3 Big Mistakes When Launching Your Personal Brand

Creating a personal brand isn't easy. It takes planning, sweat, hard work, and more than a little luck to transform yourself and your company into something your audience instantly recognizes, and associates with positive qualities.

Sometimes, a single mistake to put a road block in your path, so before you get started, be sure you avoid the following three mistakes that can sink your brand before it's even started its maiden voyage.

Mistake #1: Not Being Authentic

Too often we try to tell people what they think they want to hear when it comes to impressions of us, or our business.

Sort of like how, when you show up for a first date, you make sure to wear your best clothes, break out the good aftershave, and make sure you only let out a filtered version of your thoughts and feelings.

You're trying to create a good first impression, which is laudable, but you need to make sure you're presenting your best self instead of some imaginary person you'll never be able to live up to.

The former is just your regular brand with some extra spit and polish, but the latter is a false impression that can leave people feeling betrayed when they find out about the real you.

Mistake #2: Trying To Be A Jack of All Trades

When you build a brand, you need to decide what, specifically, your brand stands for.

You also need to know what your customers expect from your business, and to focus on those aspects to the exclusion of all other things. The wider your focus, the smaller your overall impact is going to be.

For example, say you were a coffee shop, and your brand goal is to be known as the strongest, richest coffee in town. Naturally, you'd focus on having the sort of coffee that would make the spoon stand up straight. In order to diversify, though, you may be tempted to have a small selection of teas, and a few pastries for patrons to choose from, too.

But that's not what Arizona success Dutch Bros Coffee did.  They stayed focused and now have lines that interfere with parking because they're so popular.  But yes, they had to give up extra income from alternatives when they were younger. 

If you try to be a jack of all trades, there's nothing to separate you from any of a dozen other coffee shops in the neighborhood, and the thing that made you truly unique has been swallowed up by your attempts to broaden your appeal.

Do one thing, and do it well, and your brand will stay strong.

Mistake #3: Talking Just To Hear Yourself Talk

One of the biggest problems you can have when it comes to branding is talking without saying anything of substance.

​It's the fastest way to squander your energy, and to bore your audience before getting them to really look at who you are and what you do.

Think of your branding attempt as a boxing match, and your opponent is your audience's interest. Your audience is skilled at deflecting interaction that looks or sounds like advertisement, and completely immune to barrages of social media updates.

As such, you need to make sure that when you do launch a statement that it's calculated, and powerful, in order to get past your opponent's guard. If you waste all your energy throwing out chatter that won't go anywhere, then you aren't going to win the fight.

These are the three biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to branding, but there's many others that can sink your ship or slow you down.

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