Conducting a personal brand message audit
Conducting a financial audit is surprisingly parallel to conducting an audit of your personal brand message.
Conducting a financial audit may seem like a dry undertaking, but an organization typically gets a lot of benefits from doing one. If you are refining your personal brand message, you can gain many of these same benefits by doing what I call a “brand audit.”
The brand audit will help you align your personal brand with your unique why. When it does, you can speak with conviction about your brand.
Slow down to conduct your personal brand audit
A company doing an audit has to slow down, close its financials and look at how it is living up to its mission. Completing an audit helps ensure the organization’s compliance with accounting rules and industry regulations. And, as a bonus, a successful audit helps a company boost its reputation with its clients and stakeholders.
Similarly, doing a brand audit can help you pause to excavate your genius. When you know what you were born to do, you can align everything with that key thing that lights you up, create a compelling personal brand message that you can use with conviction, and achieve your keystone goals.
Examine the collateral for your personal brand message
A key step in doing a brand audit is examining your brand collateral. When you do so, you’ll ensure that it is living up to branding best practices and is aligned with your purpose. As a bonus, a successful brand audit will help you better express your personal brand message to others—whether they’re friends or potential clients.
Use a personal brand message coach
Revealing Genius offers several ways to approach a brand audit to help you with your personal brand message. These include our complimentary monthly webinar, our quarterly 7-Day Summit, and our two-session Brand Audit coaching package.
For example, during one of the most popular days of the 7-Day Summit, the cohort audits several of their classmates’ brand collateral.
The classmate whose brand item is being evaluated provides a two-minute overview of the brand and the asset (such as a LinkedIn profile), detailing what personal brand message is to be sent and what feedback is desired. The presenting classmate also shares a signature brand story that no competitor would be able to tell.
The cohort then takes two minutes to review the brand asset before completing a short survey evaluating it. Finally, the classmate whose brand is being evaluated and the cohort have a Q&A.
If you’re the one on the “hot seat,” this process is rapid-fire, fun, friendly, and very effective in helping you perfect your personal brand message.
But don’t take my word for it. You can check out this powerful tool yourself first. Here’s how to go about it.
Ask people from your professional network to look at a piece of your brand collateral and then answer the following questions:
• Do I understand, at what, you are best in the world?
• What’s the #1 key takeaway message?
• Can I explain what problems you solve?
The bottom-line question is if I had to describe this brand to someone else, could I do that?
Then have a conversation with them about your brand and how this particular asset represents it. Is your asset living up to best practices? Does it align with your purpose? Typically, this conversation generates great ideas for improvement.
I hope you’ll soon be undertaking a brand audit in support of refining your personal brand message. When your brand promise and messaging align, you’ll be better positioned to serve in your unique corner of the world. Please sign up for a free exploratory call to learn more.
Mary E. Maloney, FACHE
Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels