A complete lesson on branding

A while back, Solomon Huey wrote a lesson on branding. It makes for a good read and shows the results of branding your name and face. I’m going to go a step further and introduce a complete lesson on branding. I’ll cover three important parts of branding:

1. Why you should brand yourself.
2. How you should brand yourself.
3. The results of branding yourself.

So, let’s jump right in.

Why you should brand yourself.

Take the following scenario into your imagination. You’re interested in buying a product and you go to your local market to purchase. Two salesmen approach you and are offering you the same identical item for the same price. You’ve never seen the first salesman before, but you’re familiar with the second salesman. His face is familiar and you know his name. He’s everywhere and people seem to trust him.

Who are you going to buy from? Exactly. You want to be like that second salesman. You want your face and name in front of as many people as possible. If a buyer knows you, has heard of you, or has seen you around — you have established a trustful relationship with that customer and he or she is more likely to buy from you.

The relationship I mentioned above is particularly important. Establish your relationship with thousands of people online by including a photo of yourself with your name. It’s that easy.

How you should brand yourself

You would think that putting up a picture of yourself along with your name would be easy, but plenty of people get it entirely wrong!

You should have a photo of yourself. Primarily of just your face. Anything else is out of the question. I know, I know.. your kids are adorable, your pets are too cute, your husband is awesome, and your wife is gorgeous. But you’re not branding them. You’re branding yourself. You should be the only one in your photo.

Another problem plaguing branding is the quality of the photos. Don’t use a scanned copy of your high school yearbook or a photo of your drivers license. You’re in the internet marketing industry — have the right tools available to get a decent photo online.

Okay, so I’ve told you how NOT to brand yourself. So how should you? The following people you may recognize — because they’ve branded themselves correctly.

Odds are you recognize some (if not all) of those faces. From left to right is Paul Kinder, Soren Jordansen, Jon Olson, Solomon Huey, and Cindy Battye. You recognize them because they’ve done their branding the right way. Just copy them — I mean, they’re getting good results!

Another important aspect of how you should brand yourself is where you should brand yourself. The answer is simple — everywhere you can! Have your own web site? Brand it. Using generic affiliate pages that are identical to the affiliate pages thousands of others are using? Make your own and brand it. Advertising a splash page? Brand it.

The results of branding yourself

You may not know it, but as soon as someone sees your picture and reads your name you are getting results. The more they see your picture and name the better. You’re being burned into the back of their mind. You’re subconsciously making others aware of who you are. People liken names and faces to success. So when someone is ready to buy your product and they have to choose between the salesman they don’t know or you, they’ll choose you. So even though the results may not be immediate, they are there. By branding yourself, you’re establishing the groundworks for a trustful relationship with thousands of people.

It’s really that easy. I understand that I may have missed out on some aspects of branding so feel free to leave a comment and tell me what I left out and I’ll add it in.