As more health professionals move online there is increasing interest around the idea of personal branding – what it is and how can you use it to grow your business? Here, I share three ways that having a personal brand transformed my business.

What is a personal brand?

A personal brand is how you market yourself to the world. Whether you are aware of it or not, everybody has a personal brand because a personal brand is something that is a part of you – it's a combination of your individual life experiences, skills, talents, and personality traits, and much like a fingerprint, it is something that is unique to you.

Having a personal brand helped to set me apart from my competitors

Other people may have the same qualifications as you, work in the same area as you, but your personality is not something that other people can replicate. My personal brand, which was (and still is) based on values of relatability, authenticity, creativity, and innovation, was something that was different from what a lot of other dietitians were doing at the time, and as a result, it set me apart from others in my industry.

Having a personal brand allowed me to develop a strong connection with my audience

Turning up on Instagram and showing my face online regularly enabled me to develop a relationship with my audience. This may seem like a weird concept to some people, but because I was turning up on Instagram every day in those early days of my business, I was able to learn things about my audience quickly – who they were, where they lived, their age, what they liked, what their pain points were…and they were also able to learn about who I was through the content that I shared and interactions I had with them albeit through conversations on comments or via direct message.

There is a great saying ‘people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel'. How you make people feel is such an important part of any brand. By sharing parts of myself and the behind-the-scenes of my business, I allowed people to connect with me on a human level. This was transformative for my business as it helped my business grow. My audience became brand advocates – they would reshare my content, book appointments, recommend me to friends…and in business, having a good reputation and positive referral network is so powerful.

Having a personal brand meant that people were waiting to buy from me when I had products and services to sell

Because I was sharing content in a really authentic and relatable way, I was able to establish a certain level of trust with my audience that made them naturally excited and willing to invest in me when it came time to open my clinic bookings and sell my first product. 

As a result of starting an Instagram page whilst I was at university, I had people enquiring about my services before I even graduated. Fast forward roughly two years, and I sold my first product making just shy of $15K in sales. Both results that I attribute a large portion of the success to having a strong personal brand.