Perfecting Your Personal Brand Statement | How To Answer What Do You Do?11 min read
If you struggle to answer “what do you do?” in a compelling way, this article will help you perfect your personal brand statement so that you can master your messaging and book out your business.
I’ve gone through so many iterations of “what do you do” I’ve lost count.
- I help ambitious entrepreneurs achieve their wildest business goals.
- I help you create the clarity, confidence, and consistency to grow your business.
- I help entrepreneurs build, grow, and scale a thriving business while living a fulfilling life.
- I help high performers create not just financial success, but fulfilling success™.
In the early days of my business, I felt like if I didn’t get this personal brand statement just right then I would never get a paying client.
My entire business’ success felt like it hinged on my ability to wordsmith the perfect sentence that would awe strangers into throwing money my way.
If you’re currently struggling with nailing your personal brand statement and articulating the answer to “what do you do” in a concise and compelling way, I’d love to share with you what helped me develop a brand statement that I could stick with for longer than 2.2 seconds.
You’ll walk away from this article knowing
- The most important element of your personal brand statement
- The biggest mistakes most entrepreneurs make when creating their personal brand statements
- How to develop a personal brand statement that converts clients
What is a personal brand statement?
A personal brand statement is essentially your answer to “What do you do?” (that dreaded question that causes so many of us to take a deep sigh and go on a long journey of trying to find the right words).
Whether you’re brand new to business and looking to land your first paying client, or you’ve been running a successful business for years but are questioning its entire existence right now (which is totally normal), defining your personal brand statement is key to attracting the right clients on repeat and making more money in your business.
3 things most people get wrong with their personal brand statement
I’ve helped so many new entrepreneurs build profitable businesses from scratch so that they can live purposeful and fulfilling lives through my Online Business Coaching Program.
Here are the biggest mistakes I see new entrepreneurs make in their personal brand statements:
Trying to make it sound cute
I get it, there is a lot of competition out there, and you want to stand out from the crowd. You don’t want to feel like you’re saying the same thing as everybody else.
And yet, there’s a reason everyone is saying variations of the same thing.
Because that thing lands. It resonates. It hits the mark. And it gets them clients.
Related Post: How Your Mindset Is Keeping Your Business Stuck
Now, I’m not saying go copy it. But if your personal brand statement is too wacky, it’s not going to resonate because it’s just not going to make any sense.
If you’re using industry jargon (like all that fluffy coach speak about finding your full potential and overcoming your limiting beliefs) then no one (except your competition, actually…) is going to understand.
There’s a difference between:
“I’m a business coach for mamas who want to scale without working more hours”
And
“I’m a heart centered business and mindset coach for purpose driven women who refuse to sacrifice their deepest values.”
One is on track and to the point. The other one drove off the side of the highway and is sitting in the bushes somewhere.
If you want your personal brand statement to resonate with your ideal clients, you have to get to the point. Even if that means “sounding boring.” Call it what it is so that your people can actually understand it.
Here’s a hint: if you wouldn’t respond with that specific personal brand statement in a face to face conversation with a friend, it shouldn’t be plastered all over your website and social media.
Thinking it needs to be perfect
Your business’ success does not hinge on the perfect personal brand statement.
I spent the first 3 years of my business marketing myself as a business coach for women and do you know how many MEN I work with!? 50% of my clients are men. And I love that.
Related Post: How To Boost Your Confidence
Which just goes to show that the specific words you use in your personal brand statement don’t make that big of a difference in the grand scheme of things.
What’s more likely happening is that you’re hiding.
You’re spending hours reworking your personal brand statement and convincing yourself that THAT is the thing that’s really going to bring in those clients…
But we all know it’s a comfy excuse for not getting out there, taking bold action, getting visible online, showing up consistently, and pitching and selling…
The truth truth is that your personal brand statement will evolve over time. But it’s only going to get better and better as you use it, work it, practice it, preach it. It will never evolve if you continue hiding behind your screen.
For now, your personal brand statement needs to be 80% good enough for you to feel comfortable using it. Then you need to run with it.
Focusing on how you help people
The truth is, no one really cares how you help people.
I know, it kinda hurts. You’re so proud of your methodology or your framework or your process. In fact you’ve probably spent hours tweaking and perfecting that too.
But your people don’t care how you help them until they understand that you CAN help them.
They need to know that you can give them what they want before their brain cares enough to ask how you’re going to do that.
Related Post: Top High Performance Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs
For example, if someone asks me “what do you do?” and I say “I help you grow your business” … if that’s an outcome they deeply desire, their curiosity will be immediately piqued leading to more questions on how I do that. (At which point I can go on to explain that I help you overcome your limiting beliefs, build a sustainable strategy, and perform at your highest level).
If I start with “I help you get rid of your limiting beliefs”, even if that IS the thing that will grow their business, if the person on the other end doesn’t immediately register that that is something they want, they’re not going to inquire further.
Which means you need to focus less on how you work and more on what you help people achieve.
Which leads me to my next point:
The most important element of your personal brand statement
The most important element of your personal brand statement is the RESULT you help people create.
That is the single most important piece you need to figure out in order to create a compelling personal brand statement that converts clients.
And the truth is, most people want the same things, be it money/security, fame/status, happiness/fulfillment, peace/joy, health/wellness, time, connection/love, etc.
We’re not all that complicated (which brings me back to my point of being willing to be boring).
So the first step to creating your personal brand statement, and the most important step, is to define the outcome you help your clients achieve.
- What do they get as a result of working with you?
- What’s the ultimate outcome of having done that?
- What is it that they really want in the short term?
- What does getting that mean for them in the long term?
These are all important questions to answer so that you can craft a personal brand statement and answer what do you do? in an effective way.
Related Post: The Ultimate Guide To Setting Goals and Acheieving Personal Growth
How to Perfect Your Personal Brand Statement | Free What Do You Do Workbook
I help a lot of my private coaching clients develop their brand statements as they launch their businesses.
My mission is to help even more ambitious entrepreneurs create thriving businesses so they can live fulfilling lives.
Which is why I created this FREE What Do You Do Workbook: to help you perfect your personal brand statement.
This workbook walks you through the exact process I use with my 1:1 clients so that you can take it, run with it, and start seeing higher conversions in your business immediately.
Just drop your name below and you’ll get instant access to the editable PDF.
This workbook helps you not only nail the result you help your clients create, but also the other three critical elements of your personal brand statement!
Best of all, there are 15 helpful prompts to help you brainstorm your answers so that you can curate the perfect personal brand statement!
When you’re just starting out in your business, it can feel really hard to answer the ‘What do you do?’ question.
Your confidence in your skills as a service provider AND your ability to explain what you do effectively builds over time.
The unfortunate part is it only builds if you build it, which means you have to get out there and stumble through your first few iterations of your personal brand statement before it really clicks for you.
But in the meantime, I hope you’ll focus on communicating THE most important element of your personal brand statement as best you can (the result you help your clients create), and I really hope you’ll use the free What Do You Do Workbook to help you work through the other elements that are essential to communicating What do you do? and converting clients.
I’d love to hear your personal brand statement so feel free to practice it by dropping it in the comments below this article!!
Related Posts: