Branding Yourself – How to Present Your Business to the World

Why Should You Care About Branding Yourself?

Full disclaimer: The following information is based on the work of Jay Kubassek known as the BlackBOOK. It is jammed full of awesome information and I highly recommend taking a look here: Jay Kubassek’s BlackBOOK

Before we go into WHY branding yourself is critical it is important to know what a brand is. In short, a brand is who you are/what your product is and why anyone should care. Your brand is the very foundation of your business. If you don’t have your brand figured out, there is no way you can position yourself or your business (at least not in a way that would benefit you in the slightest.)

The ABCs of Branding Yourself: Building Your Brand

In short, your brand is your credibility, authority, your reputation and your integrity all wrapped into one. It is what you are known for. It’s what your customers, and everyone else who knows about you and your product, say about you or your product or service.

Here are some key things you should keep in mind as you begin branding yourself:

1. Everything online lives forever

If you have embarassing pictures & videos up, rest assured some of your “friends” copied that content for blackmail purposes for later on down the road. Now, more than ever, it is absolutely vital to ensure that not only do you limit the embarrassing content your buddies & other people upload of you (basically by acting like you’re NOT on some bad drug when you’re out, therefore giving them less ammo to use against you later.)

It’s also crucial to ensure that the content you upload of your own free will is consistent & complimentary to what you want your brand to represent. All decisions you make must be looked at from this vantage point from here on out.

Keep in mind that the more people who know of you, the more scrutiny comes your way (a good quote I heard a couple days ago said something with the effect of “Behind every successful person comes a pack of haters.”) This is true of anyone looking to make a name for themselves and actually succeed in doing so.

Case in point: celebrities.

Whenever they sneeze, fart, have a cheeseburger, or whatever, the whole world knows about it. The thing is that no one cared about any of that BEFORE they became famous, before they became a globally recognized brand.

With this in mind, it is absolutely critical that you start to act NOW in the way you want you & your brand to be seen before starting to build your groupie collection.
2. Proofread your emails

Before you send your emails out, be sure to check not just the grammar, but also the “tone” of your message. How many times have we sent texts to a significant other and they get misconstrued? Sometimes it can be difficult to capture the right tone with just text, so be extra vigilant with this one.
3. Give Value

Simply put, give people a reason to come back. If you consistently give value & provide solutions to people’s problems, then people will not only come back, they will rant & rave to their friends about what you & your services did for them.

On a side note, it also helps to be entertaining & have fun in the process. If you are putting yourself to sleep with your messages, it’s time to start over & try again. As valuable and helpful as your content may be, it does no good if people fall asleep when they read it. I’m certainly no expert on this by any means, nor do I claim to be, but I do know this: if you are allowing yourself to have fun with the creation process, it will certainly come through in your content. Just be sure the humor & fun stay on topic with the rest of your content.
4. Be on time

This shows your audience/customers/partners/everyone that you consider their time to be important. And when you don’t consider their time to be valuable, then why should they care about yours? When you neglect this, it leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths about you & your brand.

This, like all bad press, spreads like wildfire, so make sure you always stay on time, or at least give a heads up whenever unforeseen circumstances pop up, as they love to do from time to time.
5. Don’t Flaunt Success; Reflect On It

Go back and reflect on the events, the failures, and the turning points that led you to your big win. Go back on what was done right, and what could have been done better. This part also goes back to giving value, as your experience can serve to lessen the pain & learning curve of this new business, and can chart a way through the mine field for your business partners to follow.

Also, most importantly, make sure you give credit to the people who helped you along the way. Those who helped bring you to the top can and will keep you at the top, but treat those people wrong, and you’ll be pulled right back down to where you just rose up from.

Actually, the descent back to where you came from will be even worse, since now you’re stuck with a reputation for being a scumbag that will be extremely hard to get rid of. So again, treat your people right every step of your journey, and beyond.

So now that you know the mindset, goals, and potential pitfalls of branding yourself, here are…

The 7 Action Steps for Successfully Branding Yourself In the Image You Want to Be Seen

1. Develop Your Brand Statement

This is by far the most crucial & in-depth part of creating your brand. You can’t expect to build a massive building without a set of blueprints. Your brand statement is your blueprint.

Before you can even begin to hope for success as an entrepreneur you need to fully understand your brand, and a good start to that is to ask yourself the following questions about your brand:

What do I want my brand to be?
What are the core values & beliefs I want represented by my brand?
What do I want my brand to stand for?
What is it that makes me and my product or service unique?
What do I want my brand to be remembered by?

Write a statement about yourself and your service that summarizes your core values and beliefs, as well as what makes you stand apart from the competition. What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? Whatever your brand statement may be, to hold any power it must be 100% authentic. Not only do you have to live your brand, it is even more important to have others believe in your statement. Make it simple for your audience to understand & connect to, relevant so you can connect it to what it is you do, & believable since your reputation depends on it.

2. Present Yourself Online and Offline in Integrity With Your Brand

Everything you choose to do, as well as what you choose NOT to do, will impact your brand, so you need to act according to how you want your brand to be perceived by your audience at all times. Base your actions bases on who you want to be, instead of basing them on what you think will make you happy in the moment, or what will help you gain power and/or money in the short term.

Short term thinking WILL blow up in your face in the long run, so the only choice you have of running a successful business long-term (other than buying out politicians) is to keep yourself and your business on the straight & narrow at all times.

3. Clearly define why you want to go into business.

If you don’t have this clear as day & in front of you at all times you will fail to consistently do even the simplest tasks, as there is nothing really driving you to break from your normal routine. Make this reason, your “why,” as emotional as possible. The more passionate you are about what you are wanting to accomplish, the more readily you will be willing to brush yourself off from temporary setbacks, get back in the saddle & hit your business harder than before.

Nothing will drive you harder than a mission that stirs your soul. Fact.

4. Decide to work your business to 100% of your capacity.

Anything less, and you’ve signed the death warrant for your business before you even start. To make a significant living online you need to start out the gate as if you are going all the way to the finish line. People can easily tell the toe dippers from those who know they are in it for the long haul, and people are attracted naturally to those who show through their actions that they are in it to win it. They show this through consistent action. You get this part down and you will win a major part of the battle right out of the gate.

5. Temper your expectations and accept that you will have a steep learning curve.

In all other major career changes you may have had in the past, you had to learn an entirely new skillset to even enter the field, let alone succeed in said field. This is no different. Yes, everyone can become a successful entrepreneur… BUT they must first put the time in to learn the trade before expecting to have major success, let alone make a solid, sustainable six-figure-a-month income. Be willing to be teachable, and you will have a much better shot at getting what you are looking for in your business.

6. Understand that business is a marathon event, not a sprint.

If you are doing too much too fast & lusting for fast results you are almost guaranteed to burn yourself out before you get any worthwhile results (I can fully attest to that one.) The best thing you can do is set and stick to a manageable schedule to build your brand & your business.

If you are just starting out, take between 30-60 minutes each day to learn about the ins & outs of your business, then spend about 1-2 hours putting that knowledge to use.

You will eventually hear about the power of “ignorance on fire” in the home based business arena, but keep in mind it will only get you so far (in many cases it won’t get you anywhere at all.) On the flip side of that same coin, spending too much time learning and not enough time taking action is even worse, as this is indeed an action business (aren’t they all, really?)

To get the most out of your time & energy keep the action & learning phases on a 2 to 1 ratio, having 2 minutes of action to every 1 minute of learning. This keeps you from stagnating in your business, and it also keeps you on a steady routine of personal development. Having a set, manageable & relevant routine is critical for your success in this or any undertaking that will ever be worth your while.

7. Remain focused

“Consistency is the secret weapon of champions.” – Doug Stroh (at least that’s who I first heard it from)

On your path to success as an entrepreneur you are going to get smacked with things you wouldn’t believe was even possible. It will be as if the entire world has suddenly jumped in your path to test your resolve, not only with hard times, but also with temptations to table your business and your people when they need you most.

I know I’ve hit on this particular topic in many other places in this article, but it bears repeating for the umpteenth time; stay consistent & stay focused. Your future depends on it, and your audience is depending on you to do the same.

Final Thoughts on Branding Yourself

Developing yourself and increasing your value to the world is the single most important thing you will do in your business, especially when it comes to branding yourself as a leader and authority in your chosen niche, and educating yourself is also a key component of building your brand.

Now you know how to create and use the biggest secret weapon of the most successful entrepreneurs out there: a powerful brand that is all your own. However, this alone will not guarantee your success in any field. You can build a brand for yourself, but the question is how do you actually expose your brand to the world to get the recognition it needs to succeed? A great brand does you no good if no one knows about it.

If you are truly serious about not just taking this information and building your brand, but also sharing it with the world in the most effective manner possible, then our free bootcamp series will guide you step by step on how to do exactly that.

Click Here for more free training to get your business the results it deserves.

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Feel free to leave a comment if this has helped you in any way with branding yourself.

The 3 C’s of Social Content

The 3 C’s of Social Content – What Are They and Why Should They Matter To You?

While browsing around on my new Google Currents app on my phone I stumbled upon an awesome article by a gentleman by the name of Simon Salt, and he was talking about the different types of social content. I highly recommend that you take a look at his article here.

What really struck me about the content in this article is the fact that social media is starting to become more and more important as to how we as online entrepreneurs reach our target audience. Even the search engines are starting to take social buzz more and more into account when it comes to ranking sites on the front page of their services. Ignoring this fact is guaranteed to kill your business, or at the very least slow growth down almost to a grinding halt. So what are these methods of social content and how can we use them to our advantage?

The First “C” of Social Content: Creation

The technical description of this is having 100% unique content, essentially stuff that has never been written about before, ever. This isn’t just the words being original, but also the emotion or feelings that your content is trying to evoke. You may even be working to adapt the same message for a different audience, but it still would not count as being original.

Examples that would count would be stories directly derived from personal experiences. No one can evoke an emotion from a personal event quite like you can. Say you had just had, or had been with someone who had, a long battle with an addiction and they pulled themselves through, you could tell that story and evoke a feeling that is truly unique to you.

The Second “C” of Social Content: Curation

Simply put, this is the sharing of other people’s content. Many sites that are designed for this purpose also have their own ways of doing this. For instance Twitter, being that you are limited to 140 character posts, tends to focus on headlines; Pinterest deals almost solely on pictures; and Facebook & Google+ tend to be a combination of the two. For your materials to get the best results from the type of curation you’re going for you need to know specifically what sites are best for each different type, like the ones that were just listed previously, and tailor your content accordingly. Think, how can you best catch people’s eye in this particular environment?

The Third “C” of Social Content: Cultivation

This is when someone who posts a piece of content to a social networking site that focuses on a specific niche to attract or nurture an audience. Here the content plays somewhat less of a role than the frequency of the posts, time of day of said posts, imagery, density, etc. From my understanding from this part of Mr. Salt’s article (I could be wrong here) is that different demographics are only free to look at your content at certain times of the day. For Twitter in general in the mornings between 9:00 – 11:00 AM and in the evenings between 6:00 – 9:00 PM, after people come home and wind down from work, is where you will get the most eyes on your content, as well as having people having the time to actually devote to looking at your content.

My Final Thoughts on the 3 “C’s” of Social Content

At the end of the article I referred to at the beginning of this one, Mr. Salt asks which type of social content do you produce. There is certainly no real right or wrong answer in which is better or worse, as they each have their strengths. However, what if you could create and share your content using all 3 of these methods? Granted that technically with the part on Creation and the other 2 can’t coexist, most content (just like this article) is inspired by outside pieces of work. The best way to get the most creativity out of your own content that you want to share is to share your personal point of view on that topic. This is one of the best ways (hell, it’s almost a requirement these days) to get your content shared with the masses as it shows you have experienced what the original content was talking about from your own unique point of view.

If you take that part of Creation in your content, then mix it with effectively placing your content in the right places, at the right time, in the right way, then you have the makings of a massively viral piece of work. And if you play your cards right, you are on your way to a massive, loyal audience as long as you stay consistent with your communication and take care of your raving fans.

If you are looking for more, and more in-depth, information on how to create massively viral social content 100% free, click here to take a look.

Work From Home Ideas and Why People Are Pursuing Them

Why Are People Looking At Work From Home Ideas?

People have been getting slammed by intense financial recent catastrophes, like getting laid off from work, and are fighting to stay afloat. Others fortunate to still have a job are just sick of being stuck in a job they hate, especially if they are there solely for survival purposes. Either way, the traditional Industrial Age employment landscape is but a mere shadow of what it used to be, and the harsh reality of this brutal fact is now being felt in every corner of this country.

It is no secret now that the way the world runs, and how money is made, is now dependent not as much on industry and manufacturing as it was not so long ago, but with information. With that being said, people are beginning to realize that, even with this economy, opportunity exists everywhere to make more money, particularly online. However, with that being said, it is extremely important to…

Do your research on all work from home ideas you come across!

There are a lot of scams and random garbage out there vying for your attention, and you need to know what you are looking for in order to keep from getting stuck in a bad situation. At the same time there is also such an abundance of legitimate opportunities out there, and you really do have a lot of options to pick and choose with all the different work from home ideas out there.

All work from home ideas take work to get them to produce money for you, of course, but the closer it is to the end that you have in mind, the more effort you’ll be willing and wanting to put into getting your home business up, running, and ultimately successful.

With that in mind, what is most important about considering which of these work from home ideas is best for you is exactly what it is you’re looking to accomplish and how long you intend to stick with it. Why are you considering working from home to begin with? Are you looking for more time with the family? Do you want to have more time to do the things you want to do, like travel the world while you still have the time and ability? Are there people in need you want to help out? What solid, concrete reason do you have to study these work from home ideas to get one started for yourself?

Once you really know for sure what you want to gain from your new home based venture, you’re now ready to actively seek out what it is you want your home based business to be. With that being said, based on residual income possibilities (as in continuously getting paid for work you do once) and complete portability of your business, being able to work them from just about anywhere in the world…

Here are some of the best work from home ideas I have found so far, and why:

Blogging - There is a great number of ways to make money from blogging. It is a great way to affordably promote your content as well as make either a little bit of money, or a whole lot of money, depending on how you have your blog set up. You can run Pay-Per-Click ads that when people click on them, you the owner of the page get paid a percentage. You can also promote your own business through this model as well, regardless of what kind of business you wish to build.

However, one potential drawback is that, if you are not familiar with building websites from scratch, setting up your own blog can be an absolute nightmare, as well as juggling random technical headaches that can hit you out of the blue for seemingly no reason at all. This has happened to me when learning to set up my personal branding blog.

To get the most out of blogging it is highly recommended that you find a blogging platform that has every last thing set up for you so you can get right down to doing activities that put money in your bank account, and only focus on that.

Affiliate Marketing – The basic premise is that you sell someone else’s product for a cut of the profit. How this works is you get a link that you promote and you do the marketing of said product the link goes to. The link is specially coded to ensure that you get paid for the marketing of that product.

In theory it sounds very simple. However, the main drawback to this is that a lot of work really can go into getting that link out to people that want to get what you want. To make matters worse there is almost no training at all in promoting your link to people. Even worse, often you are left with minimal commissions that truly make you question if all the effort you are putting into it is, or ever will be, worth your time.

For affiliate marketing to be the most effective for you it is best to have a complete, as well as easy to grasp, marketing training system so you know how to effectively get your product or service in front of people who not only want what you have, but already have their credit card in their hand, specifically wanting to buy from you. Even more, you want to find an affiliate program that will be glad to pay you what you’re worth, even up to 100% commissions.

Network Marketing and/or Top Tier Marketing – Say what you want about this industry, many a millionaire has been made ( and continues to be made) through the industry of Network Marketing. Essentially, through talking to people through whatever medium you choose (face to face, calling people on the phone, or contacting them through various online channels,) and either selling your company’s products for a commission, or building a team of distributors who do what you are doing. Building a team is where the most money is made in Network Marketing, as it provides leverage of your efforts as well as that of those on your team. This is the difference from Affiliate Marketing where you are 100% responsible for 100% of earnings you do or do not make.

Top Tier Marketing, though somewhat newer, has the same millionaire maker potential as Network Marketing, however, the pay structure is set up for far greater profits per sale as they tend to sell packages around the $50,000 price range. The team building aspect, however, is greatly limited so they can pay out monster size commissions of $20,000+ per sale.

The drawback to these systems can be that the real key to success in Network Marketing can be very elusive at best. It is not at all impossible to gain the skills necessary to become highly successful at Network Marketing, at the same time, even with everyone essentially having the same training, there are very few people making a sustainable income with it. Even people who DO have major success in Network have openly admitted feeling massive frustration because they want to help their team win at the game like they are, but have been unable to duplicate their success to the rest of their team. Everyone has greatly varying strengths when it comes to making these work from home ideas work, but the training systems in place unfortunately seem to ignore this and generally tend to cater to those who already have sales experience.

What is necessary to not only succeed with these specific work from home ideas, but to help the people you bring onto your team duplicate your success, is to have trainings in multiple aspects to help them build their business using their strengths right away.

One of the best work from home ideas I have seen flawlessly mixes all of these different businesses together in one cohesive package.

If you want a business, especially online, that you can have major success with right out the gate, you need something that has all of these things handled:

The setup completely taken care of for you so you can focus only on the important tasks.
The marketing training and community that will help guide you around the expensive landmines and show you step by step what needs to happen for you to have success.
A training that directly builds on your specific strengths so you can build your business successfully using the methods that are most suited to you.
An affiliate marketing program that pays you 100% commissions.

After scouring the home based business industry for almost 6 years for the best work from home ideas I truly believe I have found the one that fits the bill for just about everyone, that has all the important traits listed above that I know you may be looking for as well. If this sounds like what you are looking for, and you are serious about building a solid home based business, I would be honored to show you what I found. Should you decide that this, out of all the other work from home ideas, is the best fit for you I sincerely hope this changes your life as it has mine. Click Here for more information.

Roy Dunne

roydunne@gmail.com

Wanna work with me? - Work with Roy Dunne

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If you are looking to put some of these work from home ideas into action Click Here for more information.