One of the things I've been doing in lockdown is going back to writing my book - Zero to Hero - and I have so enjoyed getting back into the creative process and putting my story together. Some of it has been great fun, and some of it has been less so. Revisiting mistakes and how I got myself out of yet another pile of poo has not been the easiest process. However, it's the only way to learn - and I seem to have done a lot of that.
I'm about half way through the first draft now, and I thought I'd start sharing parts of it with you. Here comes the intro - more to follow as I tell my personal branding and business story:
Finding MY Superhero
Building a strong personal brand doesn’t happen overnight.It’s taken me the best part of ten years to get where I am now – and three of that to build a strong personal brand to support KAPOW!
You need a plan.
And this book will help you get one together to begin building a strong personal brand for you and for your business.
Your plan is broken down into three processes:
- Defining Your Brand
- Developing Your Brand
- Delivering Your Brand
What I find most interesting when folks first start the KAPOW! Coaching Programme is that they get massively engaged in the first and second phases, and then seem to fizzle out at the delivery stage.
Don’t be that person.
Don’t put your personal branding plans in the Drawer of Doom.
You know – that place you put all the stuff you spend ages planning but you never actually begin to do it? Those lists that make you feel like you’ve really accomplished something because you wrote a list.
Developing a strong personal brand takes effort. It takes consistent effort.
There will be times you don’t want to – times you want to throw your teddies out of the cot and have a thoroughly good tantrum. I know I do from time to time.
As we go through this process, you need to keep focussed on your story. That’s what people engage with. That’s where your branding journey starts – its up to you to keep on telling it.
Networking is a major part of building your personal brand – I’m going to talk about it a lot throughout this book, and 4N in particular. I’ve been a member of 4N since 2010, and have been a team member all that time too, I was running a region of 23 face to face groups before lockdown and now run 8 online groups at the time of writing.
There are a lot of people out there who think I’ve been lucky. In the right place at the right time.
Nothing could be further from the truth. You’ll find that out as we work through this book together.
Three years ago, I was stuck in a rut. My international training consultancy, Lightning Training, was pretty much running itself. The ‘hands on’ leadership and drive I’d used to get it going from ground zero simply wasn’t relevant anymore.
Frankly, I was bored.
And it showed.
I took my eye off the ball, stopped networking, and had a major tantrum.
Then I had a 1-2-1-with my good mate, Stefan Thomas – and during that 1-2-1 he simply asked me what I got asked the most in 1-2-1s. And when I told him, he said ‘ then you need to get on and do that then’
And so KAPOW! was born.
This is my story.
If you want to come on this journey with me - download this - and keep an eye out for the next instalment!