Style + Success: Let’s get real for a moment, please…
After all, it’s about you. So let’s get into personal branding 101.
Have you ever dreamingly followed an online lifestyle guru, marketing coach or business mentor who appears to have both a “perfect” life and an enviable thriving business?
She surely must have the magic touch from the stream of manufactured social media and personal branding images on her web site.
Perfect-istas are usually recognizable by their soft focus social media photos of them decadently biting a cupcake (if they’re American), or a macaroon (if they’re wannabe French). Perfectly positioned next to the sinful sugary treat is a well-lit green smoothie waiting to be consumed from a mason jar. A gastronomic oxymoron of trend ingestibles, if you will.
Mademoiselle Perfect-ista’s legs are languidly crossed in a way that you can spot her Loubouton-esque heels resting upon her strategically placed status bag. You know, the one with tube of glossy Chanel lipstick provocatively poking out. All the while she’s lounging in a luxury living room (aka hotel lobby) with her handy-dandy laptop glistening in the moody candle lit glow.
Sound all too familiar?
Recently, I’ve been speaking at several branding events. It got me thinking about how some people are positioning themselves when it comes to their personal brand.
Rather than being authentic to their own style and being driven to what really excites them, they are becoming carbon copies of each other’s magical and faux existence.
They’ve taken aspirational marketing and shot it out of the park to what amounts to not much more than a Vaseline-lens version of an 80’s made for TV movie… the one where the guy with the Ken doll hair comes to the rescue of the working girl who really could make it on her own.
But it’s not just one crummy personal branding campaign… it’s one after another. And, there’s something very uncomfortable about it.
You wanna know why?
All this manufactured gloriousness is not authentic to them– they are just going through the motions of who they think they should be rather than being authentic to who they are. You can smell the phoniness and that’s what’s uncomfortable.
Listen, when it comes to you, BE you.
Don’t be a second-rate copy of a fake thing when you can be a first-rate version of yourself. (click to tweet)
Discover a way to get inside yourself so that you can best represent who you really are, not some fictionalized fairy tale.
I help both my VIP clients and those in the C’est Chic Crash Course find their own iconic style by simply honing in on what makes them sparkle. Not me. Not their business bestie. Not what their web designer chose for them. Not what their photographer set up for them and every other client after client. Not the coach who they want to emulate. But what makes them sparkle as a unique individual.
Sure, you can get inspired with mood boards and design swipes, but make sure they relate to who you really are. Every day.
Don’t be afraid to push the boundaries but do be afraid to say yes to someone who you are not. If you like munching on cupcakes and macaroons while you wear high heels and red lipstick, that’s great. Knock yourself out. But only brand yourself that way if it rings true to you.
The best brand you can create is an honest, polished version of yourself. Learn to get inside of yourself to really connect with what makes YOU tick– that’s special.
Shape Your Style With ICONIC MOMENTS. Play With Me. On Pinterest.
Photo:Pexels