Building Your Personal Brand Online

Most salespeople never spend enough time developing their own personal brand and defining for the customer and their market who they are and what they stand for. Instead they focus on the company brand and the company image. Don’t get me wrong; promoting the company and the company image is important—but being known in your industry makes you more valuable as a resource than a brand alone will. Prospect and customers buy you first; then they buy the idea that you can help them find a solution for their needs, and finally they buy the product.

Ask yourself this question right now: “When someone searches my name in Google, what are the top 10 search results?” Go ahead, type your name in Google right now and see. If the top 10 searches don’t include your name and something related to what you sell, if one doesn’t include some video of a client who is thrilled with what you did for her, you need look no further to understand why customers are not buying from you. The most credible people can be found in a search. Now search your competitors; do you find them? If not, great, you now have an advantage.

It’s time to start being seen so you can sell, so let’s get started.

1. Go to www.godaddy.com right now and buy yourname.com. If yourname.com is not available, I want you to buy therealyourname.com. It is important to have your name in the domain URL because when people search for you we want your domain to come up fast in the search results.
2. Now go to www.weebly.com and set up a free account. You are about to become a Web designer. Don’t worry, no technical skills are required; if you can drag and drop and type, you can have a web site up with a blog in about an hour. This is going to become the single most important repository of you on the Web. You’ll talk about deals you’ve closed with which companies (where using company names is allowed). You’ll post testimonials about working with you. Don’t have testimonials? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.
3. Now type this link into your Web browser: www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php. You’ll see a page that will show you how to configure your domain (so that when someone types in www.yourname.com, your new web site comes up).

It is that simple. You now have a functioning web site where you can begin to build your credibility online. You can make the web site as complicated as you want, but the simpler it is for people to find out what they want to know about you, the better. Here are some things to include on your web site:

• Your professional bio. This is a sketch of who you are, your education, your work experience, including past employers, some of your thoughts on the industry you are working in, and a little something personal; if you have a wife or husband and kids, mention them—better yet, put a picture of them with you on the site. If you have hobbies, put some pictures of you doing your hobbies, or at least mention a couple. I like to golf but I’m terrible at it, so in my bio I might write: Avid golfer whose score will make you feel great about your game, no matter how you play! Show them you are real and have a sense of humor.
• Testimonials. Create a link on your site called What My Clients Say. On the page that it links to, you’ll place quotes from your past clients and videos from current and past clients.
• Client list. Create a link to your client list—all the companies you’ve sold to in the past. This is a place for you to showcase the kind of companies you’ve sold to so people can see that you have experience selling to companies like theirs. People like buying from people who already have experience with others like them. Your experience is worth a lot, and if they get experience with their relationship with your company, that is a huge plus.
• Contact Me link. Create a Contact Me link at the top of your homepage. On your Contact page tell people how they can connect with you. Include your office phone number, your cell number, and your direct e-mail address. (When you write your e-mail address, write it like this:dave at boldapproach.com, so that your name and address will not be harvested by spam robots that will fill your inbox with spam.)
• Your blog. If you are unfamiliar with blogs and their purpose, let me explain. A blog is like an online diary in which you collect your thoughts about whatever you choose. You don’t have to journal the contents of your soul; in fact, I recommend against it. Instead, write about what is going on in your industry. Write about the problems customers have and how they can solve them (using your products and services, where possible). Your blog posts don’t have to be long—just long enough to tell your story or make your point. Include a photo where you can; it makes the post more interesting. In your headlines, try to include keywords that your customers might search for, to make it more likely that they’ll find your blog in their search. For the next 90 days I’d like you to write at least three blog posts per week. If you do and if you follow my instructions about keywords and writing about your industry, you’ll be surprised what starts to show up in the searches around your name, your industry, and your products. If you’ve never read a blog, why not start with mine: http://boldapproach.typepad.com. It will give you an idea of how it works, plus you’ll learn many new ideas that I shared in my blog after I wrote this book. One last note: No bashing your company, your competitors, or your boss on your blog; leave that to someone else. Your blog is about creating business, not attacking others.

That’s it. You’ve now created your first line of visibility on the Web.

I know what you are thinking; you are thinking, “My company won’t let me do that and it seems like a lot of work.”

Get over it.

That’s right, I said Get over it. I have yet to see a company policy that says you can’t have a web site about yourself online. The policy may dictate what you can say about the company and your clients, so just follow your company’s guidelines. And remember, when you get testimonials, you’ll capture two kinds: one about working with you and one about working with your company.

“There he goes again, talking about testimonials,” I hear you say. It is much easier than you think to get quality video testimonials. Here’s how you do it:

1. You’ll need to buy or borrow a digital camera that can capture video. You’ll want to get one that does 30 frames per second (fps). I recommend the Canon SD series, which you can find here: http://budurl.com/mycam. This is exactly the camera I use. They cost about $150 as of this writing and they are phenomenal. I’ve taken mine all over the world and collected testimonials without fail.
2. After you’ve developed a great relationship with the client and have provided them with an exceptional experience, use this script to ask them for a testimonial: “I hope your experience working with me was phenomenal. (Pause, they’ll most likely say something like, “You were great to work with”; then continue) Selling is getting more and more competitive, and I’m doing some new things to stay ahead of the curve. I’m wondering if you’d mind saying what you just said into my tiny pocket camera?” (Pull out the camera and show it to them, then thank my good friend Joel Bauer of www.infotainer.com for that specific camera phrasing, it works wonders.) Clients will nearly always agree. If they say that their company doesn’t allow them to do testimonials, remind them that they are not doing a testimonial about a product or their company; they’re simply telling how it was to work with you, and that will typically cover the rest.
3. Use the free video-editing software on your PC or Mac to edit the file (it is as easy as drag and drop, cut and paste), then upload the clip to www.youtube.com. When you upload it be sure to create a title that says, “<Client name> leader in <Industry> says <Your name> is amazing” (or something that they actually did say). In the Tag section put keywords that include your name, the client’s name, the client’s company name (if you’re allowed to use it), your company name (if you can use it), product names, and any other keyword terms potential clients might search on.

You’ll be tempted not to take action on the things I just explained in the last few pages, but I’m going to encourage you do these things anyway. The reason nobody’s buying from you is not that people don’t have money or needs; it is because you are unwilling to break out of your old habits. New ideas create new opportunities. The hidden benefit of having this online presence is that the next time you are looking for a job, you’ve got one of the most amazing resumes that you can ever send, available right at your fingertips.

Be sure to let people know your web site exists by including your web site link in your signature line in your e-mails and on your business card, and put it anyplace else that you can think of where your clients can learn more about you.

Sumber : How To Sell When Nobody’s Buying – David Lakhani