Has the Coronavirus pandemic encouraged you to rethink how you work? Maybe that decision has been forced upon you by redundancy. Or maybe you’re simply curious about what life is like working independently.
Whatever has motivated you to jump into the world of consulting, there’s one thing we know for sure: it’s now more important than ever to use your backstory to build your expert status, to stop sounding like everybody else in your industry and to put your brand story into action.
What is a brand story?
In my definition, your brand story tells people:
- Who you are
- Why your business exists
- Who you work with
- How you help them
It tells people what makes you different from everyone else in your industry. That isn’t just your expertise. It’s so much more, including your personality, passion and purpose.
Your brand story is not just your backstory
Your brand story isn’t just something that sits on your “about” page. It’s not just a one-off PR story or a media opportunity. It’s all about building connections with people, sharing the human face behind your business and making it really easy for your ideal clients to get to know, like, and trust you. Your brand story brings together your uniqueness with your ideal clients’ challenges and aspirations. It’s a framework that you can use proactively every single time you speak and write about your business.
To put this into context, I’d like to share my own brand story with you.
My story
I started out in marketing, in financial services, before taking an accidental sidestep into internal communication. Here I worked with senior leaders, helping them to engage their employees around the UK and around the world in the corporate strategy. Then 10 years ago, I set up my independent consulting business.
I wanted to find an alternative to living the corporate lifestyle. I loved my job, but I’d outgrown that way of life. It was no longer a good fit for me and the life that I wanted to build for myself. I craved more freedom and flexibility to travel, to work from anywhere to make the most of my life, rather than spending four hours every weekday commuting. And I wanted to use my marketing brand and communications expertise to help more people.
I started networking locally and that was when it really dawned on me, how many talented, independent professionals there are who are really fab at what they do. I learned that so many of these people actually need help to express how they add value to their clients.
At the same time, I realised how much I was inspired by the stories of others, particularly stories of women who had left the corporate world and were now pursuing their dreams, running an independent business. And so, as I began to build my corporate comms consulting business, I also started to help other independent consultants to build their brand story and messaging.
10 years later…
While 2020 has been anything but smooth sailing, it’s seen me finally achieve a long-held ambition: I’ve just launched my own podcast, The Leading Story.
It’s an ambition that I’ve held since my days in the corporate world, when I was still commuting every day, and every week, without fail, I would listen to The Suitcase Entrepreneur by Natalie Sisson.
I have a long-standing love of audio and stories. When I was still at primary school and I was given my first cassette player by my parents, I listened to music of course, but I also loved recording myself and a school friend reading the news from the paper.
Then as a teenager, I was glued to the TV news. I was probably the only 14-year old who religiously watched the Six O’Clock News and the News at 10 every day! Being a TV journalist was my first career dream.
Back to the present day, and ‘start podcast’ had been on my to-do list for months. Then something happened that galvanised me into action. At the 2019 Youpreneur Summit (an annual conference by UK personal brand expert Chris Ducker), I heard a statistic that truly shocked me: only 17% of podcasts are by women.
“Only 17% of podcast hosts are women”
How could this be?
I’ve long been a podcast fan. I subscribed to 10 or 12 at a time, mostly about business and entrepreneurship. Since the early days, many of my favourites have been presented by women, Natalie Sisson, Amy Porterfield and more recently Viv Groskop’s “How to Own The Room”.
After each session at the summit, the facilitator, Jenny Ainsworth asked the audience for our biggest takeaways. I found myself raising my hand. Before I knew it. Jenny was bounding over with the handheld mic. “What stood out for me?” I said; “with only 17% of podcasts hosted by women, I think it’s time to change that.”
So, after a few months of strategising, planning, and (in all honesty!) with a little bit of procrastination, my podcast is here.
I invite you to join me. By the end of this series, you’ll have learned proven strategies to stand out in your industry, get hired by your ideal clients and grow your expert status. And you’ll hear inspiring conversations with my hand-picked selection of guests – independent professionals who are embracing their unique stories to be seen as true leaders in their industry.
There’ll be a new episode every Wednesday for the next 10 weeks, starting with Episode 1 ‘My personal guide to building your brand story.’ You’ll hear more about my story, what to expect from season 1 of the podcast, and how you can start building your own compelling brand story.
You can listen here on my website or subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify and Google podcasts.
Come and join me and let’s get this story started!