#7 – The first step to build a brand

WHAT is a brand?

A brand is the perceived image of you, your product or service. And branding is the process of creating and establishing that image.

Branding is your identity.  It is how the world sees you & your business.  

Branding has everything to do with you, you and you!

You are the face, the mind, the brain, the heart, the soul behind your product and service. Your brand has to breathe you in & out.

You have to bring your true original self to the stage to build your brand. And you can only do that by knowing yourself. 

Even if you don’t have a business and you create for a hobby, you are a brand  because a brand ties into what you create and offer.

Knowing yourself is the number one step to build a personal brand. So, let’s talk about it takes to know thy self.

The first question to ask is-

1. Who am I?

 Here, you define your business or hobby.

For me, I have a background in architecture, and it is a huge part of me which is why my one line answer to this is –

 I’m an architect turned food stylist and photographer based in Singapore and also, the founder of the business, My Food Lens.

 SUPER DUPER EASY. Nothing complicated but crystal clear. Once this is established, we dig deeper.

2. What is my niche?

 For me, I define my niche in photography as food. I am a commercial and editorial photographer, which is why, I keep my niche as broad or narrow as food. 

But say you’re a food blogger. That opens a lot of opportunities to get specific to define your niche because your cooking might be inspired by your grandma’s recipes or the trip you took around the world or your initiative to control climate change and reduce the consumption of meat.

It could be anything.

It makes you, your cooking style and recipes what they are.

Picking a niche that chimes with who we are and what we practice is important.

So, when we pick our niche, we pick it based on our style, our background, our personality. It has to connect back to who we are as individuals, even outside of our business and hobby.

3. What is my tone of voice?

 We all have personalities. Some are easy-going, some are intense, some are emotional, some like to have fun, some are quirky, some are reserved. To create an image, we need to bring our personality to what we create.

For example, I define myself as a hardworking, passionate, fun loving, humorous person. I thrive on my childhood memories and most of my personal work is inspired or drawn from my childhood experiences.

Now, if you have seen my Instagram page, I create bright and vibrant photography because I love to laugh and live to the fullest.

I also write a caption with every photo. That caption is a story & every story either reflects the memories of my childhood or shares an experience.

Those photos and captions give my audience an insight into my personality because I bring that tone of fun, passion, and memories into my work.

I carry my personality to my business to create my unique tone of voice.

We want to be our own walking personal brand. The tone of voice of our business should be our personality. It makes it so much easier and completely effortless to bring yourself forth in your 100% true self to your clients and customer. All it takes is for you to know thy self. 

4. What are my values?

This one is tough.

What it helps with is, defining our target customers or clients and then it makes it easy to be aligned with their values. Doing business with them becomes easier because they trust us. They feel that we get them because we share the same values.

For example, as an individual I stand for gender equality and support women owned businesses. I align with them on so many levels that whenever I’m doing business with them, it clicks.

Personally, I’m a fitness junkie, something you might not know but it’s true, which is why, I am drawn to brands that stand for sustainability and healthy eating.

Even though I’m not an activist of any sorts, I only work with ethical businesses.

So, that’s who I am and that’s how I tie my values into my business.

Defining your values is essential to create an authentic image which is true to yourself because clients buy on trust. If you walk the talk, if your business reflects what you believe in, that’s what you need.

The next step is of course to define who we create for and what we achieve and how we do it which takes us into creating an elevator pitch and so forth.

But the first step is really understanding the 4 things about yourself that we talked about.

When creating content or pitching to clients or meeting with potential clients, it is essential to remind ourselves about who we are as a person and as a business, what are our values and carry our 100% authentic self with us as our personal brand.

Once you have these questions answered for yourself, you know yourself better. Only if you know who you are, can you bring that side to your business and make it visible in your brand. That is how we begin to become a brand.

So, if you’re just starting out or are at a point where you feel like you need to create that image, think about these 4 questions, and reflect them in everything you do. Once you know the answers, it is effortless because all it takes is to be yourself and that is the start to build a  brand.

If you’re looking to come up with your own photography process, streamlining your workflow, getting efficient & saving time, checkout my free guide called the 10-step photoshoot right here.