How to Use Online Design to Build a Personal Brand!

VBL037 – How to Use ‘Design’ to Build a Personal Brand, with James Chartrand!

When it comes to designing a personal brand online it does, a lot of the time, come down to the real DESIGN aspects of the entire process, as to whether or not you get a good start. James Chartrand (pen name) of Men With Pens is one of the web’s foremost respected experts on this subject and I thought it would be awesome to have her on the podcast to share her wealth of knowledge with the VBL Community!

As we discussed on Monday, making sure you have a great logo is important, but building your brand through snazzy design goes a lot further than just creating a kick-ass logo.

In this audio-only conversation with James we discuss, among other things:

The importance of creating clear, simple goals when starting out.
How to make your website look credible and professional for first-time visitors.
Why branding yourself with an eBook can help you get great social ‘proof’.
Why people don’t focus on real-world marketing and being ‘personal’, and why YOU should!
Why you should take your time in planning your branding for the ultimate success.
Much more…

Play or download the audio of this VBL Podcast (below) to listen to it on your iPod, iPhone, or iPad and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, too!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:33 — 34.4MB)

One thing is for sure when it comes to branding and the visual nature of web design – originality is by far the best route to take. Just look at James’ website for evidence on that. There is no other website out there that looks like that one! Its awesome. My thanks to James for taking the time to do this interview, and for more details on what she’s all about check out her site, where you’ll find a bunch of awesome information on everything related to web design and copy writing, as well as great additional resources such as eBook’s.

I’ll be seeing you on Friday again, when I’ll be announcing what niche I’ve decided to get involved in for the ‘VBL Niche Community Challenge’, as well as more details on my aspirations for my niche site and how you can personally get involved, too!

In the meantime, if you have questions about designing an online presence, please feel free to comment below, I’m sure James would be happy to pop over and answer them for you.

Comments

Steve Wyman says:

June 29, 2011 at 11:40 pm Steve Wyman(Quote)

Hi James & Chris

A bunch of usefull observation – particularly the part where you talk about the amount of money people spend in the early days of doing a growing a new business onlt to find the finnished product is substandard.

Its better to really figure out what you want the site to do and then look around at web design companies with a portfolio of great designs that you love.

Some really great work on your site “Jack” impressive

regads

P.S. looking forward to seeing the Niche youve chosen for the VBL Niche Community challenge and following your succesfull journey

- Chris C. Ducker says:
  
  July 1, 2011 at 9:28 am Chris C. Ducker(Quote)
  
  Hi Steve
  
  What you want the site to DO – thats key here.
  
  Actually, when we were done with this chat, James and I went through the VBL site a little. I took several pieces of her advice and implemented them in the site you see today. Some worked, some didnt – but, the bottom line is that if I hadn’t of made those tweaks here and there, I never would have found out.
  
  Thanks for dropping by, bud.
  
  C
  
  PS. Ah yes, the curtains will be parted soon, my man…….!!!!!!!
  
Stuart Bell says:

June 30, 2011 at 4:52 am Stuart Bell(Quote)

Thanks guys, great information again.

I agree with the point James makes about pride in the work. It’s a trade between getting it good enough but not delaying shipping due to ‘tweaking’. At the end of the day though, you’re putting your name to something that is going out there for the world to see.

James/Chris – It can be a challenge really understanding our clients business from what can be relatively short conversations. Do you have any tips for effectively extracting that information from them?

Coincidentally I try to do a similar thing with my business card & will often write ‘guy with beard’ as a hook/reminder, though that backfired once as someone thought I wrote ‘gay with bread’!

Thanks again.
Stuart

- Chris C. Ducker says:
  
  July 1, 2011 at 9:26 am Chris C. Ducker(Quote)
  
  Hi Stuart
  
  One idea is that you include a survey type set-up when they are purchasing from you, or perhaps send them one, with an incentive of some kind (50% off their next order, perhaps?), after the purchase has been made, to better understand their ideas and needs a little more…
  
  Beard or Bread – you stood out from the crowd, right……?!!!
  
  Thanks for the commenting, bud.
  
  C
  
Matthew Needham says:

July 18, 2011 at 6:42 pm Matthew Needham(Quote)

Hi Chris,

I was away last week and I didn’t have a wi-fi connection. Fortunately I’d downloaded a stack load of podcasts. I must say I enjoyed this one, not least due to the mention that you gave me half way through.

Appreciate that buddy, thought the business card discussion was great, I’m in the process of thinking about my next lot of cards. I’ve had a few disasters in my time. Wrong telephone number printed on the card and forgot to put my email address on another! Doh…

Get someone to check the details….

Thanks again, Matthew

- Chris C. Ducker says:
  
  July 18, 2011 at 8:51 pm Chris C. Ducker(Quote)
  
  Hi Matthew
  
  All my pleasure, bud…
  
  Send that next Biz Card through to me – trust me, you’ll be hard-pushed to find anyone whose more ‘anal’ on that sort of stuff!!!
  
  Wow – just realized I said the word ‘anal’ on my blog for the first time. Er……. Probably the last, too….!!
  
  C