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Mentioned in this episode:

Why you should focus on building your personal brand before your business brand
Taking a leaf out of the billionaires' book - a look at some personal brand success stories
A spicy opinionated post that I shared on Instagram that low-key went viral
The 7 key principles you can implement today to increase your authority and positioning of your personal brand

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“Should I build a personal brand or a business brand?”

This is a question that I get asked A LOT, and yet I haven’t publicly shared my personal opinion on it.

Which, by the way, is incredibly spicy 🌶

My own journey with this is pretty unique. I started with a business brand (who’s been here long enough to remember The Calm Compound 🙋🏾‍♀️) and only switched to a personal brand AFTER we hit 7 figures.

Which, you’ve got to admit, is pretty taboo for an established business.

But you know what, I would make that same decision again… and again… and again.

Why a personal brand?

So the short answer is (and the spicy take on this is) I think the most powerful thing to be building right now is a personal brand. I wouldn’t be building a business brand unless I felt like I had a big enough personal brand that I’d be able to attract the right people to that business brand.

Not convinced? Let me give you some examples from a couple of BILLIONAIRES…

Richard Branson. He has over 20m followers across platforms. Virgin has just over 200k on their main account on IG and then they have subsidiary accounts and they’re across all platforms. But there’s no comparison between Richard and his business brands.

Let’s consider what Ryan Reynolds has done buying Wrexham; which is so inspiring to me.

Now despite Wrexham, and its stadium, having a tremendous amount of history in Wales, a solid (albeit local) reputation and a dedicated fan base, the club was relatively unknown.

Enter Ryan Reynolds, now Wrexham is on everybody's lips (well almost everybody). They landed a docuseries with Disney and have grown their Instagram following to over 1.4m.

All of that was achieved by leveraging Ryan Reynolds' personal brand.

Now let’s take a look at Reese Witherspoon. She leveraged her personal brand to start a book club… a very humble book club, that with her notoriety amassed 3m followers on Instagram.

What makes Reese especially clever is that she uses the feedback from her book club to inform what books she is going to turn into movies (or TV series) via her production company Hello Sunshine.

I mean… GENIUS!

This has even got me thinking about what Caitlin Clark has done for the WNBA. (I’ll seek out any excuse to talk about Caitlin Clark 😆)

Caitlin was the number one draft pick this season and she is single-handedly changing the landscape of the WNBA.

Caitlin started building her personal brand while she was still playing NCAA college basketball and as of today, she has amassed an Instagram following of over 2.7m.

Let’s take a look at Caitlin’s impact according to the numbers.

More than 400,000 people attended WNBA games in May 2024, making it the highest-attended month for the WNBA in well over two decade 🤭
The Mystics' normal home arena seats around 4,100 people. But the interest in the team's game against the Fever was so high that officials moved the game to Capital One to accommodate the bigger crowd 🤯
More than 20,300 attended Capital One Arena to watch the Fever take on the Washington Mystics. No two WNBA teams have more losses between them, but still, the attendance marked the WNBA's most-attended game since 2007, according to Across The Timeline 😱

And the ripple effect will be huge.

Other players will get paid more.
Sponsorship deals will be made.
TV deals will be entered into.
Jersey sales will go up.

The WNBA as a business will expand because of Caitlin Clark.

And this is the power of a personal brand.

While I have desires to build different business brands throughout my career, I know that the absolute KEY to this happening successfully is my personal brand and creating a ton of authority and influence there first.

This is how you ATTRACT people to your business brand - through your personal brand.

And so let’s have a conversation about how to do that.

I shared a post on Instagram recently and, well… it kinda went viral. Here’s what I shared:

The online coaching industry has butchered the meaning of “claiming your authority” to be about how much money you make.

Being a successful business owner who makes money is incredible, but it doesn’t actually mean someone is an authority. They might just have excellent marketing 🤣

We don’t go to a doctor or chiropractor and listen to them talk about how much money they make.

We listen to them tell us about how many similar surgeries they’ve done, that we’re in safe hands and that they know what they’re talking about.

Being an authority isn’t about pumping your own tyres all the time (although I know you’re amazing and I see how skilled and passionate you are) or needing to lead with how much money you make.

Authority is safety. It’s trust. It’s an energy of “you can trust my judgment”.

It comes from you being embodied in your work and being an example of what you teach/represent.

It comes from delivering excellence to your clients and community and having an ongoing commitment to backing your offers fully and developing your skillset.

It comes from you producing valuable content that shares your opinion and solves problems/provides solutions.

Money talks, but authority walks the walk.

The 7 Key Principles

Let’s have a conversation about the 7 key principles you can implement to increase your authority and positioning of your personal brand, specifically as a coach and service provider in the online space:

SHARE YOUR *SPICY* OPINIONS

I know… did that feel like a punch in the gut to hear this?

For so many of us, we like to stay in the safe lane. We don’t want to ruffle any feathers.

In fact, if you’re an Open Solar Plexus in Human Design like me, you might feel quite avoidant to sharing your opinions for fear of ostracizing or upsetting someone within your community.

And yes, we don’t live in a black-and-white world. We live in a world where there is nuance, BUT constantly considering the nuance of every little thing to ensure everyone feels comfortable is really going to inhibit your ability to build a personal brand.

As they say, “Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.”

It’s important to stand behind your opinions, not for the sake of simply having an opinion but rather as an avenue of creating thought leadership content.

In order to be a thought leader in your space, it’s essential that you’re priming yourself to be in the right headspace to share your opinions. To me, I see this as creating the right conditions to come up with and then share your opinions.

For example, for me, a condition that I need to be considerate of is whether or not I’m not Responding from my Sacral (my strategy as a Manifesting Generator). If I’m not, it’s very likely that I could take premature action in the opinions that I do share because I’ve got a defined Crown/Head and Ajna.

The “Not-Self” of these centers is feeling “full” of ideas/inspiration/opinions that I initiate and share before my sacral has responded to anything, which means my transmission falls flat and I end up in an unhelpful mindset spiral.

I also think so many people are stuck in consumption that they struggle to have their own ideas.

I wanted to share with you my strategy, for how I ensure I’m creating the right conditions to have opinions and formulate them.

Creating the right conditions for thought leadership

I have a creative ecosystem, that I call the Effortless Channel Creative Ecosystem, which I worked on with my energy coach, Frankie Simmons, that I now teach my clients to help them create the conditions to have good thoughts, ideas, and essentially to have and formulate opinions.

These “conditions” are what I require to be really connected to my Strategy and Authority in Human Design which is to wait for the sacral response and then respond. When I feel disconnected from myself I turn to this ecosystem, and I particularly lean into it when I am waiting for a sacral response.

This is especially helpful when I have a bunch of ideas floating around and I’m straight up in my head (which means - I’m definitely not in my body where my sacral response is).

Here’s a little sneak peek at what this looks like for me:

The key is to put yourself in a position where you’re able to attune to your Strategy and Authority in Human Design and have your opinions shared from that perspective, rather than forcing the opinion or it coming from your Not Self.

Whenever I am feeling confused about my opinions or what content I want to create, it’s a time to disconnect and go to my creative ecosystem and pick something off of that list.

I’m not going to force a sacral response because when I do (or have done in the past) this is when my opinions don’t land well and they feel “shouty”.

Let me share with you a real-time example

We were having a hot-seat coaching call inside of NEON, and I was having a conversation with a client of mine about having an Undefined Head and Ajna in their Design and the impact this has on their ability to confidently share their opinions.

I was sharing that just because you have inconsistent access to mental processing - thoughts, thinking, belief, ideas, opinions - doesn’t mean you can’t ever have an opinion (thought, idea, belief etc.).

I see this a lot with Undefined Head and Ajna folks, who really question if they are even able to have opinions (which you totally are - you just likely take a little more time gathering information before you truly form an opinion AND there is always room for that opinion to change).

2. USING SOCIAL MEDIA EFFECTIVELY

There are so many creators that I LOVE to follow and pretty much every single one says: “be on the main 5 social media platforms and post every day”.

I do think consistency is super important in a business *and* I also think it’s important to prioritize the platforms where your strengths are most leveraged and where there is more longevity to that content.

For example, if you love creating long form content and are skilled in this arena, then I wouldn’t have Instagram at the forefront.

I know we praise Instagram as the hail Mary of social media but the truth is, I don’t believe that Instagram has very much longevity because there's no SEO function. However, blogging does. It’s got legs. It lives on forever and is great from an SEO perspective.

So if you are someone that appreciates a lot of depth, you might have a Podcast or a YouTube channel which is then repurposed into a blog post and then into social media content.

If you like to activate people and share short and powerful messages, then maybe you are spending more time on Instagram.

Interestingly, I shared on my stories the other day that I’d been to Switzerland to hang out with my friend Paige Brunton who has a 7 figure business NOT on Instagram (but through blogging and YouTube) and I asked out of curiosity who would leave IG if they had an alternative lead generation source and the results were super interesting:

23% - I’d stay on IG
44% - I’d leave IG
33% - I’d stay on but post less

Most of my energy goes into long-form content because this is what feels really important to me as a 7th house Cancer Sun with a Leo stellium in the 8th House of death, rebirth and transformation. I love depth and as I mentioned above, there are strategic benefits to creating long-form, too.

I create for my Podcast first and then I’ll repurpose it into content for Instagram to then point people towards the Podcast.

We also repurpose our Podcasts into blogs (oh hey 👋🏼 welcome!) so that we can add value for those of you who love to read (and rank from an SEO perspective).

AND I have another long-form channel (any guesses?!) that I’ll likely be starting towards the end of 2024 which is SO exciting.

This is also really driven by my desire to not actually spend a huge amount of time on Instagram. I don’t want my business reliant on that and this is informing my decisions.

So many people say “I wish I could spend less time on Instagram but my business relies on it” but they’re not doing anything to change that.

The real question is, where are your strengths best leveraged and is that the platform you are leveraging?

👉🏽 Btw, this is exactly what we teach inside Visibly YOU → our 3 step visibility strategy 💃🏻🪞 At just $37, this mini course helps you choose the most strategic actions to get the most visible in your online business and for a limited time only, it comes with a 30 minute bonus call with me and we’re about to remove this and turn it solely passive so it’s a good time to take advantage of this.

3. PRIORITISE HIGH VALUE CONTENT

I know this goes without saying but I also think it’s important to mention - quality matters!

It feels like quantity over quality has become so conditioned into us that I often see people creating so much content. But in reality, It’s really average content that is very clearly not going to stand out.

I’ve said this before and I will literally die on this hill… you are never “too advanced” to do ideal client interviews. This is the key to creating high-quality content that encourages people to take action.

Want to know what your client wants? Ask them.
Want to know their biggest challenges in business? ASK them.
What to know what’s stopping them from achieving their goals? ASK THEM!

High-value content is content that is valuable to your ideal client. It’s not “space filler”. I remember when I first started my business and people were still in the energy of pre-algorithm and I remember being told to do “space filler” posts and I remember thinking “wtf”.

I mean, I’d come from a legal career where it was so important to only say what mattered. You didn't talk for the sake of talking and this was a valuable skill set that I bought into my business.

Every piece of content is designed to have an impact and be seen as really valuable for my ideal client.

This isn’t about making everything perfect and creating unrealistic expectations for every post. It isn’t even about going viral. It’s about creating trust for my potential clients to invest.

Which brings me to the next thing…

4. WRITING KILLER COPY

Good copy is a turn on 🥵

When I can see that someone knows their ideal client intimately, is in touch with their needs and has completely dedicated themselves to that process, I want to hand over my money before I even know what they're selling 😆🤪

Writing good sales content is not about being a copywriter. It's not about having perfect vocabulary.

It is about understanding your ideal client. Which is why I’ll never stop asking questions to my potential clients AND my actual clients, to better understand what their needs are.

I’ll never stop asking for feedback. Because the more you start making assumptions, the less authority you will have.

Effective sales copy is one of the most important marketing assets in your toolkit!

Good copy converts. Good copy builds authority. It’s as simple as that.

👉🏽 *Click this link* to watch my free masterclass, The Conversion Framework, with 3 must-have messaging tips to take your sales copy from ‘sounds good’ to 'ooft! where do I sign?' in under an hour (without needing to hire a copywriter or have perfect vocabulary!)

5. ARTICULATE YOUR METHOD

People naturally second-guess their ability to get results.

This is a normal part of the human experience, but it also impacts whether someone decides to purchase or not.

Being able to clearly articulate the way you get your client's results is a great way to show someone:

“Hey - I know you’re feeling unsure, but here’s exactly how I get my clients results and the process I’ll be taking you through so you can feel confident that this is going to be supportive for you, too”

For example, here’s our 3 part framework inside NEON:

Doesn’t this give so much more safety and confidence than just reading the tagline to the offer?

This is such an underestimated tool for building more authority.

6. “COOL BY ASSOCIATION”

I love how Daniel Priestly talks about becoming a “Key Person of Influence” in your industry. He has a book called Key Person of Influence and he’s an epic resource for building a personal brand. He’s also an Aussie which is really cool!

The fastest way to grow an audience and build your audience is to cross-pollinate. I remember in the early days of my business I was doing something every week.

Now, I’m not saying you should go out and do something every single week, but I do think that this is an important strategy. Ergo, cool by association!

The benefit here is that not only are you accessing someone else's community (and vice versa) but you’re also building authority with your community (and theirs).

Daniel poses a really interesting question that can help you understand the importance of collaborations and awards. Consider;

“What will people find if they google me?”.

If the answer is not much, then there is an opportunity for you to - first and foremost - continue building your personal brand so that you are an appealing candidate for further collaborations and “cool by association” opportunities.

Let’s look at the aligned ways you can leverage collaborations according to your Human Design.

If you’re a Manifestor you may feel most comfortable being quite direct in your outreach for collaborations. That said, if you’re not used to embracing your Strategy To Inform this could also feel incredibly unfamiliar.

As a Manifestor it’s aligned for you to take the lead and initiate a pitch. Just make sure you are doing so by following your Authority so that you are pitching for truly aligned collaborations.

For our Sacrals - the Generators and Manifesting Generators - your magnetic aura is really going to attract opportunities to you. To fully harness the magnetic power of your aura it’s so important that you are doing what you love and embracing your sacral response.

For our Mani-Gen’s there are going to be times when reaching out, initiating or pitching is going to feel really true. Often you’ll get a sacral nudge to take the lead, so make sure you wait for that before jumping in.

For my Projector clients, whose Strategy is to wait for an invitation, I talk to them about building relationships and sharing their artistry and this is most important because this is how they will get invited in to share their expertise.

It’s going to be hard to receive invitations if you aren’t being seen and establishing your voice as an authority. While Projectors wait for an invitation, it’s important that they lean into self-mastery and rest; so that the energy is available to them when the time comes.

For Reflectors, when you’re sharing your objective opinions online and you're moving through and sampling environments, I would notice where you feel appreciated and where you’re being initiated and invited by the other types.

No matter what your Type is, It might feel aligned for you to research some awards and apply for them. You never know what could come of it and what cool factor it could bring!

The other thing is testimonials. So many clients say to me “I asked for a testimonial and I haven't got anything back”. And I, personally, am guilty of this. I have multiple things I need to give testimonials on and they’re just sitting in my inbox.

When it comes to testimonials the big question is; Is there a way you can make it easy for your clients?

Sometimes a multi-page questionnaire can seem a little bit daunting and time-consuming.

Consider instead, inviting them to send you a voice message and then you write up the testimonial and have it checked by them.

Or can you schedule a 15-minute call where you can chat freely and pull testimonial quotes from there?

Plus, a little incentive never hurt either!

7. KEEP YOUR ‘NOT-SELF’ IN CHECK

You know when you ‘just don't vibe’ someone but you can't put your finger on it? 🙋🏻‍♀️

It could be that their “Not-Self” is really hijacking their experience and you’re feeling it. The “Not-Self” is a Human Design term that basically describes what happens when you’re not attuned to your Strategy and Authority.

For example, as an Undefined Ego/Heart, I have to be really conscious of not ending up in the Not-Self of this centre and taking action from a place of not recognising my value and feeling like I need to prove myself.

Any time our Not-Self influences or hijacks the creation of an offer, a piece of content, our sales copy... it can be felt 🫠 and this is the fastest way to kill authority.

Your potential client may not know exactly what it is, but oh boy, they'll feel it.

Being able to discern when you’re trying to force something instead of listening to your strategy and authority will be one of the MOST income-producing assets you’ll add to your business and will further strengthen your authority.

Examples of where this can show up:

Having an Undefined Throat and forcing yourself to create content or put your voice to something; when in reality there is nothing you really desire to say. My biggest tip for anyone with an undefined Throat is to consider “Am I adding noise or value?”.
Having a Defined Head and Ajna and having so many ideas that you take premature action and force content when it hasn’t moved through your Strategy and Authority.
Giving unsolicited advice to people as a Projector. It’s so easy to rush the process here because it can be hard to know when an invitation might come; however unsolicited advice from a Projector will always fall on deaf ears.
Forcing action as a Sacral rather than allowing the pulse of energy and desire to move through you in the creative process.

Any piece of content or decision that you make from the Not-Self is never as potent as when you allow something to move through your Strategy and Authority.

Let’s recap!

The 7 key principles you can implement today to increase your authority and positioning of your personal brand are:

Share your spicy opinions
Use social media effectively
Prioritise high value content
Write killer copy
Articulate your method
“Cool by Association”
Keep your “Not-Self” in check

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