Your Personal Branding Journey Begins With Clarity
Make sure you take the time to get it
One day, somewhere in the world, a horse suddenly came galloping quickly down the road.
It seemed as though the man riding the horse had somewhere important to go.
Another man, who was standing alongside the road, shouted, “Where are you going?” and the man on the horse replied,
“I don’t know! Ask the horse!”
The guy on the horse? That’s us. We don’t have the necessary clarity on where we want to go, so we end up going where the horse takes us. Who’s the horse? Trends, fads, family, friends, money, fame, power. Anything but us.
I’ll say it again for those in the back.
If want to be successful in a digital world, whether you’re an entrepreneur or a working professional, you need to be intentional about building your brand.
And…
If you want to captivate, you must first differentiate.
But both personal brand building and differentiation start with clarity.
This is my favorite definition of clarity:
clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity.
-Dictionary.com
Freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity. Clarity is differentiation and differentiation is clarity.
The Personal Branding Clarity Pyramid
But how do we get it? I have a framework that I’m calling “The Personal Branding Clarity Pyramid.” Is that clear enough? I hope so.
I won’t be going into all the details related to the various layers of the pyramid and how to apply it to your situation, but it’s important that you understand that there are three distinct but connected layers of clarity.
If you want your personal brand to endure and to be successful, you need to start getting clarity on them.
Clarity of Purpose
At the bottom of the pyramid, we have the first and probably most important level of clarity, Clarity of Purpose. This is the base and main support of your personal branding efforts.
Why are you doing what you do? What meaning does it hold for you? What impact are you trying to make?
At this level, you need to answer those questions and explore issues such as fear, imposter syndrome, purpose, and mastery.
Clarity of Positioning
Your work on getting clarity of purpose should point you in the direction of how you should position your brand.
Clarity of positioning is about answering five clarity questions:
- Who do you serve?
- What problem do you solve?
- How do you solve it?
- What transformation do you deliver?
- How are you different?
The ability to answer these questions as specifically as possible tells you where your niche is and to stand out from the crowd you must choose our niche.
Your niche is where you make your stand. Your niche is where you buckle down and strive to be the best for your audience. You will live or die on our niche.
Clarity of positioning isn’t just about choosing a specific niche though, it’s also about developing your perspective as well. Your perspective will inform all your content creation efforts going forward.
Your perspective will be unique to you and will help your audience not just identify you but identify with you.
Clarity of Messaging
This is really practical. It’s about making sure all your content and comments are aligned with all previously discovered levels of clarity.
It’s about your social media profiles, your bio, your about us/me page, your content an even about your offer. Making sure people are clear about how to even start working with you.
When everything about your personal brand is clear, people will be clear on whether they want to work with you or not and they will be clear on if you are a good fit based on where they are in their journey.
Clarity brings action. When people are clear on the value you bring, there is little to no hesitation when it comes time to spend.
If you’re interested in my perspectives, — You, Me, Them is my email series reserved strictly for entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial-minded and creatives looking to captivate their audience’s attention, clarify their brand and stand out from the crowd.
