so much of what I’ve done that I rarely talk about publicly and yet all of it informs not just where I am now but where I go next, like diving back into 3D modeling and animation after nearly a two-decade break. As my wife likes to say, “it all counts,” and more than that, it’s all connected and points to a much bigger story—one that I’m becoming more eager and willing to share.
Thanks so much for reading.
QUESTIONS
Does your personal brand reflect how you want to be seen? If not, what can you do about it?
Hit reply or leave me a message in the comments.
That was one of your best Iterations. You touched on issues that I'm struggling with. I look forward to your next post. Best, Roger Wyatt
Not to long ago I took the time to revamp my brand, after years of neglecting my actual business online it was time to revamp the website. Since I find myself doing less photography, didn’t make sense to have an entire site just for it. Needed a space to connect with potential students online, since that seems how I work nowadays.