How to un-bland your personal brand

Blandular fever is on the rise in online marketing.

Sure, I love a letter-brushed font and sure, I am partial to some geometric shapes, but for all things rose gold and glittery, let’s break away from the blandness of the sheeple, shall we?

Now, you might well be a carnival-dancing, fire-throwing, life-drawing cocktail-shaker in your spare time
(and hey, if you are, I want to hang out!).

But what if you are So. Very. Normal?

What if, when everyone else is telling stories about their retreats, celebrity dinners, book launches and other insta-life happenings, you are more of a Netflix-and-PJ's 7 days a week person?

It's OK.

You might feel super boring compared to the curated lives of others, but your audience and clients still want to get to know YOU.

Yep, even if you feel you don't have anything to add, I guarantee that you do. 

You don't have to invent a "cool" life. You are already YOU, and you already have a wealth of stories.
You don’t need to unicornise what you do, just amp up your awesome that already exists.

Capiche?

So, what is causing the blandness epidemic, and how can you overcome the #samesame syndrome in your business and personal brand?
Let’s dive into the soup and see.

1. Create some space

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again:

Staying out of the echo chamber and creating space away from what everyone else is doing is so, so important.

Sure, keep in touch with industry news and be able to respond to conversations, but finding precious time away from the noise as a cornerstone of brilliance ignition is essential to allow creative stuff to come.

Why?

When we are all drinking from the same water cooler, the differentiators become blurred.

When you don’t take space to allow different approaches and insights, you regurgitate - sometimes even subconsciously - what other people have said.

There is a word for it, too: cryptomnesia.

It means to be inspired by and replicate unknowingly the work of others.

I don’t know about you, but I see this ALL. THE. DAMN. TIME.

Worse than that is the intentional plagiarism, which is also all too present in so many industries.
(cite your references and inspiration, peeps - everything is a remix - but acknowledge your sources, c’mon!)

Plagiarism, deliberate or not, is really a side effect of not being creative on your own terms,

If you arm tooled up with being super clear on tour values and what makes you brilliant, you start from a very different place than the borrow-ist culture,

You have a foundation for articulating what you do, how it you it differently, and why people should listen to you.
(for my free resources on this, check out my values worksheet as part of my subscriber bundle here, and the Own Your Brilliance challenge here).

2. Get creative

So, we have made some space and we know that getting creative is important, but where to start?

Think about the way you use language, imagery, even the way you approach everything in your business from client touch points to content, packages, services, all of it.

Think about how you can add more of your personal, brilliant, magic touch to those elements.
This is what sets you apart.

And no, it doesn’t mean selling your left lung to pay for a branding package and fancy website.
In fact, those are the LAST things you should do.

If your message is on point, is adding huge value and speaking directly to your peeps, then yes, do the all bells and whistles thing.

Until then, getting über clear on your brand, message and offer is key.

3. Stay in your own lane

There is power in learning from others, and there is power in seeing whatsup in the competitive landscape, but overwhelm and procrastination set in when you become obsessed with what everyone else is doing - who is doing better, whose graphics are sexier, whose live streams are cool, who has the best email - that you end up not producing anything.

Sad face.

Believe me, I have seen this time and time again.

Once you are confident in your own brilliance, you have a strong foundation with which to build everything on, and that old friend of overwhelm paralysis exits stage right and is gone for good.

If you are hopping between Facebook group to Facebook group buying courses, spinning wheels and freaking out, it’s a good sign you need to implement. Like, now.

Let’s un-bland your business and start making your own mark, and let’s start getting some traction. Finally.
Go!