Personal Branding Basics- Start Your Journey Part 3 of 3

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The final part of the Personal Brand series. This session focuses on two fundamental aspects of personal branding through visibility and credibility.

The Importance of Visibility

Visibility is the cornerstone of a successful personal brand. As Jens emphasizes, you may have a clear understanding of who you are and what you represent, but without visibility, your impact remains limited. In the digital age, there are countless avenues to enhance your brand's visibility, with social media and the web being the most prominent.

Harnessing Social Media

Social media platforms offer a powerful tool to amplify your brand. Jens advocates for an active and strategic presence on these platforms. He draws parallels from his experience with IKEA, where constant engagement and visibility studies ensure the brand remains top-of-mind globally. Applying similar strategies can help you establish a recognizable and influential personal brand.

Leveraging Web Presence

A personal website serves as a hub for your brand. Jens highlights the significance of maintaining a website that reflects your vision and personality. It acts as a central point where audiences can engage with your content, learn about your achievements, and understand your professional ethos.

Building Credibility

While visibility attracts attention, credibility builds trust. Jens outlines several ways to enhance your credibility. Success stories naturally draw people in; showcasing your achievements can significantly boost your credibility. However, not everyone starts with a portfolio of successes.

Strategic Partnerships

Collaborating with credible individuals and organizations can lend you their credibility. Jens shares his experience with his podcast, where guests from diverse and reputable backgrounds contribute to his credibility. Each guest, whether a startup founder or a Hollywood producer, enhances his brand's trustworthiness.

Impact and Consistency

Credibility also stems from the impact you make and your consistency over time. Genuine engagement, a commitment to creating meaningful impact, and sustained efforts build a credible and respected personal brand.

Integrating Personal Branding into Business

Jens points out the natural synergy between personal and business branding. The principles of visibility and credibility apply equally to businesses. A strong personal brand can elevate your business, creating a human connection that resonates with audiences.

Watch the Video of the Live Leadership Bootcamp here

Jens Heitland's insights from the Leadership Bootcamp provide a comprehensive guide to building a powerful personal brand. By focusing on visibility and credibility, leveraging social media and web presence, and forging strategic partnerships, you can establish a brand that not only stands out but also stands the test of time. Start your journey today and transform your personal brand into a beacon of success.

Transcript of the video:

If we go into the next part of personal branding, one thing I always talk about, you can have the best understanding for yourself of who you are and what you want to represent. If nobody sees you as a brand there's no impact in this world.  Same on the other side is if you are not credible.

So building up visibility for your brand, that's the same for the company, and credibility on the same time will help you to succeed with a brand impact. And we are not talking about company development in what we do, but I think there's a huge correlation. If you can do this for yourself, for your personal brand, you can copy paste that into your business as well.

So visibility. How do you gain visibility? There are hundreds of possibilities in the world where we are in right now, 2023. Social media is a huge thing. If you follow me on social media, then you know that I'm extreme when it comes to this because I know. From branding aspect, working within a company like ikea, IKEA is well known.

So Ikea does studies inside of all the different markets worldwide. Are we top of mind?  Are we within the first companies? When you think about furniture, and they are in most of the places worldwide, when you ask what is the one company you know about furniture?

Then people are saying Ikea. So how do you get to that level with what you do, what you want, so that more and more people understand that you are existing of what you're doing. Because if they know that you exist, they can engage with what you do, they can gain the impact you're after.

And of course, websites, web in let's put web in general. Web is a huge opportunity. To be visible. That's why I have, for example, a personal website, and that's why I have company websites. My personal website is my hub, where it's all about me, all about my vision, all about my personality, and then my business is all about business. 

And of course, my personal website is almost zero business, at least my personal business. Then you can do a blog  different outreachs like I do my podcast. Obviously, your business in itself will give you visibility depending on how you do this. I truly believe that we should build human businesses where people behind the businesses are seen.

When I look up startups, for example, when I look up accelerators I want to work with, when I look up  investor companies, I look into who are the people behind it.  And that's why I'm putting business here 

 as well, because that is reflecting your personal brand into your business, into your startup. And then of course I do speaking, engagement and other things on the go.

 Visibility is a key part and  I have focused a lot on that. The other part of the scale is credibility. So how do you gain credibility? And that's we focus again on your personal brand. One part I gain credibility is obviously success. So whatever you do, if you can show that you have been successful, people are attracted by success stories.

If you don't have that, you have credibility through the people you engage with. If you take my podcast, I have credibility from every person that is willing to go onto my podcast. Let's call it partners. Partners in my case is the podcast guest. I have had people from students, from startup founders to Hollywood movie producers, and the CEO, like everything in between was on my podcast and every time someone with credibility, and it doesn't matter what credibility comes onto my podcast.

They give their credibility to me. If you see that I have interviewed this specific person, all the people knowing that specific person, then say, oh, you go onto this podcast, you are spending time with this person. That means we can trust this person as well. So that gives you credibility. There are different contributors and more things.

I think another one is the impact you do as a person. The way you talk, the way you engage with other people the way you truly want to create impact and not just your monetary impact for yourself as more credible you are, and of course as longer you do that. So I'm just putting time in here.

 These things will help you find out what your personal brand is and how do you bring it to life.