Think of a person you admire. Whether it’s a sports star like Tom Brady, an entrepreneur like Elon Musk, or a music artist like Taylor Swift, every single person you’re a fan of is not just a famous person. They’re also a brand.
Taylor Swift is a billion-dollar, manufactured brand with a team working actively behind the scenes to market her in a specific way: polished, relatable, effortlessly cool, etc.
And here’s a tip you may never have heard of before: You can do the same for yourself.
No, I’m not saying you can start tomorrow and be Taylor Swift. But you can build a dominant brand in your industry that creates a real connection, drives demand, and positions you as the obvious and top choice, not just a good one.
You can do it by taking control of the narrative.
The way people perceive you comes down to one thing: What do you consistently show them?
If people see you involved in your community on social media, your website, in the news, and so on, they’ll associate you with giving back even if they never meet you. You could already be giving back more than others behind the scenes, but that doesn’t matter. In today’s world, perception is built on visibility.
You want to be known for your client-centric approach? Show it.
You want to be seen as the firm or the business that goes above and beyond? Prove it.
Most businesses mess up by talking the talk but never walking the walk. Not in front of prospective clients, anyway. Not with real evidence.
Saying you care about your clients is fine, and it’s most likely true. But having 100+ testimonial videos of your clients saying it? That’s a billion-dollar difference. Hundreds — not five or 10 — of videos, reviews, client spotlights, and weekly success stories will separate you from firms who say the same but don’t show it.
Pick a message, an area of focus, a unique proposition of you and your firm, and use every touchpoint to reinforce it — because when someone sees a particular message being amplified over and over again, they will believe it to be true.
Your actions will help create the fact.
A brand is built on consistency.
Whatever you want to be known for won’t happen by accident. You have to actively manufacture it. You have to choose the message and then prove it.
Most leaders will stop too early. They’ll post a testimonial or two expecting the world to take notice right away, and when it doesn’t, they’ll think I’m wrong.
But if you want some space in someone’s already-cluttered, modern-day mind, you have to earn it — and that doesn’t happen in a couple of posts.
So billion-dollar advice really only boils down to three things:
- Pick a message: a brand you want to be known for.
- Build a content engine around it.
- Relentlessly, repetitively, consistently reinforce that message with everything you do.
And with time, watch what happens.
Not by luck, not by chance, but by choice.
