Rebranding Yourself | Ep. 182

This week we’re talking about rebranding yourself. Where do you get started? What do you do? What are the things that are going to get you there?

WHY REBRANDING YOURSELF MIGHT BE NECESSARY

I want to keep this pretty simple today. I was thinking about this because I know a lot of you out there are figuring out who you are as a brand.

You are either in a career that you are looking to leave, or you’ve already left. Maybe you are an independent entrepreneur or coach, and you are still figuring out who you are, what you’re about, and what you want your reputation to be. As they say, what do you want to be known for?

That’s a daunting task to think about and strategize. A lot of the time what you start with as your brand will have to change over time.

REBRANDING IS AN ONGOING PROCESS

For me, a rebrand doesn’t just happen once. It consistently happens. I am consistently finding things that are new about myself and about how I help people that I now have to build into my brand.

If you’re a starting down this road and you’re trying to work on, “What do I do to rebrand myself?” I don’t want you to think of this as imagery and logos and slogans and offers. I want you to start to dig a little bit deeper than that.

Think about what they would say is your “Why.” Why is it that I am looking to rebrand myself? I would suggest that for a lot of us out there, the reason we’re rebranding ourselves is that we’re starting to know ourselves a little bit better. We’ve learned something new.

YOU HAVE TO GET TO KNOW YOURSELF

This happened to me many times when I was leaving corporate. I was getting to know who I was a) as an entrepreneur, b) as a creator, as someone who’s putting my own thoughts into the space, and then c) as a thought leader, as someone who has their own perspective.

Those are all different things, piece by piece. How do I create content, what are the things that I like to say, and how do I help people are all individual pieces of my brand. However, it all came back to this idea of knowing yourself, like “Know thyself.”

I don’t exactly know where it came from, but I do know that for a lot of us, knowing yourself is not an easy step. Being such complicated people, being that there are so many nuances to who we are, it’s hard to wrap that into a little bundle and to express it to other people.

What I realized is there are three steps that really help you start to identify what those things are that you want to tell people. One of them is speaking your truth. The second is introducing yourself, and the third is taking action. Here’s what I mean by that.

REBRANDING REQUIRES SPEAKING YOUR TRUTH

If you really want to get to know yourself in terms of helping rebrand yourself, one of the first things that you get out there and have to do is speak your truth. It could be in the form of you creating content that is in your voice, which I say a lot of my show.

This could be in the form of you doing interviews and going on other people’s shows and answering questions that people ask you because that’s when it becomes the most natural. Someone asks you a question and you give them a response.

Another is speaking. You come up with your framework, your thoughts on something, and go and teach that in a methodical way to someone else in a speaking environment. Speaking your truth is one of the easiest ways to know yourself because as you continue to use your voice, you continue to find those themes that are the things that you like to think about and talk about.

That becomes part of your brand. That’s the content part of your brand. If you’ve listened to any of my episodes about personal branding, I talk a lot about content, community, and impact as the three pillars of personal branding. This is that content piece. If you want to know yourself, speaking your truth through content is that piece.

REBRANDING REQUIRES NEW INTRODUCTIONS

Now the second piece that I mentioned is introducing yourself. Having to actually get out there and describe to other people who we are and what we do in multiple environments helps us actually refine our own ideas and perceptions about who we are.

Especially if you do the exercises for what to write down as an introduction, you realize that who you are is different based on who you meet, what that relationship is, and the environment you’re in at the time.

If I’m meeting a friend, I’m going to say one thing. I’ll say something else If I’m meeting a stranger that’s in my neighborhood. If I’m meeting someone at a business conference, that’s one thing. If I meet someone in a business meeting where there’s some rapport already, that’s something else.

There are all these different environments. Each time we have to think on our feet. Who are we, what do they need to know about me that’s going to be important to them and this situation?

That’s why it gets kind of interesting to go through the practice of introducing yourself and putting yourself into situations where you have to introduce yourself, but actively thinking about that. What do I want to say now that I know that I’m going to be in this place?

What do I want these people to know that’s going to either start a conversation or introduce enough curiosity that it leads to what’s important for them to know about me?

EACH INTRODUCTION IS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT

That goes into you actually thinking about each situation. What is it that I want to introduce myself as?

For example, we just talked about our normal natural “Hello.” That’s one way. Another way is having to write an About page for a website where you describe yourself, who you are, what motivates you and how you help people on a webpage. It takes a little bit of time.

It takes some introspection, but that practice helps you get to know yourself better, especially with the rebrand by actually writing that stuff out before you publish it, and doing it a couple of times. Looking at examples from other people who do it in your space helps.

RELATED: Build your personal brand with the Content Marketing Starter Guide.

DON’T FORGET ONLINE INTRODUCTIONS

The third is having to write a bio, having to write some kind of biography that you would send to someone that would want to interview you, or that you’d use for a speaking engagement. This would describe you in some other way for an opportunity.

Creating a little biography about yourself for those different environments also is helpful because once you have to introduce yourself to other people, you think about those things differently. You’re actually forced to take action and write this thing down.

As you do that, you get to read it back to yourself and analyze what this sounds like. That is you getting to know yourself. It involves the community of people that you are interacting with. What’s funny is it all aligns really nicely with content, community, and the last is impact.

REBRANDING MEANS TAKING ACTION

Then the last has to do with taking action. One of the best ways to get to know yourself is by actually getting out there and doing work with people. If we’re in this personal branding space, we have something to offer. We’re building a coaching business. We are trying to teach something. We are out there building reputation, connected to a business in some way.

A lot of the time that’s confusing because we have a lot of skills and we’re not sure what to offer. We have so many things that we could do for people, especially if you’re a generalist like I am.

A lot of the time, instead of just coming up in your brain what you think the perfect offer is, you might have to try helping people with a lot of different things until you figure out the thing that either you like doing the best or that you see the most success in when you’re helping people.

It could be in a free environment. Just say, “Let’s jump on a call and see if I can help you with this thing.”

Doing that over and over again and helping people along the way is going to help you start to internalize what it is that you enjoy doing, what you don’t enjoy doing, and the things that you’re really good at.

As you start to take those actions and help and serve people, having an impact on other people’s business and their lives, you are getting to know yourself. All of that becomes part of your brand.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF REBRANDING YOURSELF

If you are rebranding and you’re thinking about how to tell your story, one of the best ways is to start by looking at who are you based on getting out there, creating content, speaking your truth, introducing yourself to people, and writing your “About” pages in your bios.

Then take some action to get out there and help people in that space that you want to be rebranded in. Take some steps to actually interact and work with people in that space. That’s going to help you really identify with the thing you’re looking to be.

That way you’re not hitting these walls that people hit that feel like imposter syndrome where it feels like you’re telling people you’re one thing, but you’re really not because you’re not introducing yourself. You’re not creating content that lives up to that. You’re not taking action that backs that up.

Once you start doing these three things and you’re taking action along that way, it helps you really live in that brand that you are moving towards, and guess what? It will continue to change and evolve every few months.

ALWAYS PRESENT YOUR TRUEST SELF

You might have a little bit of a pivot that leans more into a truer version of yourself, and that’s okay. Just continue to rebrand and take those actions again. If it means you have to change a website or change a slogan, fine, those are outputs. Those are not your identity. Those are outputs.

Thinking about flexibility, especially as a personal brand, you change as a human. Thinking about that flexibility over time will help you reframe what a rebrand is to you. It’s not the same as a corporate rebrand, where you might have the same identity for thirty years.

You are a person who is working with people. Over time your brand will evolve and grow and change. To really feel true and honest about that, to know yourself, to really understand yourself and make that rebrand work for you, you have to take those actions. Speak your truth. Introduce yourself. Make an impactful action that serves and helps your audience.

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