Have you ever heard the saying “People buy from People, not businesses”? 

Even in this tech age where Amazon Prime has 147 MILLION users in the U.S. alone, there is a counter-culture where people still want to connect with who they give their money to. They want to feel good about their purchase not just because it’s a great product, but because it’s supporting someone they “know”. This is great news for Direct Sales/Solopreneurs – finally, an edge over Amazon! – but it means that we’ve got some work to do. We each have to build our own Personal Brand to make sure our customers feel like we are worthy of their money.

What’s your ‘Personal Brand’?

It’s the cohesive impression of you/your product based on the expertise, actions, and experiences that you put out there on social media. 

Where should you start?

In a nutshell, this is what you have to do:

• Identify who your ideal customer is.
• Understand what your customer wants to see (and what they DON’T want to see).
• Create consistent marketing that speaks to your customer.
• Share your personality.  Be personable. 
• Above all, BE AUTHENTIC!

At the bare minimum, your social media posts should support your brand.  If you sell dog collars, don’t post all the time about how cute cats are.  If you sell shirts that say “Peace Love and Happiness”, don’t post a rant about how angry your neighbor made you.   Yes, you may love cats, and yes your neighbor may have been a bonehead, but your ideal customer doesn’t care about those things.  They want to see cute puppies, and learn about your calming energy.  Stay in your lane, and play nice.

By no means am I telling you to be fake.  I know we all have those moments in our lives where we go off the rails a bit.  But before you hit the blue arrow to post what’s on your mind, run your post through this “Brand Filter”: 

• Do my customers want to read this? 
• Will this build trust or community with my customers? 
• Does this build my authority as an expert in my field?  

If the answer is no on all three, [x] out of it. 

This does NOT mean you have to stop sharing funny memes. Instead, reinforce your brand by finding a video or picture that comments on your industry.  So the guy that sells dog collars might google funny dog videos, or dog walk jokes.  And “Peace, Love, Happiness” shirt gal might search for funny zen memes.

CONSISTENCY is huge. It creates familiarity with your customers.  I use Canva.com to create a lot of my content.  In Canva, I created templates to use so I have the same colors, same format, and everything is branded at the bottom with my site.  I have templates I use for:

• Menus for Parties
• Event Announcements
• Thank you for your order posts

 

Notice how they all use the same colors and fonts?  We do this to make sure when someone sees a post, they KNOW who it’s coming from. Using templates, I can create a new image in less than 2 minutes.  Fast, easy, consistent branding.

You might think, “my brand is the company I sell for…I don’t need to create my own”. Well…

While it’s true that your company HAS a brand (they spend thousands of dollars on marketing every year), the company is marketing their products, not YOU.  They will make sure all their marketing is on trend, and that their products are appealing.

But what the company site DOESN’T do is tell your customers why they should buy from YOU and not the 3 other people they know that sell the same products that you do.

Most company-sponsored websites will give you a small space to write a short paragraph about yourself, and you can upload a small postage stamp sized picture.  But that’s about it.  Do you think your customer ever sees that page on your site? If they do see it, is it enough info for them to bond with you? Probably not.  If you are relying on the company business page to share your personality, I’m afraid your customers may never see it. 

Instead, what if you could send people to a site where they can watch a short video of YOU telling them how much you love your products and how you have made it your mission to help people who need them.  You can build that PERSONAL BRAND understanding what your customer wants to see, speaking to their needs, sharing your personality and being authentic – all at once. Then your customer is just using the company site for their ordering.

Makes sense, right? Let’s do it!

You can hire a web developer, a video company, and a marketing firm. (Bye bye savings…) Or you can try to learn coding yourself, take a class on internet marketing and video production. (Who’s got time for that?!?)

OR you can follow this link to youcanfollow.me.  Where we have already built the platform for you.  We offer training and guidance for our consultants, and we CARE.  Take 2 minutes to start your free trial.  You’ll be up and running in minutes.