How to show up as your brand

Nigel Back Author

To be memorable & grow your audience

Creating a brand and showing up as your brand is something very intangible. It’s not only that it can be difficult to understand what elements you need to put together to “have” a brand, but more so – to understand which actions you should take and which behaviours to demonstrate to show up as a brand.

The core words that can guide you to show up as your personal brand, not only for others but also for yourself are clarity, consistency, congruency, and commitment.

And that leads to another “C” – community!

Commitment might sound like a strange concept in this context but here’s what’s behind it…

Commit yourself to be your brand

Several times in your life, you’ve done things or taken actions that were bold, scary, and you were unsure about how it will work out for you. Actions where you knew, once you step over the edge, it’s all or nothing.

Something like pushing yourself over the edge of a black ski slope, stepping out of a plane to skydive, or quitting your job to run your own business.

These are “all or nothing” situations that are incredibly scary and carry a significant element of risk. But the thing is – you already have the abilities to manage a large part of that risk because you already have the foundational skills that are required to navigate and control your leap of faith as much as you can.

When you take a leap of faith, you need to trust in the abilities that you already have and trust in your ability to figure those things out that you need to learn in order to thrive and grow.

Committing yourself to being your brand starts with defining who you are as a brand, and what you bring to your brand so that you can act as your brand.

The first step is to review your skills, experience, knowledge, and expertise. This is where you find the abilities that you need to trust to manoeuvre your course with relative confidence and safety.

Should you start as a coach – let’s say a relationship coach, then you need to know something about…

• Coaching
• Managing conflict
• Active listening
• Powerful questioning
• Building true connections
• Focusing on a desired outcome
• How to give constructive feedback…

Your domain skills are essential – but you also need skills that allow you to build a business like…

• Marketing
• Sales
• Managing your finances
• Planning
• Networking…

These are the abilities that you might need to learn and where you need to trust your ability to figure things out – either on your own or with the support of a coach.

And…

These abilities feed into the personality of your brand (who you are as a brand) and how you act as a brand.

This is what you build your brand’s reputation and perception on. For that, you need to…

Have clarity about the kind of brand you want to create

Do you want to be a brand for everyone like Ikea?

Or do you want to be an exclusive brand like Mercedes?

Or do you want a brand that improves lives and cares for people like Medicines sans Frontiers?

Understanding your brand’s personality has a huge impact on your message and your actions but also on your strategy – when you think of building…

• A lifestyle brand that you can run on your own or a very small team
• A multi-million empire that offers high ticket products or services
• An SME that feels like a family…

You need to have clarity of where you want to go and how you want to get there. And even before you get there you need to show up as who you intend to be as a brand in your messaging.

Every touchpoint that you have with your audience contributes to how you are perceived as a brand.

Every post, phone call, coaching session, mastermind, sales conversation, email…

Your genuine and authentic personality, hopes, ambitions, dreams, and determination feed into your brand.

This can be hard to maintain but it is much easier when you can…

Be congruent with who you authentically are

Those who have worked in corporate may relate to this strongly. But when I was in corporate, I could not be my authentic self. My actions had to be aligned with company values, my language had to be corporate, and who I was interacting with was defined by my role and the company structure…

As the owner of your own business, you have incredible freedom. You define your values and beliefs, how you talk, what you say, how you behave, who you aspire to be, and who you want to work with or collaborate with.

Anything is possible – and that can be an issue too.

So, it is important to listen deeply into yourself and become aware of who you are and want to be so that you can build your brand in congruence with who you authentically are so that all your actions feel natural and are by default aligned with who you are.

Allowing yourself to be who you authentically are, has the advantage that you can consistently be who you are!

Consistency breeds familiarity and trust

It is hard to be consistent and even harder when you have to play a role and make a conscious effort to show up in a way that doesn’t feel natural.

Playing a role can be exhausting, it sends the wrong message, and attracts the wrong people.

But when you’re consistently yourself, then you attract people who resonate with you, who share your values, who appreciate who you are and with time trust you enough to gift you with their attention, time, and engagement – and ultimately trust you enough to work with you.

Showing up authentically when you market to people, deliver your services, and genuinely care about your clients after you’ve finished working with them – makes consistency so much easier because you can trust your behaviour patterns and develop habits that allow you to be yourself and know that you are amongst people who appreciate and value you as a person and for the value that you share.

The ease with which you are consistent shows in the content that you publish and the actions that you take. That all adds to your credibility and reputation.

It raises expectations that you can exceed because you can show up with joy and full integrity.

And that brings us to the additional “C” for community. By authentically showing up as your brand you can build a community of like-minded people who appreciate you just as you are. And that enables you to multiply your impact because your community members will invite others to join and help you grow your audience organically and by being yourself instead of following marketing fads and blueprints that are too generic to embrace your personality.

If you are in doubt or want help with finding out who you are authentically and as a brand, then send me a message and we can talk more.