PERSONAL BRANDING IS FOR YOUR FANS

Personal Branding Is For Your Fans.

By Lauren Clemett

Developing a stand out personal brand as coach is exactly like preparing for grand finals, with equal measures of blood, sweat and tears.

Not only does it require the same amount of effort, expertise and clearly

defined goals, there’s also the confidence needed for game day, when you step up to be seen as the leader in your industry, and of course the recovery and rebuild which is necessary to be sustainably successful.

Most importantly of course, there are the fans.

Your own tribe of followers who support and admire you through thick and thin, but also make it abundantly clear they don’t like it when you are doing something outside of your brand values. Author Coach Deborah Fay says that personal branding to her is about, “personality and USP. It is an important

Your own tribe of followers who support and admire you through thick and thin, but also make it abundantly clear they don’t like it when you are doing something outside of your brand values.

way to articulate who I am and what I stand for and it is like flying a flag, helping my ideal target market to recognise me so that they can align themselves with me.”

And she’s right. In the same way sports fans will buy and wear their team colours, waving their own flags at the grand final, as a coach in business, your fans will share your beliefs, follow you on social media and refer you to others, if you get it right.

But they will find it difficult to do that if you don’t have a clearly defined message

Deborah believes that one of the biggest benefits of having a strong personal brand as a coach is that "when your brand is clear and you attract the right people, they become raving fans and sell your product and services for you."

about who you are, what you do and why you do it. You need to give them a reason to be part of your tribe.

Your personal brand values are as important as your image.

Deborah believes that one of the biggest benefits of having a strong personal brand as a coach, is that “when your brand is clear and you attract the right people, they become raving fans and sell your product and services for you.”

And that’s exactly what coaches need, long-term, loyal clients who refer others,

Brands in sport are easily recognisable by their team colours and Business Happiness Coach Pat Armitstead agrees that it is vital your colours and imagery are understood as well as being recognised and remembered.

giving you more time to coach and less time and effort required to attract new business.

The increased turnover, as well as the loyalty she is experiencing from her clients is evidence that building a stand-out personal brand can have positive effects on a coaching business.

Brands in sport are easily recognisable by their team colours and Business Happiness Coach Pat Armitstead agrees that it is vital your colours and imagery are understood as well as being recognised and remembered.

She uses the monarch butterfly as her brand symbol, saying “Its distinctive image and my choice of orange and black in my stage dress has secured almost $900,000 worth of free media”.

Pat even used her butterfly brand image in the “Humour in business awards”, her radio program “Joy in the moment” and even opened or closed keynotes with distinctive emerging art, including body painted artists with wings. People remember her 19 years later.

Personal branding for coaches is not just about attracting the right prospects, or wearing the right colours, but also re-

taining clients and gaining a loyal fan base for your services.

That way you can create an income generating platform with multiple streams of income from your coaching services to online programs, books, courses, retreats, mentoring and speaking.

Fans are incredibly loyal to their teams, even if they lose and on grand finals day, we all want our team to win, but some teams stand out as consistent winners.

They seem to have a discernible level of excellence or expertise.

In a world seemingly full of coaches, standing out as different is absolutely vital if you want to win.

Customer Retention expert Ross Keating has defined his coaching style as the ‘Client Orchardist’, harvesting profits from existing clients and its made him stand out from the rest.

He says, “personal brand is my key differentiator. There are thousands of business coaches and being seen as a generalist means you are searching for problems to solve”, where Ross knows that proswww.coachinglife.

Ross Keating confirms that, “my personal brand has given me a stronger sense of confidence as a result of the detailed business analysis and planning needed to develop the brand”.

Here are the top 4 tips to get your personal brand game day ready for grand finals so you can confidently step out in the field of coaching and stand out to attract the right fans who elevate your expertise.

1. Get clear on what you want to be known for and combine your creativity, passion and purpose with your image, expertise and credentials. You can be professional and appealing at the same time, after all, the business of coaching is human to human, not B2B or B2C.

2. Know what sort of fans you want, figure out what your shared values are and work consistently on making it easy for them to be part of and remain loyal to the brand. Give them what they want as well as what they need, be reachable, relatable and accessible and set the bar high for your own performance.

3. Don’t be afraid to differentiate, stand out or create curiosity. Our brains are overwhelmed with content and information, so having a personal brand that sets you apart from other coaches is going to attract attention and get the right conversations started.

4. Be consistent. The same image, message, colours, actions, behaviours over and over again, just like your favourite sports team. Yes, it might be boring, but if you want to have a sustainable coaching business with constant referrals, you need to step up and deliver a consistent level of communication in order to be known, liked and trusted.

No matter how important the planning side of business is, it’s not always the most exciting activity to participate in, and coaches tend to be more focused on winning fans than the management of the game.

What if you considered your coaching business as your favourite grand finals team?

Choosing your colours and imagery, set specific goals and mapped out a season schedule, creating a fan profile and delivering promotions to them that resonate and keep them loyal, then went out there and put in 100% everyday to win…sounds like a business plan to me, but a lot more fun!

pects and clients are usually looking for a solution to a specific problem.

Ross confirmed that by being different, he can more quickly get to the problem/solution discussion, “my brand name generates interest with the person inquiring “what is a Client Orchardist?”

Speaking Coach Trish Springsteen says branding for her is “how I stand out, who I am, making it easy for me to Get Known, Be Seen”, but also, “an unconscious, automatic, natural way for me in business and it results in people remembering me.”

and from there it enables the conversation to start”.

Grand Finals winners tend to emit an air of confidence which attracts more clients, and fans love to share in that confidence.

This is one of the major benefits of having a stand out personal brand as a coach. Ross Keating confirms that, “my personal brand has given me a stronger sense of confidence as a result of the detailed business analysis and planning needed to develop the brand”.

The coach of a successful grand finals team of course is proud of what is achieved, but they also have personal goals to be reselected next year, or to go on to more prominent coaching roles.

As a coach with a stand out personal brand, you are doing the same thing, ensuring you are remembered, long after grand finals day.

Speaking Coach Trish Springsteen says branding for her is “how I stand out, who I am, making it easy for me to Get Known, Be Seen”, but also, “an unconscious, automatic, natural way for me in business and it results in people remembering me.”

Trish has created and developed a personal brand as a coach over the years which she says “goes towards credibility and trust”. As a result, Trish says that her personal brand has generated speaking gigs for her to stand out even more as the go-to expert, “people see, remember, think then ask” she says.

At 8 years old Lauren was told she had ‘word blindness’ and would never be able to read or write properly, yet she went on to become a five-time bestselling author and International Award Winning Neurobranding expert, using her dyslexia disability as her greatest asset - helping entrepreneurs understand how the brain sees brands.

She has over 25 years experience in brand management, and her practical guidebook to personal branding, titled “Selling You” has sold over 800 copies worldwide. The Authority Rocket training program she created has won multiple International Awards for innovation and quality and in November 2017 Lauren was awarded the International Women In Business Entrepreneur Of The Year at the prestigious Stevie Awards in New York.