The What, Why and How of Personal Branding

The What, Why and How of Personal Branding To Tell Your Story and Grow Your Business

One of the things I love about being a personal branding photographer is the initial consultation where I learn about your business and the work you do. We go through a bit of a question and answer session and spend time brainstorming how to visually tell your story. This helps me to know how to serve you and create compelling images for your business, but also gives you an opportunity to think deeply about why you choose to do what you do, and how you can best serve your audience. We plan what stories you will share with your audience.

Personal branding always comes back to the WHAT, WHY and HOW.

What specific stories will you share with your audience about you, your business and products or services?

What topics of interest will you focus when posting to give a glimpse into your day to day?

Why did you start your business?

Why do you want your audience to get to know you more closely?

How can you serve your clients and give them an amazing experience?

How can it benefit our lives or the world around us?

I’ll have a free worksheet for you at the end of this post to help you answer these questions.

WHY did you start your business?

Did you want to make some extra money on the side to spend on fun things, pay off debt faster, or save up for a special trip? Maybe the idea of working for a boss has never been appealing. Do you want to work from home to save on the cost of daycare, have a more flexible work schedule, or be able to travel the world and work remotely?

Maybe you see an opportunity to solve a problem in the world with your product or service. There are a million reasons why people start a business, and sometimes those reasons overlap.

Write them all down. Every single one.

I have a lot of whys. When I was still working my full time corporate job and growing my photography business on nights and weekends, it was to be able to someday leave that corporate job, support my family and spend more time with my kids - and I was working towards this goal before I ever got pregnant.

Now, nine years later, I am working from home and spending more time with my family, and my whys have become more specific. I want to finally pay off my student loans and buy a house. I want a new car (yup, minivan dreaming over here). I want to give my kids the opportunities to do activities that interest them as they grow up. I want to go on more date nights and travel. I want to enjoy this one life I get to the fullest and make every moment count.

Did you notice how those things are all about me and my family? Yes, business is self-serving and that’s ok. But it must also serve others, my friend, and my whys now also include…

1. To educate those who are starting out or feeling stuck, on how to make bold, powerful moves in their businesses in order to grow.

2. To empower women to embrace their story and infuse it into their business. To share the heart behind the product or service, and form strong connections with their audience.

3. To build a creative community where small business owners, entrepreneurs and creatives can connect, learn from each other and cheer each other on!

4. To entertain and make social media more fun and social again! Not every post needs to be a sales pitch (nor should they).

How will you serve others?

How will you use your gifts, skills, tools and platform to serve others? This might blend a bit with your why, and that’s good! They are completely related.

Take your “whys”, and turn them into “hows”.

Here are my four “whys” from above, transformed into “hows”.

1. By sharing blog posts, social media content, podcasts and videos with business tips and actionable advice, I will educate those who need guidance in starting and growing their business.

2. By offering personal branding photography, I will serve my clients with visual content they can use confidently on their online spaces to share their story, engage with their audience, and grow their business.

3. Through a brand new Facebook community, and through comments and interactions on social media, I will help form connections between businesses, brands, and creatives and foster an environment of support and collaboration.

4. I will share behind the scenes, anecdotes and relatable content that my audience enjoys seeing and reading, with purpose, heart and humor.

---

15 minute Exercise

Take some time to reflect on your business. Set a timer for 15 minutes (you can do this while you sit and have that first glorious cup of coffee in the morning), pull out your planner or notebook or a blank piece of paper from your printer (I know I’m not the only person who does this), and write down the whats, whys, and hows of your business.

You’ll also jot down what you will share in your personal stories, 4-6 topics that give a deeper glimpse into your day to day and the heart behind the business. For example, mine are coffee, home/New England, family life, the ocean/nature, inspiring quotes and art/creativity.

I have developed a worksheet to help guide you through this exercise and give you space to explore your thoughts and intentions. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t started your business yet or if you’re 10 years in (hi, that’s me!), it is good practice to regularly revisit your branding message and business purpose.

Get your worksheet here.

I hope this exercise helps give you some clarity, or sparks a light in your heart, in order to move forward and grow.

If it helped and you’d like to share a bit of your what, why and how, I want to hear from you! Leave a comment and let me know where you are in your business so I can share more helpful tips and exercises to build and grow your personal brand!

---

Was this post helpful? Share the love on Pinterest!

Dreaming Big Creative Business Dreams

So, we're well into the new year....at least it feels like it. I intentionally avoided making resolutions because I know myself and by February I'll be looking at a list of these resolutions thinking "Hey girl, what were you thinking?" I tend to live an unplanned life, open to change and new directions, and while goal-setting is an admirable practice, it just hasn't been for me. I wind up disappointed in myself for not losing the weight, saving the money, keeping my house spotless and the other 5-10 things I try to convince myself I am capable of while running a business from home with a 4 year old and a baby on the way. 

Call it self awareness? Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit and I'm actually just lazy. It doesn't matter. I know myself well enough to know that setting goals is not my forte. 

But goodness gracious, I'm a dreamer. 

When I started my business 7 years ago, I dreamed of a day I'd be able to work from home and have a flexible schedule and do the mommy things I knew I'd want to do and live a life doing work I was truly proud of - and now I'm in the midst of that dream. It's reality. It's a lot of hard work and constantly trying to find the balance between working and being mom, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. It seemed so far away for so long, I had so many days I'd come home from my office job feeling defeated, like I'd never actually reach the point where I could leave the life of working towards someone else's vision. 

And it's not easy, not by a long shot. There are still days of feeling defeated or uncertain, where I question if I'm actually kidding myself and should go get a job with regular hours and regular pay. But there's that part of me that will never give up because I hand over photos to a client and know that I am giving them something so incredibly special, that they'll treasure the way I treasure photos of my own family. It's about so much more than hours worked and money and the physical and mental wear and tear this job takes. It's having the privilege of witnessing some of the most special and personal moments in someone's life and ensuring that those memories are documented and treated like they're more precious than gold. 

So I keep showing up and dreaming big dreams, because I want to keep reaching higher and seeing where I can go from here. Instead of resolutions for a year, I dream of where I want to be next year, or five or ten years from now. Here are a few of my big, badass dreams on the horizon...

Open a studio.

I'm dreaming of having a space of my own where I can work, shoot and meet with clients privately. I'm picturing industrial, exposed brick with tall windows, maybe an old mill building. Funky but comfortable vibe. 

Get published.

I need to step outside my comfort zone and start collaborating with so many of the amazingly talented local New England vendors to make some big and beautiful shoots happen.

Shoot elopements worldwide.

Whether they're in Hartford or Boston or NYC or the Caribbean or Paris. Just saying. I'm not picky. Any day of the week, I love photographing couples who are eager to get started on married life. 

Shoot more documentary sessions with families. 

Raw, emotional, active, playful photos without a bit of posing. Tell these stories and inspire people to want more of these kinds of sessions. 

Hire an assistant.

If I had someone else to do more of the business end of things, I could spend more time on the art. 

And on a personal note, I'm going to add:

Buy a house.

Like a studio space, I want a home that we can call our own. A place that we can paint, knock down walls, do renovation projects, and really make our own. So the kids can come home from school and have a yard to go play in and a neighborhood to go bike riding and where we have some space to breathe. 

---

What are you dreaming of in the near to distant future? What steps can you start taking to make them a reality? How can I help and cheer you on?

Keep showing up. Keep doing the work. And please keep dreaming. 

On Believing in Yourself

It's one of my favorite times of year for many reasons. The workload is slowing down, I'm catching up on blogging and forming ideas for the year ahead. But most importantly, I'm doing some serious reflecting on the past year - where I was a year ago, big moments, little moments, successes, failures.

I'm a firm believer in reflecting on the past in order to move forward. 

I am part of a large community of creatives and entrepreneurs called The Rising Tide Society, which I mention every now and then, and this week we're taking part in an Instagram challenge that is all about resting, reflecting, and recharging. It comes at the perfect time when I am dreaming up goals for the new year, but also allowing myself to step back and look at all I've done this year and give myself a little pat on the back and a big mug of cocoa. 

One of the first parts of the challenge is finding an inspiring quote that will keep my business anchored in the coming year. I love quotes. I have Pinterest boards and journals full of them. My camera roll has random screenshots of when  II  see a quote II like that I want to come back to. I went to my little "Find Joy in the Journey" journal that I started back in January and found the perfect quote to move into 2017. It comes from Harry Potter:

"Working hard is important, but there is something that matters even more - believing in yourself."

This past year was hard and exciting and filled me with worry and energy and all the feelings. Being a self-employed creative person is a rollercoaster. Every single day I experience highs and lows and a rush of excitement and the climbing fear of what's to come. When your livelihood rests on your own shoulders and depends on holding yourself accountable for doing the work, putting yourself out there and being your own CEO, marketer, accountant, and boss lady, in addition to being an artist and doing that work at the core of your business - let's just say the stress can be crushing. 

And if you let doubt and fear consume you, that crushing stress will, well, crush you and leave you questioning every decision and action. 

When I went full time for myself last January, there was a lot of fear and doubt and anxiety. I did not know what this year would do to me or my family. I didn't know if I'd be searching for another office job or if I'd be wildly successful. All I could do was roll up my sleeves, do the work, and put myself out there. Again and again and again. I had to find my voice. I had to figure out who I am as a person, as a photographer, as a working mom and wife and boss lady. And it has not been easy figuring that out. 

Honestly, I'm still figuring it out.

One of the things that I learned quickly was that if I made any room for fear or doubt in my life, in my family and business, it would elbow it's way in and smother all the good things I have going. I had to find my confidence and my voice, and in order to do that, I had to stop comparing myself to others. I had to stop looking at how far or how quickly someone was growing their business. I had to find creative entrepreneur friends who I could hang out with and chat about business and ideas and life and things we're passionate about. When you don't work with other adults regularly, it can get lonely, and finding a local tribe to converse with is incredibly refreshing. 

This year has been a slow climb from years of holding myself back for my other jobs and things I had going on. This year was all about diving in headfirst, letting go of fear of what's ahead and just rolling with what came my way. This year was about believing that I could actually take this thing I love and make it work and support my family with it.

Because that's where it all began. It all began nearly 7 years ago, working a job I didn't love, wanting to fulfill my creative heart in a way that I could enjoy my someday (now reality) children, have flexibility with my time to spend with family. To do something that has a lasting impact for good on others. And to look myself in the eye and know that I'm doing something that I value, that I love, that is meaningful and creative. My work is serving others in a way that I best know how.

So working hard, yes it's important, of course it is. But if you don't believe in yourself, the journey will be incredibly difficult. 

Find your voice. Share your heart. Make friends with your creative community. Lean on your family and friends. Know that you have what it takes, and while it won't always be easy, it will always be worth it. 

 Cheers,

Shannon