by Tania Artemova | May 26, 2018 | Marketing
What if one day you woke up famous? What would you do and how you would use this status?
It’s an open secret that nowadays everyone can become a celebrity and start building a business using own name and reputation.
And success doesn’t depend on your monthly income, country, job, gender or age.
I am planning to write a number of articles dedicated to the theme of personal branding in order to help you understand where to start and how to grow your business using your personality.
Remember this: being an influencer today is one of the MOST effective ways to bring any business to the next level.
Do not underestimate the role of personal branding in business development.
Such personal brands as Neil Patel, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, Richard Branson have an incredible impact on millions of people following them on social media and thus, contributing to their business growth.
So, why not use the opportunity of building your personal brand? Let’s analyze this topic in detail.
How to build your personal brand
According to Wikipedia, personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. In other words, you promote yourself as an expert, not your business or services.
An influencer is an expert in a particular niche who has an impact on people’s opinions and choices.
To become an opinion leader and have an influence on what decisions people make you should be an expert in a particular niche, share and promote your experience and knowledge.
“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field” Niels Bohr
Today we have tons of information online related to any topic and it is hard to find really valuable advice there. Becoming an expert you help people to avoid mistakes and get expected results more quickly.
Following the steps below you can start building your personal brand and become an influencer in your niche:
1. Find your niche
Finding your niche is a MUST-do step that every would-be influencer should start with.
There are particular steps that will help you to identify your personal brand niche and won’t take too much time.
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Select several niches you love
Write down at least 3 niches you have worked with before or you are interested in. It can be anything from cooking to investing. Your DEEP interest in these fields matters the most.
You should be passionate about it even you don’t have enough knowledge or experience.
Make a research for each of these fields. Visit niche websites and forums to learn what questions are most frequently asked there. It is even better to ask questions yourself in order to understand the target audience more deeply.
Communicate and get involved.
After you realized the problems people have in the niche, write down the list of skills that you need to have if you want to help people with these problems.
Do not worry if you don’t have any of these skills.
Look at your list with niches, problems and skills required.
Which one is the most attractive to you?
What is the niche you are ready to devote your time to?
What is your passion?
You should have the desire to bring value to the niche by helping people to solve their problems.
Think about the variants you have and select 1 niche.
Now when you know what niche is the best fit for you, try to find at least 10 blogs related to it and follow them.
Consider not only blogs but social media influencers, YouTube vloggers, podcasts or anything else related to this niche.
Learn what great leaders in your niche are writing about, which topics appeared to be more popular among the readers, read the comments and questions.
Learn the field.
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Define your value proposition
The best business strategy ever is to bring value and solve the problems. To understand your value proposition more deeply I would ask you consider the following structure:
I help ________(here you write your target audience) TO________(here you write which problems you can help to solve and how
This is an example of how it may look in my case:
I help ambitious and self-motivated people to get financial freedom by starting and growing their own business.
And now it’s your turn, do it!
2. Identify your expert type and channel of communication
WOW! If you followed each step you already have your niche and unique value proposition. Congratulations!
Now you should identify the way you will communicate your expertise to your audience in accordance with your EXPERT TYPE.
Below is the list of key expert types and the channels of communication used to promote your personal brand. Please read it carefully and identify which one is a better fit for you:
Channels of communication: conferences, seminars, public events, podcasts
Channels of communication: books, magazines, blogs
Channels of communication: social media – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.
Channels of communication: online/offline courses, business programs
Channels of communication: community websites / social media groups
Choose the type in accordance with the channel of communication you are going to use for promotion. When making your choice I would recommend considering the following factors:
- The interests of your target audience in accordance with your personal brand niche (where is the most part your clients
- Your skills – writing, speaking, organizational, leadership, photography, etc
NB! One very important thing here – you should select only one main channel of communication with your audience, but your personal brand can be presented in several channels.
Do not spend too much effort on each of the channels. Such a strategy is never effective.
Stay focused.
FINALLY
Building a personal brand needs time and hard work, but the results of your efforts can be amazing.
Follow personal branding tips carefully and be consistent.
In my next article, I am going to highlight the details on how to promote your personal brand. Stay in touch.
P.S. Do not miss more useful tips about building your personal brand and follow my brand new Instagram account dedicated to Personal Branding
by Tania Artemova | Dec 10, 2017 | Inspiration, Marketing, Personal Development
I was very skeptical about different sorts of tests. I just didn’t believe the results which are usually too general. But recently I’ve taken this very special personality test and my opinion changed.
Last week I met with my close friends to discuss our next BIG ideas and plans for the coming year. Actually, I enjoy such meetings in a cozy atmosphere and with inspiring talks where each of us generates tons of ideas and gives promises for the nearest future.
I recommend everyone to try the same format of meetings to discuss plans with the team. The results can be very unexpected. This was not for the first time when our discussion appeared to be super productive and brought thought-provoking results.
How we took the test
My friend offered us to take one simple test to define which personality types each of us is, and then, we had to share the results with each other. This personality test can help to understand if you can be an entrepreneur. We did it.
It was really a fantastic idea! We learned so much about each other. And, what is more important, we learned more about ourselves.
Have you ever been in the situation when you are reading some words and thinking, …wow, it took me years to understand this, or I wish could read it several years ago… We had this feeling when we were reading the results of the test.
So, if you really want to understand your team and yourself better, this test will show you a lot. Also, the description of all personality types is open to read for everyone.
And I would like to share mine with you. Frankly speaking, it is VERY hard for me to share anything from my private life with anyone, but if you came to my blog, I believe we have similar interests and goals. 🙂
This is the quote from the description of my personality type:
“Advocate personality type establishes their independence by either finding a leadership position or simply starting their own practice. As independents, sole proprietors in the parlance of business, they are free to follow their hearts, applying their personal touch, creativity, and altruism to everything they do.”
If one of your strengths is ideation and you can never stay long in one place, maybe you are doing something wrong working for a company as an ordinary employer. Maybe, you can bring more value to people by creating something cool, and your business will help thousands of us.
But you will never know until you try. Think about it.
This is one more interesting quote that helped me to understand that I am on the right way:
“For Advocates, money, and Employee of the Month simply won’t cut it compared to living their values and principles.”
This is so true to what I’ve always felt inside, that even hard to believe.
What else you can learn
So, what else you can learn by taking the test. Basically, taking this test you will know the following:
- Your personality type description
- Strengths and weaknesses
- Romantic relationships
- Friendship
- Parenthood
- Career Paths
- Workplace habits
So, it’s time to act
All the information is totally free to read and you can also get a copy to your email. But there is also a paid plan for those who would like to know what to do with all that information you just learned about yourself from the test. 🙂
Not scared? Go ahead!
by Tania Artemova | Jul 27, 2017 | Inspiration, Marketing
Startups are all about people. Every entrepreneur would tell you that it is impossible to gain success in business without a team who is as much enthusiastic about what you are doing as you are.
“Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story” – Casey Stengel
Building a strong and successful team where each member is passionate about the process is a real challenge. When hiring a new employee you never know what this collaboration will result in.
It is always a risk.
Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not.
Nevertheless, we are trying to attract people similar to ourselves. In everyday life, you would hardly become close friends with people whose values go against yours.
The same in business.
Even if you met a very cool skilled guy with over 10 years of proven experience in your field, but who becomes a cause of conflicts breaking the processes and demotivating the team, more likely you wouldn’t be able to build something great together.
1. Involve people who believe in your idea
“Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others” John Maxwell
We are attracted to people who are just like us. Look around!
People believing in your next BIG idea, believe in you. If you are proud of your team, keep ongoing.
2. Set goals
“A successful team is a group of many hands and one mind” Bill Bethel
Setting goals sounds like a rule for any entrepreneur. It is great if you understand where you want to be in a year or two.
But make sure that your team is also aware of where you are going.
Discuss. Share. Involve.
3. Appreciate and motivate
“Failure is due to the leader. Success is due to the team”
We are motivated to reach some goals in business and private life when realizing what we get in return when these goals are reached.
Each team player has his own motivation. It can be either skills development, or career growth, or anything else.
But, there should be also one common motivation for the team as a whole. And that is the task for the leader to create it.
By the way, motivating people with money doesn’t work. There is always someone who can become a ‘bigger motivator’ for your team player than you.
My motivation is to bring the results I can be proud of. Motivation is to see a happy and inspired team enjoying the process. Motivation is to move and grow together with a team.
And what is motivation for you?
4. Inspire
“A leader must inspire or his team will expire” Orrin Woodward
Inspiration always doubles my productivity at work. People surrounding me make me move forward. It’s great to get such a dozen of positive energy and motivation in a team.
Inspire your team. Become a leader who is open to everyone, who shares experience and provides support turning any difficulties into a simple action plan.
5. Care
“We are not a team because we work together. We are a team because we respect, trust, and care for each other.”
You definitely were in the situation when someone didn’t care about what you were explaining or talking about. Do you remember that feeling? Sucks!
Emotional engagement is an important aspect of teamwork. And it’s not only about the working process.
Provide support and care to your team. Respect their interests and share joys. Spend more time together eating pizza or just playing football and then eating pizza… 🙂
That’s it!
Do you think these steps can hardly be realized when you are too busy caring about your business growth?
Try it!
by Tania Artemova | Apr 22, 2017 | Marketing
Everyone who starts a business should read a lot. Business books with best practices, motivational literature, and blogs related to the sphere of your interest. I shouldn’t tell you that reading stimulates personal and professional growth. I am sure you know it. But I would like to tell about the literature that helps me to develop my own projects. The literature that changed my life and business vision.
My number one book I would like to recommend is ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.
What does the ‘blue ocean’ mean? The authors of the bestseller use the term ‘ocean’ to explain market relations.
There are people with similar needs.
There are companies satisfying these needs in a similar way.
These people and companies have commercial relations where people pay for the product supplied by the company. It is called the market.
There are tons of different markets: market of mobile technology, the market of the handmade, market of pizza, textile market and market of high fashion, educational market and many others you can only imagine.
So, if you are the only company in the market and have lots of clients, it is great! You satisfy the clients’ needs, define the rules of the game and market price.
This means ‘blue ocean’ – uncontested market space.
In a while, other companies see your success and start creating similar products but providing people with lower prices and better quality. Your competitors enter the game and the blood will run.
This means ‘red ocean’.
The goal of the blue ocean strategy is to make a product that creates an uncontested marketplace.
Do not compete
Try not to follow the rules of your competitors by making something similar to their product. Create your own market, your ‘blue ocean’ and you win.
Any revolutionary product is in a blue ocean market. Steve Jobs managed to create a successful commercial tablet market, though tablets had already existed before.
How to create a Blue Ocean
1. Learn everything about your customers
Blue ocean strategy teaches that entrepreneurs should concentrate on non-customers and understand how to convert them into customers.
Australian company Casella Wines analyzed the portrait of Americans who do not drink wine. It was found out that the middle and lower classes do not drink wine because people cannot understand its taste and regional differences in the product. As a result, the company created special light fruit wine at a lower price. Casella Wines became one of the most popular wine brands in the USA.
2. Analyze market stereotypes
Think out-of-box and analyze the market differently. Everyone knows that flying is comfortable and fast but not very cheap. Make it cheaper but without all additional services.
Competitiveness takes place when people think the same way. Try to take a fresh look at what modern market offers and change the concept of your product.
3. Add the emotional part to the product
A lot of well-known brands became popular due to their emotional value.
It was a simple coffee shop and grew into the club uniting people with common interests (Starbucks).
It was a brand of elite and expensive watches and became one of the most popular youth watch brands (Swatch).
Finally
So, in conclusion, I would like to stress, that if you are a startup founder who has just started the way to that big business world, I strongly recommend you to pay attention to this book. And feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
by Tania Art | Apr 11, 2017 | Inspiration, Marketing
You and I are happy people to live now, in the 21st century. The world is full of great opportunities – if you want to travel – go for it. If you want to be a fashion designer – no problem, there are lots of educational videos on how to do it. Or maybe you want to gain world recognition and popularity – you are welcome to register an account on YouTube and just make videos demonstrating your talent.
The problem is that only a small part of people use these opportunities. Most people cannot reach success because of the fear to fail and lack of knowledge.
Stop doing this! Everyone can be successful. Barriers are in our heads.
1. Be confident and impudent
A lack of self-confidence is the very first thing that stops us from trying something new. We are watching other people’s success stories on social media and thinking that we fail. The same was with me.
If you want it, work for it!
But you never know how much time and efforts successful people spent to reach such great results. And when I realized it I started doing real steps towards my dream and it worked.
Create your own story. Just try it and you’ll be surprised.
2. Surround yourself with strong people
People play a crucial role in what we do. Find people who lift you up when you are almost down. Depressed people radiate negative energy and block you from making crucial decisions. Press “delete” button and avoid such individuals in your everyday life.
You become like the five people you spend the most time with.
Find people who are smarter than you, people who are inspired and motivated. They will help you to feel that any dream can become a reality.
3. Educate yourself
There are unlimited opportunities for free education if you have just an Internet connection and any device. I am always trying to find some interesting courses, even if they are not connected with my professional sphere.
It is so interesting that people all around the world are ready to share their knowledge and experience.
Education helps to develop creativity and generate new ideas. Education is power and you should find 30 minutes a day for it.
There are some useful resources where you can find free online courses:
4. Do not be afraid of mistakes
At school, we are taught that everyone must be punished for making a mistake. ‘Making mistakes is very bad’ – my teacher told me. But I think that mistakes should be your motivation.
Once I had an experience of public event organization. It was a festival for illustrators and designers, but I wanted it to be interesting for everyone. So we planned entertainment, market, illustration exhibition and lots of fun. We found a location that was very cool in terms of city infrastructure. But a week before the start the government didn’t approve our event and we had to search for another place. Fortunately, we managed to find a beautiful park, but our advertising campaign was ruined. This case helped to understand my mistakes and motivated me for making one more successful event.
5. Take care of your health
Success is impossible without health. Remember about your lifestyle. Healthy food, sport, sleeping should be a part of your everyday activities. Drink more water and forget about alcohol and smoking. Try to have some rest during the day. Reading, drawing, music listening – do all things that inspire you and help to relax.
Read also: This personality test will show if you are ready to start a business
Conclusion
I strongly believe that everything is possible in our life. If you can dream it you can do it. Just love yourself, be more confident in what you are doing, keep on working and you will succeed.
