It's very clear that building an audience and a personal brand is the right move to be recession-proof. I have been watching very closely outside thought leaders like Gary Vaynerchuck, Seth Godin, Rammit Sethi among others who are very well established. However and most importantly I have been following a few of my clients and people who I have worked before like Jessica Campos, Julia McCoy, and Scott Leese. They have all built their brands and made recession-proof businesses. Has it been challenging for them? Of course! Will they get through the other side of this? You betcha! The reason is that they have built their fan base. Their audience will stick with them long after COVID-19 because they have built trust. Let me be clear, this has been a very difficult situation for everyone and even the most successful of influencers have taken a hit economically with the whole situation. However, they are in a better position to roll with the times. Having an audience is like having an airbag in your car that can protect you in a car accident. There will be bruises, but they will survive and pick up where they left off.
I think it's fair to say that the majority of us have done a lot of retrospection of what is important. I know I have with lots of journalism, practicing meditation and deliberately having moments of stillness. I highly recommend reading Ryan Holiday's book Stillness is the Key. In these moments of stillness, I was revisiting why I was doing all my projects and activities. What will all this mean in a post Covid-19 world?
It all comes down to identifying your values and doubling down on them.
Personally, I think that is the key to building a successful personal brand. Trust Visuals is all about authenticity and that starts with being authentic with yourself. If you try to be someone you are not your audience will sense it and you will have a hard time growing. That has been my case many times and it happens every time I lose focus. I'm glad to see it has gotten better over time. In fact, I'm doubling down myself on my own personal brand. My values are trust, authenticity, creativity, and fun. Notice that nowhere is Money. I have found paradoxically that the more I chased money the less successful I was and the more I stuck to my values the more money I made. It's not worth building a personal brand if it's not fun or it doesn't align with your values. To this day the video I made for Wanderlust Organics which I made for free has been invaluable economically. I met the owner in a platform that was used to be called commerce founded by Tara Mcmullin who has built multiple businesses over the years. I have followed Tara over the years and she has been very open and authentic with her journey as an entrepreneur and she has changed so much emotionally and even physically as well that I stand in awe. I have seen her become happier and more at peace with herself because she became more attune with her values.
That is why I want for myself and I'm very excited to make to take Trust Visuals in a direction the reflects those values including making it more fun by incorporating a lot more of my nerdy side, while still being of service. Now that is what works for me. I suggest thinking about what works for you. They might change a bit as time goes on and you may realize that those were not your real values. That is Okay. Just keep revisiting them from time to time to check how you are aligned. This blog post is a way for me to synthesis my thoughts and to talk about how I will approach to continue to build my brand. This brings me to the next point on building a personal brand.
Doubling down on content creation.
Content creation has been very tough for me but that is a topic for another blog post. The key thing is since I have taken the step to check on my values the result will be that you will see a lot more content from myself. The key to this point is to make sure you are enjoying the process of creating more content. If you focus on the result and not the process you are going to find a hard time in creating content and also building your personal brand. After all content creation is a cornerstone of building a personal brand... As I mentioned before, fun will be more present in Trust Visuals. I have a lot of work to do. There will be a soft rebrand of sorts of how my branding will look and feel while still retaining the name Trust Visuals. It will be loads of fun just to document this path and share what I learn along the way as content That excites me! It's fun just to do it. What would excite you to publish? Don't overthink it, as they say. Done is better than perfect!
Talk more about your passions, about your beliefs. Talk about what you enjoy. Share about your life and what makes you (YOU). Find ways of making it relevant to your audience. Your personal brand needs passion, a lot of it. Show your personality! If you want to learn some basics of shooting video here is a free course for you. That is how you build trust and that will allow you to...
Help and show empathy to your audience
If something this pandemic has shown me is that we need to show more empathy. My friends know that my personality is more like Spock than Kirk. Still, the way I am also writing this post is to think as much as I can to make it relevant to yourself dear reader. I'm hoping that you get inspired to start posting more content because that is what I want to help. Maybe your brand is about makeup and hairdressing. My friend Jessi Pagel who has worked with many celebrities is sharing her knowledge online on how to do your own makeup and hair in quarantine. Whatever is what you do, share your knowledge, help other people. Be a good human being, especially when you don't agree with their world views. Be Kind always. This is your legacy that we are talking about. I hope this post helps and remember to keep building your foundation in trust.
