The iceberg analogy

easily comes to mind. What we see of the iceberg as its tip represents just about 5% of the entire iceberg, at most 10%. That 5% cannot sink the Titanic. It is the 95% that does the trick. The same applies to your personal brand.

I know that your personal brand has a back end as well as a front end. The cardinal mistake that people make in building a personal brand is to focus only on the front end. As such, people are in a hurry to be identified, to be known, and to be touted.

Authenticity

You can only go so far with a personal brand that doesn’t have a back end. I mean, people can respect what you represent, or what you say you own. Where the rubber meets the road is when you have to deliver value commensurate to your touting. If there is no value, that personal brand fails.

The front end of your personal brand is important because it is what connects you to your prospective audience. It is also what your audience uses to “sneeze” about you. Therefore, one has to focus on it. However, the front end of a personal brand is as hollow as an ancient grave of the back end is not catered for.

Recap

The first step in building a personal brand is to focus on yourself. You are the nucleus or the ground zero of your personal brand. Therefore, you look in you and find out what you are all about. Find out about your passion and mission and purpose. Find out about your strengths. Start building a personal brand from there.

The second step in building a personal brand is to become a hero. A hero is someone who delivers people from a villain. So you determine what you hate that is messing up and troubling the lives of those you love (your audience).

3. Build Your Value Add

Once you know who you are and that you are a hero to someone, the final step in building your personal brand is to determine what tools you will use to fight your villain. These will necessarily add value to your audience. It is what your audience will interact with.

If you are a spiderman, you will be using your web and agility. If you are Jesus Christ, you will be using the cross. If you are Bill Gates, you will be using software. If you are Steve Jobs, you will be using products.

Your Brand Story is About Solutions

Value addition is of critical importance in a personal brand. At the end of the day, the story of your personal brand will be told when your audience has been assisted. What will you use to assist them? Is it not your value addition? How is this value addition packaged? Is it not through your products and services?

This is what forms the back end of your personal brand. When I tout myself as a hero, I must back it up with products and services that offer value that solves problems that my audience is facing. If I say that I am a hero that helps people discover their purpose, then my value add has to be crafted separately from who I am.

It’s About Your Products and Services

In other words, people will interact with my products more than they do interact with me. The value add must not only be built, but it also has to be packaged. It must not only be packaged; it also has to be touted. We, therefore, need to consider the following when we are building the value add:

1. Consistency:

As already discussed, it is important to have focus. When you build products and services, the consistency with which you are serving your audience should be highlighted. The more you are consistent in service, the more you are refining your value addition.

The less you are serving your audience with consistency, the more you are becoming obscure and irrelevant to them. A hero that is not seen or felt in any way becomes hated and forgotten. Consequently, the crowds will look for another hero to help them. So stay in the game and be consistent.

2. Excellence:

There has to be a level of finesse that you are applying when you are building the products. Not only are the products built with finesse, but you are also packaging them with excellence.
Obviously, the excellence I am talking about has to cater to the front end of your personal brand. This is where the bells and whistles are added to showcase what the brand brags to deliver and actually has the capacity to deliver. Why? Because the value add of products and services have already been crafted.

3. Testimonials:

When people have been helped by your personal brand, they will speak. Whenever they speak to appreciate the help that you offered, you have to document their speeches. Every time someone is looking for help in that area, they will be attracted by the words of someone else who has been helped by your personal brand.

A personal brand without a value-add is empty and misleading. It is hot air, no matter how beautiful it has been made to look. A great brand has a great front end that actually represents a great back end which has been crafted with impeccable value addition through which the audience interacts.