Ayishat Olanrewaju: When is the Best Time to Build your Personal Brand?

People often ask me if there are some form of requirements or qualifications needed to build a personal brand online. Specifically, they want to know if they need to have a certain level of achievement, attain a specific height in their career, or first become an expert in every sense of it before making efforts to be a personal brand. I get this question a lot because people think that for you to build a personal brand, you must have reached a certain height that only a few people have.

When we choose the above perspective towards personal branding, we limit ourselves and the potentials that would have been explored. The truth is that you are already knowledgeable about something and have already accomplished something in your career or business that can be of value to someone else. Personal branding is all about positioning yourself to build value and positively impact others, using that thing you are knowledgeable about. The question is, what is that thing? The question isn’t whether some people call you an expert or not, or whether you have reached a certain level in your career. If you are knowledgeable in a certain field, then someone else might benefit from what you know. This should be the sole purpose of building a personal brand. How can you positively impact someone with what you know?

Building your personal brand can begin at the level you are, while you are working towards the level you want to be; this is the advice I give anyone who asks me if they can start building a personal brand or not. The key thing is to ensure you keep developing yourself so that you attain and even surpass that height you have been aiming for. It is however important to not pretend like you are at a certain level when you are not – like pretending you are an expert in a field when you are just starting out, this is not personal branding, it is falsehood and it would damage your personal brand in the long run.

Stop hiding your brilliance because you don’t think you have reached a certain level yet. The world needs what you know. The world needs to know you can help them.

Here are 5 ways to help you get started if you feel like you are doubting your brilliance and expertise:

Remind yourself that you are knowledgeable at something

 Everybody is – you know something the next person doesn’t know. This is because of your unique set of skills, experiences, and knowledge. Think about how the lives of others can be better by the knowledge you have acquired in your field or through the unique experiences you had.

Brainstorm on that thing and write it

Sit down and brainstorm on that thing. Come up with different things you know and what can be of value to people. For instance, if you are passionate about cooking and coming up with new recipes, can you help other people learn how to cook better? Can you come up with interesting recipes for them to try out? In what other ways can you help?

Think strategy

Think about the people that need that thing and come up with different ways you can help them with what you know. Let’s say you decide to start a personal brand as someone who is passionate about cooking and wants to teach others the most effective ways to do so. How best can you teach others? What does your target audience need the most? In what content format?

Think about how best to reach out to them

You need to know how best to reach out to your target audience, and the best platforms to use. You must be intentional about this because it has a lot to do with how well the value you want to share as a personal brand will be received by others.

Are you ready to build your personal brand? Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about packaging your expertise into a personal brand. 

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