When I asked one of my recent female CEO clients, Joy Loewen, why she wanted to invest in her personal brand, she said “I'm at a time in my life where I have more confidence in who I am. I know the type of work I enjoy doing and I know WHY I do the work I do.”
Keep that powerful statement in mind as you read through this post, covering how female entrepreneurs can build a personal brand and my top 8 personal branding tips for female CEOs.
As a female entrepreneur, you likely have an impressive resume and life story to tell. But you can’t communicate it all in your personal brand. Nor do you necessarily want to. What will be most impactful is honing in on some key elements of it that can be built out further with the use of visuals and messaging.
To narrow down what aspects of you you should include, ask yourself these questions:
When I first started my work with Joy Loewen, CEO of the National Screen Institute of Canada, she shared a keynote speech she gave at the Winnipeg Women’s Conference. This piece of content was a great building block and a great source of inspiration for understanding Joy’s tone, style and mindset.
It’s items like this I encourage you to use when developing your personal brand.
This may seem obvious, but you want people to see your personal brand and immediately associate it with elements of your personality. But how exactly do you do that? Here’s an example of an approach I used when building a personal brand for Liz Choi, CEO for Education Canada Group.
I kicked off the discovery process by asking her to interview her team members and colleagues, gathering the first words that came to mind when they thought of Liz. Here’s what they came up with
This was a great starting point for the project. It provided me with the context of what Liz is like as a leader. These words easily allowed me to develop a personal brand that captured her personality.
Though you’re developing a personal brand, your brand’s name doesn’t necessarily need to be your name. There’s room for creativity here. The name you choose for your personal brand should communicate your purpose, goals as well as personality. It should give others an idea of what they can expect when working with you.
When it came to Liz’s personal brand, developing a name came easy as her colleagues had already organically been referring to her as “Liz Ferocious.” Soon after, Liz was named Chair of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce and members started using the hashtag, #FerociousEra on social. So building on this idea for Liz’s brand identity was an obvious choice.
Alternatively, you can choose a name for your personal brand that sounds more like a business. Take my client, Kendall Bishop for example. When Kendall came to Little Ghost, she wanted to launch her personal brand under the name Badass Growth Co. This name expressed her work ethic and “get shit done” mentality her clients have come to expect of her.
So choose a name for your personal brand that reflects what you bring to the table as a female CEO.
A photoshoot may sound a little intimidating, but it’s worth it. Trust me. Having a bank of high quality photos will allow you to easily launch and communicate your brand across various channels. All while showing the face behind the brand, you!
With Kendall from Badass Growth Co., we knew we needed a library of photos in order to launch her website and social channels. Little Ghost helped her coordinate a branded photoshoot to ensure it would compliment her new personal brand identity.
Here’s some of the key considerations we took into consideration when planning her shoot:
When planning your personal branding shoot, be sure to select a trusted photographer that has a style that will accompany the tone of your brand.
Whether it’s a business or personal brand, developing an identity system that can grow with you is so important. There’s a few ways I suggest female entrepreneurs and CEOs do so.
First, invest in a full suite of logos with your brand name as well as simpler version that can be used in small applications. This would be for things like a LinkedIn or Instagram profile image and will ensure your logo is legible at all sizes.
Next, if you are using a moniker or business name for your brand, consider investing in a secondary logo of your name as well. For example with Liz, we designed her logos for both Liz Ferocious as well as Liz Choi. This gives her flexibility depending which audience she is talking to.
Finally, invest in an identity system that is modern and relevant. As a female CEO, you want to build a personal brand for the future. And so your logo should reflect that growth you want to see within your own career.
Building a personal brand that is dynamic in its identity will allow you to customize it for various applications, assets and target audiences.
For example, you might want to showcase more colours and graphics on a platform like Instagram. Whereas, you might keep you LinkedIn profile and website more refined. Having a large suite of colours, typefaces, graphics, icons and more will offer you flexibility.
Here’s visual examples of how I differently present Liz’s brand on Instagram vs on Linkedin.
A media kit is a branded piece of communication that is used to explain key information about yourself to others. Most companies have a media kit, but there’s also a huge opportunity for personal brands to use them as well. Why? Because a media kit is a way to promote yourself and your accompaniments while also showcasing your personality through branding.
Your personal media kit should contain;
Little Ghost recently created a media kit for Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council (CAMSC)’s Cassadra Dorrington. We included info about Cassandra’s keynote speeches at women’s conferences as well as noteworthy new articles published about her and the companies she’s worked for. This goes to show your media kit doesn’t have to follow a specific format. Customize it to you and your accomplishments.
Once you’ve finalized your personal brand identity, the next step is determining how you’ll roll it out to market.
There’s several ways you can do this, which you can read in my post 3 Strategies For Launching Your Brand This Year where I share detailed advice on the most effective ways to launch your brand.
But when it comes to a personal brand as a female CEO or entrepreneur, I suggest you prioritise rolling out these three items first:
So remember, whatever your personal brand is about, remain consistent and authentic. When you professionally own your brand, your skill set will speak for itself. And I’m confident new opportunities will quickly present themselves.
Whether you’re politically charged, passionate about social justice or striving to build the next great brand — a personal brand can help you reach that next career goal.
If you’re a female entrepreneur or female CEO ready to take that next step, I’d love to hear from you! All groundbreaking ideas have to start somewhere and together I hope we can make those dreams of yours a reality
