To successfully build a personal brand, start by increasing your visibility

[](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHKhvdzbESbJQ92hBZ0d8xZoNJZWOVmHeGqRJZ0zljrGlX5LzZ3wXdea8LUPnUrym6UQ9fk9ev6lEkKWvH2BGROMBs vAF72UFFMiQz3-_r5Xlfwa8x9pK8KxjzZm6PHkGywINuDFMCIabd/s1600/%25E6%2589%2593%25 E9%2580%25A0%25E5%2580%258B%25E4%25BA%25BA%25E5%2593%2581%25E7%2589%258C.jpg)

This article The author Mr.Ben is currently a business lecturer He is a startup counselor and also loves reading and learning. He pursues the concept of making friends through books and learning and growing together. He holds reading club activities regularly every month. He likes to share his experiences in career and entrepreneurship with everyone. Welcome to visit his [personal website] (https://www.mrbenchen.com/). Thank you for authorizing the “Content Hacker” website to reprint it. Thank you hereby.

[Why we reprint this article] In this resumption of business era, many people want to run personal brands, but they are unable to move forward because of many problems. It is really a pity. I am very happy to see Mr. Ben, a new startup guidance consultant, writing an article to share, especially on emotional intelligence, and reprinting it on the “Content Hacker” website. Let’s learn together!

Three stages of running a personal brand

Recently, I had the honor to communicate privately with some lecturer friends and discussed “how to effectively manage [personal brand] (https://www.contenthacker.today/2018/01/the-4-essentials-of-building-your-brand-on-social-media.html)”. Frankly speaking, I am also studying and practicing hard in this part! At a seminar last month, I was very grateful to hear industry veterans share some practical insights on the stage. Compared with Ben’s own experience in the management consulting industry in the past many years, I really benefited a lot now.

Therefore, I took the time to sort out my thoughts, sort out the key points, add my own experience, and provide them to more friends in need. If you are a lecturer or a Freelancer, I think the key points mentioned in this article will definitely bring you a lot!

The biggest mistake many people make when running their personal brands is not “not working hard enough” but not “developing in order.” If you are determined to run a personal brand, it is actually a long-term project that cannot be achieved overnight! Not everyone who develops a personal brand can get their “expected gains” as they wish. It is difficult to become famous by relying on a single event. I would like to paraphrase what a statistician friend of mine said:

The case cannot represent the parent!

However, many people often expect to get something for nothing or a short-term quick fix after seeing a case! The point is, the vast majority of people, including you and me, are actually not isolated cases (admit it! This is also related to fate). Instead of fighting for the unpredictable probability, it is better to follow effective steps and methods to help yourself steadily build your personal brand!

I think most people know very well that no matter how much they think, it is better to practice it honestly, so what I provide here are actually practical steps for running a personal brand. Through these steps, you can solidly accumulate your own personal brand, and with your own persistence, I think you will see results sooner or later!

When operating personal brand, I think there are three stages to follow: increasing visibility, expanding influence, and profit-making business model.

Raising awareness is the first step

The first stage is to increase visibility. In short, it is to increase your professional visibility!

In the process of interacting with many lecturer friends, it is not difficult for Ben to find that in fact, everyone is very capable in their own professional fields, but whenever the topic of “increasing one’s visibility” comes up, many people’s expressions are actually “What?”, which is surprising.

If we are talking about entrepreneurship, we all know one thing, no matter how hard and powerful your product is, as long as no one knows about it, it is useless! Therefore, in addition to polishing their products to perfection, what entrepreneurs need most is to solve the problem of “how to market”! In the same way, Freelancer’s profession itself is a product (otherwise, how will you make a living?), but many people spend most of their time improving their profession, but do not think carefully about how to make their profession visible to more people?

The aroma of wine is not afraid of the depth of the alley? In fact, the truth is that the alley is so deep that you can’t even imagine it.

Before expanding your visibility, you must first decide what your position is? There will definitely be many people who will give you opinions and criticisms during the process (there are many people who are good teachers). The key is not what they say, but your decision of “what kind of professional you want to be”, “what professional image you want to present to your potential customers”, and “what will best enable you to persevere”.

Only you know the answers to these questions! Once you decide on your positioning, you don’t have to think too much, just do it! Many people only consider how big the market is and ignore their own passion, and they will not last long! Because the market will change, and only you can decide your passion!

Don’t just listen to the master’s words, please listen to your own inner voice!

Many people mistakenly believe that the success of a master can be copied to themselves. In fact, even if the professional fields are the same, if you do not truly find your own characteristics and differentiated value, you will still sink into the vast sea of ​​​​people! Finding your own characteristics and differentiated value does not depend on others telling you, but on your own “fighting and walking” exploration! So, the real key is to go back to:

Are you really on the road?

Output is more important than input

Some friends will tell me that they want to become a professional lecturer in the future. But several years have passed! I only see these friends constantly learning and attending classes from masters. If you ask them “How is your development as a lecturer?”, in fact, most of them will hear “I’m not ready yet”…

The truth is that when you are ready one day, you will find that the market already belongs to others…

It is a good thing to study and attend lectures. I also love learning very much, but that is called “input”. If you want to run a personal brand, you should spend more time on “output”! You can’t have crazy input without output. Why is output so important?

Because no matter what your field is, professional output itself is a good marketing. You must realize one thing:

In the online world, every step you take will really leave your footprints.

You and I both know that modern people cannot live without the Internet! So the key thing you should think about is, have you left a “professional footprint” for yourself in the online world? When you have more footprints, of course, your chances of being “searched” will naturally increase! Potential customers on the Internet rely on these professional outputs to judge “who you are” and “whether you have the ability to solve my problems” when searching for relevant needs. And people who are productive have naturally higher visibility than people who are not productive. This is the terrifying result that accumulates over time and every drop of water wears away the stone!

Just as job seekers need a resume to find a job, a Freelancer’s resume is professional output!

Some of my friends and friends who are strong are able to maintain a professional output every day. This high degree of self-discipline is really an example for Ben to learn from!

Choice between channel cooperation and self-operation

Ben sincerely feels that in such a modern competitive environment, whether you are sold by others (channel) or sold by yourself (direct sales), or both, before making up your mind to become a Freelancer, please think carefully about “how to do marketing” for yourself! If you are still employed, start now to accumulate your own popularity! Because this is the capital of your future “Wolong comes out of the mountain”!

Even if you are working with a channel, you still need to think carefully. Taking myself as an example, because I used to play the role of a channel, although my role has changed now, I still believe that people cannot only think about their own position when working with others. If you don’t have an iron-clad relationship with them, and if you can’t prove your box office and strength, why should you ask Tongtong to put its own goodwill and customers on you?

Remember! Don’t always think only about yourself, please think more about your channel partners! Because cooperation with the channel is a long-term partnership!

There is a saying in Taiwanese called “Cherish the Love”, which is the very important concept in business partnership. Cooperation between people may be based on business relationships at the beginning, but after the two parties have cooperated for a long time, cooperative friendship is the key to a long-term relationship! I have always believed that it is very difficult for people who are too philistine and selfish to rely on channel marketing!

Therefore, it is better to rely on your own efforts to increase your popularity first! Just start by asking for your own professional output. As the saying goes, “God helps those who help themselves.” When you persist to a certain extent, you will start a good cycle when you cooperate with the channel, and it will be easier for the other party to promote and sell your expertise!

If you are self-employed (sell yourself), then please learn how to sell and market! If you have money and resources and can find a team to sell you, that would be a wonderful thing! If you don’t have money or resources, then please recognize your identity and learn whatever you need to learn!

Taking a lecturer as an example, you need to learn to run classes in your own office, learn how to set up a personal website, how to write product introductions and marketing [copywriting] (https://www.contenthacker.today/2017/10/attention-grabbing-copywriting.html), learn to run a [community] (https://www.contenthacker.today/2018/03/social-media-marketing-ideas.html) or learn how to record audio and video courses… etc. In fact, there are still a lot of things to learn. This is because becoming a good Freelancer is a university subject in itself!

The key is not to wait in vain! Don’t just rely on others to do it for you! I just mentioned that if you have money and resources, then use other people’s time to accelerate your own process. If you have no money and resources, please consider yourself an entrepreneur. If you’re out of company protection, get your hands dirty and come down and learn for yourself! Try it yourself!

The advantage of doing it yourself is that you have touched every link yourself. You don’t necessarily need to become a master in every aspect, but you must be able to master the key links so that you can have the ability to “outsource”. At least you have done it once, and it will not be easy for others to fool you, because you have touched it before and you can ensure the quality when you send it out!

Don’t think “someday”, today is the best day!

Strengthening visibility is a long-term project, a process of establishing personal brand and credibility. I still emphasize that discipline is important! If Freelancer has no discipline, he might as well go back to work! Because not everyone can become a Freelancer, it is a matter of personal preference and choice, but once you make this choice and embark on this path, you must believe:

Persist in accumulating time and money, and believe that every drop of water will wear away the stone.

Before I knew it, I had talked so much in stage one. The remaining stage 2 of “expanding influence” and stage 3 of “profit business modeling”, please wait and share with you later!

★ Content Hacking Lecture Series (CHL5): How to run corporate official websites, blogs and publications [Registration now]

★ Content Hacking Lecture Series (CHL6): How to use presentations for content marketing [Registration now]

★ To improve your content power, please don’t miss the online course “[Content Power: The Super Power of Building Brands] (https://hahow.in/cr/content-power)”

★ Photo Credit: Andrew Neel

style=“display:block” data-ad-format=“autorelaxed” data-ad-client=“ca-pub-7348191874303466” data-ad-slot=“8706246337”>

---