Today I'm sharing with you, why it's time to move to more personal brand focus after 4 years of building my business brand, The Connection Exchange (TCX) as well as share some personal branding tips with you if you’re doing the same or if you just want to build a personal brand.

Whilst TCX is without a doubt still around and thriving there was something holding me back from playing bigger and barrier to me building my business. So something I always teach my clients to do is ask the question and then sit in it to understand what’s holding you back. So when I asked myself what was holding me back, it was the parameters I'd put around TCX and it was filtering through to the way I running my business.

When I started TCX it was to build a local community, run events and have connection with other amazing women around me. The great this is that I've done that. We have a membership community here in Melbourne with breakfast events, dinners, coworking, training and workshops which I love.

I run corporate training and do coaching with both executives, teams and individuals mainly in Melbourne.

So the invisible barrier has been that everything that we do in the business is local. Its Melbourne based and even though I've had people ask me to travel and work with them – that's not what I want.

I want to be able to work from home, be flexible with my family, still do my larger corporate consulting work and do it from the comfort of my home office. I do coach women in business from around the world so that’s not been an issue – but when I look at the business I feel like it's good where it is but that doesn't mean that I am as well.

My vision moving forward is to work with as many business owners as I can to help them build amazing brands, get really clear on their message to market and share what I teach with a wider audience. So instead of changing what TCX does, I thought I was time for me to take my personal out on its own and start to build that in a stronger way.

Now as I teach those business owners who are in my Play Big, Brand Bold online course – if you want to build a brand you have to have a plan. You need to have a strategy. You have to step back and take a look at what you have, where you are and what you want to do and then you need to start consciously, deliberately and with a focused approach, brick by brick start building it.

Don't get me wrong, you can total wing it and see what happens but as the market gets busier and busier if you want to cut through the noise, cut the time it takes and really target what you're doing so that you're working smarter and not harder than creating a brand strategy is always worthwhile.

#1

The first thing I’ve done is moved all my accounts from TCX to @suzchadwick. So my Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Pinterest and facebook at all the same so that it's consistent and easy for people to find me. I had so many different handles which is something I would never tell a client to do – but that can happen over 4 years and you build something.
So lesson 1 – be consistent, use your name and the more people see it the more they become familiar with it.

#2

The 2nd thing is to pick your platforms. Because I love video I'll be recording a lot more video content and growing my Youtube following so if you're not over there then I'd love you to head over there and subscribe.

I've also moved to a weekly podcast schedule with the Brand Builders Lab podcast which I'm super excited about and have some amazing guests joining me! I've scheduled out all our episodes till the end of the year which is crazy but like I say, if you're going to build your brand then you need to commit to what and where you want to play and do the things that you want to with consistency. I was listening to a webinar with Amy Porterfield and she said that moving to a regular weekly content or podcast it made such a huge difference to the traction in her business so learn from the best I say!

#3

Be clear what you want to be known for. Do I want to be known for TCE or do I want to be known as a brand builder, business coach and trainer? TCX is still important but I want to work with more women to help them Play bigger, get confident with video, speak with confidence so that’s what needs to be front and centre. So really decide what you want to be known for and put a critical eye across everything your doing and decide if it’s obvious what you do, what you’re about and what you offer. It’s another reason why I change the podcast name to Brand Builders Lab – it was time to get seriously obvious and make sure there was no doubt in anyone’s mind what I do.

#4

Build content around your values and what you stand for.  Remember people connect with people so making sure you content is personal, it has a point of view and that’s true to you, who you are and you’re values is what attracts the right people. So I revisited my vision, mission and values and they are all pretty much the same but my vision has shifted to be more of personal one which feels so good.

#5

Be okay with evolving. When I posted on Instagram that I was changing things over, I had a lot of people who were feeling the same way and I just want to say to you that it took me a lot longer than it should have to make the decision – but now that it's done I feel free to really go so much bigger.

So if you feel like the structure you started with, isn't right for you anymore then that's okay. We evolve and shift and move in our businesses and you need to go with works for you. Your audience will understand and if they love what you do then it won't make a difference to them!

At the end of the day the focus is to think about how I become known as the branding person – if you want to build your brand, if you want to have more fun getting known for what you want to be known for then I'm the person to help you do it.

Building that around my personal brand feels so much more exciting. Having TCX and the community is awesome and I love them but that takes care of itself and if I want to grow both within Melbourne and Australia and then more globally – which yes I'm made the conscious decision to do then I need to be me and play bigger and brand bolder!