OWN YOUR BRAND SHOW with Victoria Odekomaya

What Does It Take to Build a Personal Brand That Truly Connects? | Epi 48

• Victoria Odekomaya • Episode 48

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Unlock the secrets to crafting a personal brand that truly stands out and reflects your authentic self. Do you wonder how some individuals seem to effortlessly influence decisions, from product purchases to voting choices? Join us as we explore the critical components of personal branding, with a focus on authenticity and consistency. We promise you'll learn how clarity about your desired perception and genuine self-representation can build a strong "know, like, and trust" factor that resonates with others. Avoid the pitfalls of mimicking others or reducing your brand to visuals alone, as we illustrate through examples like Elon Musk's unique approach to branding.

In this episode, discover how to create content that not only showcases your expertise but also connects with your audience on a deeper level. Whether you're sharing your journey as a photographer, a foreigner, or a proud parent, learn how to present your values and personality authentically. We also highlight the thrilling opportunity to elevate your brand with a feature in Boss Ladies magazine, complete with a celebrity photo shoot experience. Let us guide you in making your personal brand memorable and influential, ensuring that every aspect of your brand building reflects who you truly are.

//ABOUT

Victoria Odekomaya is a Nigerian American and former drug research scientist turned brand and marketing expert. Through her Creative Agency, LiMStudios, she specializes in brand photography, video creation, and strategic marketing. Victoria's mission is to empower female entrepreneurs to be SEEN, KNOWN, and HEARD, enhancing their visual presence and attracting their ideal customers to build a BANKABLE PERSONAL BRAND. Victoria's scientific background has honed her analytical thinking, attention to detail, and problem-solving skills, which she integrates into her branding strategies. Her 23-year journey to U.S. citizenship reflects the perseverance female entrepreneurs need to overcome challenges in branding and marketing. This fuels her dedication to empower women to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams.

In 2022, Victoria launched the BOSS LADIES CAMPAIGN, giving participants a celebrity photoshoot experience to enhance their confidence and brand visibility. The campaign promotes these women through features in BOSS LADIES magazine, appearances on Victoria's 'OWN YOUR BRAND SHOW', and recognition at the BOSS LADIES GALA. The gala not only celebrates women but also raises funds for local non-profits, so far raising $19,000+ for Dove Recovery House for Women and PINK RIBBON CONNECTION.

For sponsorship/business inquiries, visit https://mtr.bio/limstudios or email hello@thelimstudios.com.

Speaker 1:

There is no way you build a personal brand with inconsistency. It just doesn't work. You buying one over the other may come down to something that you may have heard about that one particular brand, or how you feel about the packaging. How do you want to be described? These are things that you have to have nailed down. What words do you want people to use to describe you? Articulate that, get clarity on those things and then show up as those things.

Speaker 1:

Why is building your personal brand important? You probably heard the notion of know, like and trust, and this is important because people buy from those that they like, they know and they feel like they can trust. And one of the ways you can build that know, like and trust is building your personal brand. When people feel like they know you and they think they like you, they feel like they like you because they vibe with you and they can trust you, then they would ultimately buy from you. It's critical that we have a personal brand. We build our personal brand in that regard so that people can get to know us, ultimately build our brand.

Speaker 1:

The number two mistake that I see when people make when building a personal brand is not being authentic. There is no way around it. You absolutely have to be authentic when it comes to building your personal brand. I mean, think about it. The whole premise of the word is personal brand, so we really have to put the personal in building our brand. So that means it's about you, what you like, your values and everything that is basically you, and there's a difference between building a personal brand and a business brand. If you want to go ahead and just build a business brand, then have that at the back of your mind, that what you're building is a business brand. But if you want to build a personal brand, there is an element of your personality that has to be showcased in that. Now I strongly recommend building a personal brand and maybe even a business brand, especially for those people that are considering wondering which one to do, because your personal brand like I said earlier about building no like and trust would eventually drive people to buying from your business.

Speaker 1:

And, for example, there's so many people you know, big names, such as Gary Vaynerchuk let's not go there because I can't even pronounce his last name. Let's talk about like, for example, elon Musk. A lot of people buy the Tesla because of Elon Musk, right? Not necessarily because of what the Tesla is doing right now, or maybe the capability of it, what the Tesla is doing right now, or maybe the capability of it or the lack of capabilities of tech Tesla. Similarly, when it comes to the political platform and I'm not talking about I'm not endorsing any client, any candidates, but there are some people that are going to make their voting decisions strictly on the way they feel about a specific candidate, especially those that are neutral, right, those that have not really decided who they want to vote for. This is part of the reasons why building a personal brand is important. People will make decisions because of how they feel about you in particular, not necessarily about what you bring to the table, about you know what you're capable of.

Speaker 1:

Let me paint an example for you. You're at the store, you have two bottles of tomatoes from different brands in your hand and you're trying to determine which one to buy. Sometimes, after you've read the whole description and what's all inside of it, you clearly may not even be able to tell the difference between one or the other, and maybe the price difference is insignificant too. Sometimes you, buying one over the other, may come down to something that you may have heard about that one particular brand, or how you feel about the packaging, or the fact that they mentioned on one of the packages that the items are sourced from. You know, in the United States. You know, like the ingredients are from the United States. All of those little details matter.

Speaker 1:

So when it comes to building your personal brand, you really have to be authentic. It has to be things that is about you, the things that you feel comfortable sharing. That would make people feel like they get to know who you are. You cannot do things because other people are doing it, especially if it doesn't align with you. So when you're building your personal brand, number two mistake you want to avoid is trying to be like everybody else, trying to use the same colors, the same formats as everybody else. You really need to be about yourself. So I would strongly encourage you to write down the things that you know about you in particular and that you feel comfortable sharing, and start incorporating those things into your brand, into your content, into every avenue that you use to build your personal brand, and that's how you can be authentic.

Speaker 1:

Number three mistake that people make when building a personal brand is thinking that your personal brand is really just your logo, your font, your website. No, that is absolutely false. Your personal brand goes way beyond that. It's, yes, a part of visual branding is your font. You know the aesthetics of your brand kit and all of those types of things like your website. That is important. However, that is just a minute part of your brand. I'm telling you that part of your personal brand is how you speak to people, how you show up to people, how you address how you serve people, your customer service. Do they call and they are on the line forever, or like you never respond back to their messages, some even as small as your email, like how your emails come off, like even on your social media, how you show up, how you, the little things that you do. That makes difference. Maybe the color palette you know, maybe like the feed seems very nice and clean because that's who you are, not necessarily because that's what you, you know some people are doing. I want to make sure that is clear, right, but everything down to the interaction with people is part of building your personal brand. I have had people tell me oh, victoria, I love the way your emails come across. They're very professional. You know, I love the format of it. Look, it's that important because you are living a memory with people.

Speaker 1:

Your interaction, every touch point goes a long way to either building your brand or tanking it. Another example that I have is maybe you, when you go to networking. I know a lot of people like to go networking. When you go to networking events, like, are you very your vibe? What kind of vibe do you bring with you? If that is who you are, like you're very happy, you're such a, you know, bubbly kind of personality. Let that show forth. Like, if you're a shy person, that's okay. You know, like, don't shy away from who you are, but just know that every interaction, every conversation, everything that you do, every touch point, goes a long way to building your personal brand. So, yes, think about that.

Speaker 1:

The number four way mistake that people make when building a personal brand is not having a strategy. Look just like you have a business plan. You have to have a plan on how to build your personal brand. It's not one of those things that you do haphazardly. You have to have a goal, you have to have a focus. You have to have a focus. You have to have a road plan. It's not something that you just, you know, wake up someday and like, oh, I need to start building my personal brand, I need to start doing this. And what do I need to do? I need to start posting, and I'm posting.

Speaker 1:

No, it has to be intentional. Who are your target audience? What message are you trying to pass across? How do you want to be described? These are things that you have to have nailed down. What words do you want people to use to describe you? Articulate that, get clarity on those things and then show up as those things. If you don't even know how you want to be described, how you want to be addressed, there is no way people you know you would do things to communicate that. So it starts with you being intentional. Take out a piece of paper and a pen and start writing down who your target audience are, what are some of the things that they enjoy, they like and want to see, and then what are some of those things that you want to show up, how you want to show up, how you want to describe yourself. For example, I want to be seen as the best photographer in Indiana, you know, and I want to be considered the luxury photographer in Indiana. So that means that all of my content has to show luxury. The way I address people, the way I comfort you know, the way I dress, the way I, everything that I do has to speak luxurious. Otherwise you know there's a mismatch and people begin to wonder like, is she okay, you know anyway. So it's really important that you get clarity on that and you begin to make moves to achieve that for yourself.

Speaker 1:

Then, lastly, is you have to be consistent. There is no way you build a personal brand with inconsistency. It just doesn't work. Even the algorithm is going to not even recognize that something is happening here. The same with people. When you are consistent, you are ultimately consistent Building something. When there is a history, you go back, let's say, you go back into your timeline or into your phone or into your records, and you see that every so often I do this that's when you have a history, that's when people have a history, that's how you build a history of a person or a brand. Does that make sense? So it's really important that you are consistent Makes sense. So it's really important that you are consistent.

Speaker 1:

Now that you have a strategy, then you need to set out what consistency means to you. We are all busy, so nobody's asking for you to post five times a day if that is not you. Remember we talked about authenticity. It is critical that you define what consistency means for you. It's critical that you define what consistency means for you. And again, that is for you, looking at all your schedule, looking at all the work that you have to do and everything else that you're juggling in your life. What does consistency look like for you?

Speaker 1:

Personally, I create content on Fridays because it's kind of like my wind down day and I try to create a bunch of content so that if I miss one Friday, it doesn't show up to. You know, I'm not off schedule. That doesn't mean I'm perfect at it, but I put it on my calendar, I block it off and I put a system in place to make sure that I create content on Fridays. That's how I try to get consistent. So you want to do the same thing. Figure out what works for you.

Speaker 1:

I remember one time I was trying to create content every day. I actually even started it and I said it online on social media like I'm gonna come over, come out here and talk about um. You know, show up every day and give you a 10 minute tip about branding. Sure, that did not work because, um, you know, I thought I was gonna do it. I had all the intention to do it, but I didn't really have a plan for it. I just knew that I wanted to do it and I I tried it for like, I think, like for three, four days, and then what happened was that I wasn't consistent on the timing that I was showing up on social media, but I knew that when it's towards the end of the day, like, I still need to show up, so then I would gather myself together, put on my makeup and do my set up and then I'll get online and I'll say something. But then I quickly realized that, well, first of all, not only even though I was trying to be consistent every day I wasn't consistent on the timing. So, as I was doing a live stream, people that may even be interested in what I have to say they don't even know what time to gather to listen right, or what time to come back and rewatch. So, those little things, they matter. Eventually I decided not to do that and I focus on doing content every Friday and this has been helping me a lot, because that helps me, especially because I can batch it and I can do it and I can um you know doing in advance. So figure out what consistency means for you. I know we've heard this so many times, but it's critical that we be consistent. Again, figure out what consistency mean for you. It could be once a month, it could be once every two weeks. Again, that's completely up to you for what you can do and for what you need to do to build your personal brand Right. So figure out what that is and put a plan together and get that done. So I hope this has really helped you.

Speaker 1:

Oh, the other thing that I wanted to mention is what to post. That's one thing that I hear people say all the time when it comes to what to post. That's one thing that I hear people say all the time. When it comes to what to post, I mean, there's a lot of information out there that talks about the different pillars that you want to post, but the way I like to think about this is I want to post content that help people get to know me, like me and trust me. So my content, you know, often would include things that I want people to know about me that I am a photographer that I am launching this boss ladies magazine, or like I photographed um, you know a bunch of people. Or I went to this um networking, meeting, those types of things. So those would fall under the category of get to know me.

Speaker 1:

The like are things that I, you know, things about me that I find funny, or like I want to share about you know the things that I enjoy doing, that I like sharing, that I want to share with people. Those are also important because that really speaks to who I am as a person, my authenticity, like we spoke about earlier on. My authenticity, like we spoke about earlier on, and those are important because those are the things that people would see or read about they. That would help them connect with you better. So, for example, I'm a boy boy mom, so I might speak to that effect in my my content, right, or talk to people about that. Now, anybody else that is a boy mom, you know, potentially would relate because now they feel like we have some form of connection and we can understand each other. As boy moms, right. Or even as a female business entrepreneur, right. We know the struggle, we know how it feels, we know how he feels.

Speaker 1:

So those little details of me or, for example, me being a foreigner. You know having an accent, the challenges of speaking English as a second language, some of those things you know. You never know how some of those things can be instrumental in helping you connect deeply with your target audience. But it's things that you have to feel comfortable sharing and it has to be about you. There's no way you can share about other people, right? You know things about other people and claim it to be you. It doesn't feel authentic, right? So that's why it's important for you to be authentic, and so you want to share things like that.

Speaker 1:

I love to listen to Afrobeats. Like anytime I hear Afrobeats, I'm like you know you can't stop me because I'm yeah, you already know. So those are really things I enjoy eating different food from different countries and trying, especially in Asian countries, spicy food. I love, love, love things like that. So you want to think about those things about you because, like I said in an example earlier on about someone standing in the store trying to decide what item to buy, sometimes it boils down to that one thing that they know and like about you that helps them decide look, you know what, even regardless of how much more expensive you are. I want to go with you because she gets me, she understands me, we, we, we, vibe. You know so critical for you to know your target audience and feel free to share things about you that make you you know um authentic and connect with them deeper.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, when it comes um, you want to create content that helps them um, that help them trust you, and things like showing behind the scenes, sharing you know thought leadership, thought leader content. You want to testimonials behind the scenes of your work, showcase your work, like discuss the intricacies of your work, the type of work that you do. There are some of the difficulties, how, some of the innovations around the things that you do, like discuss those things, because the more you share about those things, the more you give people confidence in your expertise. They can then see you as not only are you a lawyer, for instance, or that, even though as a lawyer, you enjoy hiking, but then you understand immigration law so much you understand the impact it has, because you've put out an article that addresses some of that right and you, you know you've given. You have some people that you've helped, you know. Come give their testimonies, either written or via video or something like that.

Speaker 1:

Like you can, I hope you can see how sharing content like that will help you build know, like and trust. Those are the five things you absolutely want to avoid when it comes to building your personal brand. I hope you have gained something from this episode today and I'd love for you to reach out and give me your comments, text, message me and just like let's interact. If this is a um, if it is an episode that you truly enjoy and find value in, or and also if you're interested in being featured as one of my boss ladies in the next issue of the magazine, I would love, love, love, love to give you my celebrity photo shoot experience. That includes professional hair makeup, wardrobe. You know we serve wine and chocolate covered strawberry and I'm playing your favorite music so you can feel comfortable, you can feel confident and I can truly capture that authentic you, and it's going to be a fully guided session and then, ultimately, will feature your story not only in written format, but also in video, so there's a video part of this, too. That's something new that we're doing this year and I'm really excited about.

Speaker 1:

The issue is coming out both in print and online so that we can reach more people with your story and also help you empower and build your brand. So if this is something that you're interested in, definitely reach out to me. The sessions are going on right now and we only are limited into 50 spots, and once that is done, that's it for that issue. Make sure you you know, get in touch and let's get you in the magazine. Also, for those that are looking to advertise, this is an amazing opportunity to get your business, you know, in the Boss Ladies magazine so we can shed the spotlight on your business as well. So not only Boss Ladies, but also businesses that are looking to reach female entrepreneurs. This is going to be an opportunity you do not want to pass by. So until next time, I hope you continue to intentionally build and own your brand. Thank you.

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Victoria Odekomaya

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