Do I need a personal brand?

Learn the importance of your profile

There are a lot of questions you might have asked yourself when you set up your LinkedIn profile…

How do you generate leads on LinkedIn?

Is LinkedIn training worth it?

Can you make money from LinkedIn?

Do I need a personal brand?

Today, I’m going to focus on the last question and explain why creating a personal brand is vital to selling on LinkedIn - and why it’s easier than you think.

What is a personal brand and why is it important?

When it comes to social media, your personal brand is your profile and everything you post/share on that profile. What you choose to do with your profile and its content is going to shape how people (your prospects) perceive you. For business owners, solopreneurs and salespeople, this is going to be a reflection of the business/service you want to sell.

To some extent, everyone has a personal brand. Your favourite celebrity, author, your local small business owner and even your dog will all have personal brands if they’re on social media. The truth is if you don’t take control of your personal brand, it’s going to be created for you - whether you like it or not. Even an empty profile speaks volumes to your potential prospects and has the chance of damaging your sales success.

Where to start…

Your personal brand will extend beyond your LinkedIn profile, but it’s the best place to start because all roads will lead back to your profile. Every message you send, comment you leave and connection you make will tie back to your profile and the personal brand you’ve created with it.

There will always be some element of trial and error with the content you put out, but your LinkedIn profile is something you can get right from day one.

The four main sections of your LinkedIn profile that you need to ensure capture your personal brand are:

• Banner

• Headline

• About section

• Featured section

All four of these features act as a digital billboard for your personal brand. All four should clearly demonstrate who you are, what you do, why you do it and how what you do helps your prospects. Of course, it’s your personal brand so there should also be elements in there that convey who you are as a person and professional. 

It’s important to include these personal elements because, when it comes to Social Selling, your prospects are just as interested in the face behind the service as much as the service itself. Before they decide if they want to work with you, your prospects need to know they can trust and rely on you to deliver the results you’re promising.

In the end, that is what your personal brand is going to prove to them. So, imagine if your prospects go to view your profile and find nothing or very little. What does that tell them about your capabilities and dedication to deliver?

So, the question isn’t really, “Do I need a personal brand?”, it’s closer to “Do I want to connect with and sell to my ideal prospects?” And, if the answer is ‘yes’, then you’re going to need a personal brand to do it.

Want to learn more about creating client-winning content? Gain access to ContentLab 2.0 to learn the strategy, structure and creation tactics to post compelling content without losing all your time.