"Vista's Little Voice": How to build a personal brand without strong points
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Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
In the program a few days ago, I talked to you about “Use templates to create a new pattern in life”, and I happened to also talk about issues related to personal branding. If you are interested in building your own personal brand, subscribe to “Vista Newsletter” now and you can download a newsletter and template on building a personal brand for free!
Several audience members contacted me after listening to that day’s program. I found that these friends who are interested in building a personal brand all have beautiful visions for the future… But coincidentally, they all mentioned a question, that is: How to build a personal brand if you have no strengths?
This is indeed a common question, but isn’t it possible to build a personal brand without a strong point or expertise? Apparently, there are people who think differently! “[Smart working techniques for the new generation of multiple jobs](https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/products/0010911823?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap -books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-202201)” [Tsuchita Ai] (https://tsuchitaniai.com), the author of the book, believes that there are no “people without strengths” in this world. Because the so-called strengths are actually your own characteristics.
I agree with this, so what exactly are your strengths? Simply put, it is the characteristics that can help achieve the purpose. For example, are you a person who is good at adapting to the environment? Or are you good at observing market dynamics and summarizing complex matters?
Everyone has their own interests, expertise, and characteristics, and you must have one too. But the key point is how to “combine” and “amplify” so that others can easily see you?
Therefore, I suggest that friends who are interested in building a personal brand take some time to take stock of themselves. Take out your notebook and record it. What are your strengths and resources? Then carefully plan your positioning and boldly outline your future vision.
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In the self-inventory and analysis part, you can also make good use of the following three techniques:
- Segmentation: Make some appropriate segments of the market and try to find your niche. For example, someone told me that I want to run a mom’s market, but the scope is too big and it will be very hard to do! It would be better to target more specific segments, such as the group of mothers of kindergarten and lower primary school students.
- Quantification: Use numbers to present your expertise and try to create a sense of presence. For example, if you just say that you are good at teaching copywriting, potential customers may not be too impressed. At this time, if you can highlight that you have more than ten years of teaching and training experience, and have helped hundreds of companies bring in huge amounts of orders during this period, it will be impressive.
- Differentiation: Competition on various tracks is fierce nowadays. If you want to be seen, you must be different and differentiated. In terms of copywriting teaching, there may be hundreds of lecturers teaching writing in Taiwan alone, not to mention those teachers who came from Chinese and Taiwanese departments…
After doing a good self-inventory and analysis, you can then build a personal brand to give you the opportunity to highlight that the products and services you provide are indeed different from others. In fact, building a personal brand is not only about showing a bright side to the outside world, but also about attracting potential customers who are interested in reading your content and making them realize that you are serious about running your career and life and are trustworthy.
Of course, when taking stock of yourself, you can also think about the following questions:
- What things do you spend a lot of money and time on?
- Is there anything that you put in a lot of effort but still enjoy doing?
- What kind of things do colleagues or friends often ask you for help?
- What things make you so absorbed that you forget to eat or sleep?
- Which social media or websites do you usually have regular contact with?
- Which topics or series have the most books in your bookcase?
Trying to find the answers to these questions will naturally help you find your career direction. As for the positioning of personal brand, I suggest that we think about it from two different directions: one is to look at the future from the present, and the other is to use the future to define the present.
Looking at the future from the present means asking you to find the parts that you are most confident or interested in among the skills and strengths you currently have, and then lock in the relevant markets and continue to work hard.
To define the present from the future, we must try to find our own role model. When you find the person you most want to be in the future, you can naturally dig out the most critical factors from him, and then work hard in this direction!
The internationally renowned director Ang Lee (https://futureparenting.cwgv.com.tw/family/content/index/21362) once said that he only concentrates on doing what he is best at. “Even if the environment is not smooth, frustration and pressure can become nourishment in the future.” These words impressed me deeply, and I admire Director Ang Lee for persisting for so many years and continuing to do what he is good at and passionate about.
Therefore, if you have found your future direction, please remember to give yourself some time, don’t be too ambitious, and please focus on the development of this field. Sooner or later you will excel and become an expert in this field.
For those who want to build a personal brand, focus is very important. The late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, once said: “People always think that focus means focusing on things that must be focused on, but in fact it is not the case. Focus really means saying no to hundreds of other good ideas. Choosing carefully is the key.”
Indeed, we not only need to focus, but we also need to work smartly. Running a personal brand requires one step at a time so that the foundation will be solid.
If you still feel that you are useless or even lack resources, I would suggest you make a cup of coffee and spend ten minutes to watch a wonderful speech titled “Don’t just look at nothing, borrow something from your dilemma” delivered by Grandpa Mars at the 2014 TED×Taipei conference.
Grandpa Martian, whose real name is Xu Ronghong, was my former colleague at Sweet Potato. In just 8 minutes, he said “no” 49 times. What’s interesting is that these “nos” in life did not cause shortcomings in life, but instead created his wonderful, rich and extraordinary life.
So, if you want to be different from others, you have to know how to borrow things from “nothing”! Go ask what your product doesn’t have? What is your service without? Even, what is your marketing? What are you selling without? In this way, you can make something different from others.
For example, when Grandpa Martian wrote his first book, he borrowed the characters from his favorite cartoon “[Science Peter Pan](https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/Science Peter Pan)” when he was a child. He pretended to be Dr. Nangong from the cartoon and started writing memos to the scientific Peter Pan. In this way, his first book became an instant hit and thus launched his writing career.
Grandpa Mars tells us that what traps us is never “what we don’t have”, but “how we view what we don’t have.” So, even if you really don’t have your own strengths, it doesn’t matter, let us lead you on the road to a prosperous personal brand!
If you want to know more about how to build a personal brand, welcome to join the “[Personal Brand Management Practice] (https://www.yottau.com.tw/course/intro/982)” online class I have opened at YOTTA. Of course, you are also welcome to leave a message or write to me to discuss!
★ Welcome to sponsor a cup of coffee and cheer for Vista! You can also express your support by sponsoring multiple times, thank you.
★ Want to learn content marketing techniques? Welcome to register for the online course “[Content Power: The Super Power of Building Brands] (https://hahow.in/cr/content-power)”.
If you want to hear me share about [Personal Brand](https://www.vistacheng.com/search?q=Personal Brand), [Content Marketing](https://www.contenthacker.today/2019/07/content-marketing-from-zero-to -hero.html), Copywriting or Reading Experience and other information, welcome to subscribe to “Vista Newsletter” for free! Thanks.
Further reading
- “Vista’s Little Voice”: How to create a colorful blog
- “Vista’s Little Voice”: How to find your own keywords
- “The Little Voice of Vista”: Make good use of templates to create a new pattern in life (comes with a personal branding briefing and templates)
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