Become a Home Based Travel Agent

Innovating Tips in Your Personal Brand
By Cory Andrichuk

Personal branding is a key aspect to your business.  It is the sum total of who you are and how you connect to your target market.  Branding begins with a personal self-belief before anything!  Others will believe you, and then buy from you, when you believe in yourself!  Your brand is also your first impression to the world - this is what your customers are buying!!! It promotes you to the world and tells the world you are for sale. 

Here are three tips to help you innovate and grow your personal brand: 

1.    Develop an innovative mindset:   An innovative mindset involves ongoing thinking about your business with the end in mind.  THINKING about your outcome is critical to actually achieving it (hence the importance of setting goals).  Start by asking yourself “What does your ideal marketing plan look like?”  Remove budget, resources, and time restrictions, get creative and just do it!  In order to grow your personal brand in your business, you will need to be innovative - to adopt new ideas and adapt to change!    Here are some ways to develop your ideas:   

·         Be curious about how other successful brands market themselves.  Look for ads that spark your interest and save them in a file.

·         Book-mark cool and competitive websites.

·         Use your iPhone or BB, to record your ideas, thoughts, and then photograph visual signs to then adapt to your own business one step at a time. 

Other helpful aids to development your innovative mindset is to:                             

·         Listen and watch the experts (TED.com – Technology, Entertainment, and Design),

·        Invest in a great book about personal leadership like a favourite of mine – Robin Sharma:  The Leader Who Had No Title.   He inspired me to walk the innovative talk in my business and change along the way, versus waiting too long to innovate.  

•  Hire me as your highly-specialized business coach (shameless plug here I know). 

2.    TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS:  I mean really talking to them… Ask your customer why they do business with you and then write it down!  I feel that a lot of travel entrepreneurs make big mistakes and fail to grow their business by not getting honest unbiased feedback from their customers, family and friends or professional colleagues!  I re-designed and innovated brandUcoaching.com with online tools such as Google Analytics, and my web developers software, and also incorporated major customer feedback, testimonials, and inner-circle insight which produces a much more clear, concise and consistent message.  Such businesses that don’t bother to get feedback or discard any feedback that contradicts what they want to hear will never grow. 

3.    GROW U ONLINE:  Have you started that FREE personal Facebook profile yet?   WHY should you be on Facebook?  1.  Because your customers are there (500 Million people cannot be wrong!) 2.  It’s a FREE communication tool that works to easily maintain existing relationships.  3.  Go back to #1.  The innovative step here is to start your FREE Facebook ‘LIKE’ page, off of your personal Facebook page for your customers to connect directly with you.  Tweeting?  BLOGGING?  All great ways to also grow, enhance, and maintain you, your brand, and your business this year.  A great example of an award-winning travel entrepreneur (Mailpound.com July agent of the month) is Pam Brown of White Sands Travel.   Pam’s new innovative Facebook ‘Like’ page understands that people do business with people they know and who they like!  She is growing her value, likability, friendliness, kindness, expertise, and passion to help people BUY Pam Brown and her speciality! 

So there you have it, some practical, proven, and innovative tips from the Cory Andrichuk entrepreneurial trenches.  I will sign-off for this month with a great entrepreneurial quote from Orison Swett Marden – Money, influence, and position, are nothing compared with brains, principles, energy, and perseverance.