One of the most frequent questions I get asked about building my personal brand is, looking back over 10+ years of personal brand building, what are your biggest regrets or what are the learning lessons you would offer someone who's at the beginning of their personal brand journey now that you've gone through it?   

I love this question, so today, I'm going to break down my 5 biggest learning lessons and the reasons behind them. I will also include how I think you can overcome or avoid them because, of course, what's the point of learning if you can't share it with others and help them along their journeys? 

1. Failing Forward and Continual Learning

In the early stages of building your personal brand, it's easy to become discouraged by failure. However, it's important to remember that failure is simply another opportunity for growth. 

I started building my brand while I was still in corporate America, circa 2011. I was a newly promoted manager, and because of that, I really didn't know what it was like to be a manager or participate in annual planning sessions with some of my other colleagues who were in VP or C-suite titles. 🚀

Since I was only 24, I was really anxious to prove myself, so I started learning all I could about marketing. I sought out mentors and joined clubs. 

It was through this learning that I started to build my brand online. It wasn't an intentional effort at first. I just started blogging and posting updates about what I was learning, failing forward as a young manager in corporate America. 

Why do I say this is a learning lesson, a continual “AHA?” 💡

Because when I left corporate to start my own business, this really shifted. Crippled by impostor syndrome as a new entrepreneur, I thought building my personal brand was more about being the perfect expert than sharing my journey and learnings along the way. At that time, I was focused on positioning myself as the “all-knowing” type of person. This stifled my creativity and, ultimately, my brand's reach and engagement because it wasn't authentically me.

💡 My advice is simple:  Recognize and embrace your failures as learning moments and use your AHA moments to push forward.

A photo of my first “newspaper appearance” when I started my business.*

2. The Power of One

Here's what I mean by the power of one — one audience, one key problem you solve, and one social media platform. So many of us are so anxious to spread our personal branding wings that we talk to everybody, try to solve multiple problems, or try to be on multiple platforms all at once. 

What happens when you do this is you dilute your focus. You become spread too thin. You don't become known as an expert in any one thing, and you are prone to burnout because you're trying to be all things to everyone all the time. 🧘‍♂️

It's exhausting and leads to significant burnout.   

There was a time when I was doing Facebook Lives, Instagram, LinkedIn — all the things! At one point, I stopped because I was tired, and as I regrouped, I wondered what could have been if I had just stuck with one platform and tripled down on that. I think my brand momentum would have taken off much faster. In fact, I know it would have because in 2017/2018, I became firmly committed to LinkedIn. 

Back when I used to do a weekly “Facebook Live” show. While this was great for getting local biz clients, ultimately doubling down on LinkedIn grew my international client base.

3. Lack of Consistency and Kicking the “Marketing Can” Down the Road

There was a time when I lost critical momentum in my posting flow, and my personal brand suffered. I can admit that now.

I was running an agency that was going through a rapid growth rate. I was deep in operations and hiring and all the things. And at the end of the day, I just didn't have it in me to post for my personal brand; however, that lack of consistency and deprioritizing my personal brand-building efforts ultimately came back to bite me in the butt because I had less lead flow. My personal brand generates most of my leads and even did for my agency. ⏰🔧

It also lost critical time when, for a year, the LinkedIn algorithm was firing at its peak performance up until that point, and I was either absent on the platform or very inconsistent. I was helping others build their personal brand, and I wasn't building my own. I wasn't getting out there in the sandbox and doing that, and I still regret that because, no matter how tired or spread too thin or anything you think you are, you'll never regret building that personal brand. It's equity. You own it. You can parlay it and leverage it in multiple different ways. 

💡 My best advice for this is: When it comes to opportunities, do not take your eye off the ball with personal branding.

The biggest mistake I see new personal brands make is failing to remain consistent in their marketing efforts. Consistency is key when it comes to building a recognizable personal brand. Don't put off your marketing efforts or neglect to follow through with your plans. Remember, you are your brand; your actions speak louder than words.🔊

4. Hiring a Team Member Early

The other thing I would say that I did wayyyyy too late in the game was to hire someone. Now, you heard me say I had an agency and a lot of employees, but it wasn't until probably five to six years into my personal brand that we hired someone to exclusively focus on my personal brand. 

So, even if you're doing your personal brand on a part-time basis, let's say you're generating $2,000 a month building your personal brand, I want you to think of taking even a few hundred of that $2,000 and reinvest it into yourself by hiring someone because they'll free you up to create more content and to focus on your business development. The negligible money you'll spend freeing up your time is worth its weight in gold.💰

My advice here is that when it comes to building your personal brand, it's essential to recognize that you can't do it all alone. Whether it's a virtual assistant, a social media manager, or a marketing assistant, bring on a team member early in your business. It can magnify your efforts and take your brand to the next level because you'll be available to concentrate on so much more that will move your business forward.🚀

5. Find Community

It was 4 years into my business when I joined the Entrepreneur Organization Accelerator Program, a very structured mastermind of peers. While the peer group wasn't about personal branding (it was about building a business, being a part of such a community made a world of difference to me and my business. Years later, it remains one of the best relationship-building and business-generating activities I've done. 

I also continued to invest in courses with online communities and found a mentor who gave me great support. I was learning to not only execute in building my personal brand, but I was sharing resources and knowledge, which helped perpetuate great content and opportunities.

 Remember, if you want to get ahead, you can do so by consuming information, but you can get there a lot faster by shadowing or working with someone who's done it before. 

So, if you're new in your personal brand journey, I would encourage you to find someone about three to four years out from where you want to be and approach them about mentorship. Or find a community with folks who have the following size and the personal brand results you want. That network and community are going to perform for you in ways you can't even imagine.🌟

I always tell clients that the folks who have the biggest online engagement always have the richest “off-platform” network, whether that be through digital communities, group coaching, coaching programs, or masterminds. Those genuine, fortified relationships will grow your brand and your business faster than anything else. 

Building your personal brand or your business is like raising a family — it takes a village. It's critical to push yourself to find a community offline that can accelerate your online results. Make it a point to get to know these people and invest in the relationship. You won't just grow your brand, but you'll make genuine connections with like-minded individuals who can support you on your journey.🚀

The Entrepreneur Organization Accelerator Program was a non-negotiable part of my success.*

The Recap

If I had it all to do again, these are the five pieces of advice I would follow without hesitation. Remember, building a personal brand takes time, effort, and dedication. Feel free to use my lessons to help guide you on your journey to building a personal brand that is both successful and fulfilling.🤝