Building Your Personal Brand: Visibility, Opportunity and Longevity for Creative Entrepreneurs Ep. 75

Building Your Personal Brand: Visibility, Opportunity and Longevity for Creative Entrepreneurs Ep. 75.

Welcome to another inspiring episode of the Showbiz Side Hustle Podcast, hosted by Nicole Louise Geddes. In this solo session, Nicole Louise Geddes dives deep into the world of personal branding, what it really means for performers and creative entrepreneurs. 

Forget the influencer hype and vanity metrics; this episode focuses on how to build an authentic, intentional personal brand that opens doors both on and off stage. 

Nicole unpacks why personal branding is crucial for navigating career transitions, creating new opportunities, and ensuring longevity in the industry. You’ll learn practical steps to tell your story, define your brand pillars and show up confidently in every arena, from social media to real-life networking. 

Whether you’re just beginning your showbiz side hustle or ready for your next pivot, this episode will leave you feeling empowered, equipped, and excited to own your unique spotlight.

Chapters

00:00 "Personal Branding for Performers"

03:49 "Personal Branding: Authentic Career Identity"

10:01 "Embrace Your Multifaceted Identity"

14:14 "Building Intentional Personal Branding Online"

16:15 "Managing Your Personal Brand"

22:20 "Embrace Growth, Stay Authentic"

23:47 "Embrace Visibility for Growth"

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today we're diving into a topic that's often misunderstood but absolutely essential for every performer and creative entrepreneur: personal branding. Now, when I say personal branding, I don't mean vanity metrics, influencer culture, or shouting into the void online, and by the end of this episode, you'll have a fresh perspective on your personal brand and how to use it intentionally on stage, online, and in life. Enjoy. You are listening to the Showbiz Side Hustle Podcast, powered by Performapreneur. So here we are at my first solo episode of season three. And today I want to talk to you about personal branding for performers. It's one of my main pillars. It's something that I am passionate about. And it's really just to help you detangle what your personal brand is and is not. If I can leave you at the end of this episode feeling more confident to show up, then I have done my job today. I want you to be authentic on stage, online, and in life. And that is really where personal branding can help you and support you and gift you the opportunities to step beyond the stage door in the future and right now, here in this room, too. So I'm here as your host, Nicole Louise Geddis. I am the founder of many businesses. I do many things, I wear many hats, literally and metaphorically, and I'm here to support you always. My inbox is always open. The podcast is here to gift you the insight that I never had when I started my businesses 20 years ago. So today I just want to really work on and inform you about what branding is and is not, and highlight the fact that this personal brand creates opportunities. It lets you show up authentically online and off, and from that, these opportunities will grow. We're going to talk about the pillars that become inside of that, the importance of brand identity. But basically, you get to choose what information you take today and how you use it. And the reason this topic truly matters to me is because your career is more than one contract, it's more than one spotlight. There's different stages of both life and career, and I need you to embrace personal branding so that you can transition, you can pivot, you can evolve seamlessly from one stage, from one spotlight, from one chapter to the next. So let's reframe personal branding because many of you will think of it as self-promotion, and I get that it does play a big part in the overall pitching of yourself, be that as a performer, as an entrepreneur, as a creative, or as a performerpreneur navigating all the different elements of your life and industry. But it doesn't mean it's ego, it's definitely not influencer culture, and you don't have to overshare. Many people focus on the vanity metrics, but personal branding really isn't about that. It's also not about colours and logos and um consistent photos and branding in the very traditional marketing sense of the word. When I'm talking to you as the performer, the performerpreneur, the creative entrepreneur about personal branding, I'm talking about clarity, I'm talking about self-awareness and the intentional expression of your professional identity, your artistry, so that you can move and evolve and be see, be seen and be perceived as the person that you authentically are and want to be. So whether you choose it or not, guys, you already have a personal brand. Like it is literally everywhere because of the fact that we are connected in today's world. We are connected online and off, more than we care to admit, to believe, and it can become quite scary. And that's where some people then shy away from really getting intentional behind their personal brand. But by doing so, by owning your personal brand, by understanding it, leading it, you're going to create career longevity, identity, and opportunity. Like I have absolutely no doubt about that. Mindful branding protects your hard work and your reputation. It's as simple as that. And if you just let the connections evolve without any consideration, without any understanding or intention, then you are risking damaging that hard work and that reputation and allowing people to judge and make make uninformed thoughts and decisions around you and what you can do now and what you could potentially do in the future. Because first impressions definitely count. Like we know that we are human, we're only human, like we just definitely take in those first impressions and we use them to form our opinions about each other, um, both online or off. And this podcast, this session, this pillar of my offerings to you as um a performapreneur um mentor and coach is that this is really important. It's important, in fact, it's crucial that you curate those first initial seconds of meeting someone online or off so that your um personality and your true identity shine through, and there's no room for human error and snap judgments. Um that's what we're gonna do, and we need to be thinking all the time about how we'd like somebody to describe us, how we would like to be known, what we'd be like to be known for, um, and those personality aspects, our creativity, and they are gonna be part of your story, both on social media, in person, in conversations, personally and professionally. Like, I cannot express enough how much this just weaves in and out of every aspect of our lives because of the enormity of how we are corrected, um corrected, connected, sorry, everywhere, like in this connected world, we are literally everywhere. Um, but by being visible, we can feel kind of scared, right? It can feel like, oh gosh, Nicole, you're saying like I'm everywhere and I don't even know it, I'm not even intentionally doing it, um, and you're now saying my reputation can unravel, and so suddenly it becomes really vulnerable to be visible. Um, but we have a choice at this point. Do we take control of our visibility and we own it, and that can be private and it can still be respectful, it can still be professional, um, and we curate it and make it look like we want it to look, or do we just let it do its own thing and we don't take hold of it because it feels like vanity? And visibility is not vanity, it's professional awareness and it's a necessity, and it can be like I say, all those things. It can be professional, it can be polished, it can be quiet, you can come across as artistic or creative, independent or collaborative. You get to choose how you show up, but if you don't take control of that narrative, um then you are just letting your personal brand wing it, and therefore the opportunities are just not orchestrated or intentional, and you just don't know what other people are perceiving and what their snap judgment is of you and how you are showing up. And showing up is not showing off. That is one of my most favourite sayings. Showing up is not showing off, and there's no right or wrong way to do it, but if you don't do it with intention and understanding, then it can go off on tangents and in directions that don't suit or serve you. That's basically what we need to think. Um, and we can start to compare, right? Um, I have a lot of my clients, you know, at this point in our in our conversation when we're talking about personal branding and we've understood what it is and what it is not, um, they start to think what they should be or what they could be, and they compare with other people. And there's a there's a place for kind of investigation um and to have a little look at the competitors around you and the other people doing and doing things successfully. There's definitely a place for that. But when it comes to comparing, there is really no comparison, and the saying that I love most is there's no comparison between the sun and the moon, they both shine brightly just in their own time and in their own way, and I just want you to remember that when you start to fall down that rabbit hole of comparisonitis, as I like to call it, and you start to think, oh, I need to do this, or I should do that, or they're doing this, or I'm not as good as them, or I can't do that. You absolutely just need to stay in your own lane, show up authentically as you. It's a word that I'll use time and time again, um, because it's really hard to continue and be consistent acting in another role, acting as somebody that isn't you. Like we possibly do that in our careers because we're performers and we get offered roles and we step on stages and we have to transform into those characters, but not here, not when we're building our personal brand. This has to be you, it has to be true, has to be authentic, has to be consistent, otherwise it becomes absolutely exhausting and it's unsustainable. And that is not what I want for you. We need to be showing up in our true colours, showing our true wonderful, unique selves, and not comparing or changing to suit what you think the industry, the world, your peers, or other people need from you. Um, so how does that all sound and fit right now? How do you currently show up in your career and personal life? Like, are you showing up as you? Which bits are you hiding? Which bits do you wish people knew more about? This is the questions that I would love you to ask yourself and to reflect on so that you can build your personal brand really quite simply and easily because you are more than just a performer. So if you're online right now and you're just showing all of the creative side of you and all of the roles and the contracts and the opportunities you've had to perform, then that's absolutely cool. But you're not showcasing the whole person, and you are multidimensional, right? You're a full human. And I think it's really important when you are doing this brand identity work to really understand that that is a superpower. Being more than just a performer is a superpower, it gives you the opportunity to create new opportunities, it prepares you for transition, and it all becomes part of the pivot, which will come one day. Like we're not silly, we know that this career, for whatever reason, will come to an end, be that age, be that circumstance, be that injury, be that the loss of the joy and the love of what you are doing right now. Um, who knows what that will look like. But if we can prepare ourselves by showcasing our full human identity, passions, joy, loves, you know, you are setting yourself up for a transition that will be successful and seamless. Um, and the way that we can do that I speak about all the time is telling your story. Um, I have brought in, as you know, 14 um previous co-authors to share their story in the spotlight on success book one. We're actually now bringing a second-ish edition out um in the next few months, and that will have four extra um co-authors added because the the immense opportunity and possibility comes that comes from telling the story. You know, I just want more and more people to understand that fundamental part of um personal branding and the psychology behind understanding people's story and how that really helps evolve you as a brand, as a person, as a business, whichever direction you go in, that no like and trust element is super important. And that is why the book exists. That's why we're doing a second edition with four new um co-authors in to tell their story so they can build their presence and they can entice people in by sharing their superpower, which is their story. So, personal branding has you know, long, long for a long, long time, sorry, been part of a marketing strategy for big brands like branding. Um, and personal branding is just taking it more centric, more um personal, and just really understanding who you are authentically and what you want to show. And and you can do that by creating some brand pillars. Um, and those brand pillars are literally just signposts or or headers in your in your notepad that help you stay on brand, that help you share what you need to share and want to share, so that your audience, be they're online or offline, um, understands who you are as a whole person, and they just keep you from stopping you, sorry, from wandering off in different directions and telling and saying things that maybe don't necessarily need to be shared and that don't fit and align with how you want to be perceived. But it's not about making things up or changing the story, it's about picking those pieces that are absolutely integral to who you are and who you want to become. And it might be things like artistry, values, voice, direction, um, family, creativity. It might have your you know, your history and your past performances that might be one of your brand pillars, and that is also important. Um, but you get to choose what these things are that you want to share, and by choosing them and having understanding of what you're sharing and why, and that intention, you are opening that opportunity and creating those conversations both in the room and online, and for other people to have about you, and that showcase who you are and who you want to become, and how that those things will support you in getting there. Um, and when I say conversations, when I'm saying online and offline, I genuinely mean that you are everywhere, and this has uh an impact and in it works in such synergy across social media, in networking rooms and opportunities, online and off, personally and professionally, and hopefully, I'm not scaring anyone by the enormity of how much you are out there and how much your personal brand is leading with or without you controlling it. Um, and so if we can get inside those spaces, if we can understand how we're showing up, and if we can use things like social media as a tool, and that doesn't mean be everywhere, it means be intentional and understand where you want to be and use it with integrity and intention and authenticity, as for instance a digital CV or a bridge to opportunity, think of it as a storytelling platform, um, and you don't have to kind of go down this whole viral route or posting daily or dancing to camera. That's not what social media is going to be used for when we are thinking about building our presence and our personal brand online. It's a fantastic platform and it is free. So I do think you need to explore where you want to be seen on it, who's watching, and how you how you network and and correspond with them to create these opportunities to have it as a digital CV and to look at it as a story storytelling space, um, and you get to choose, and that's the exciting bit about social media, and it's social, right? So get social, speak to people, make comments, reply, share, but in doing so, also understand that whilst you're being so visible, it can be detrimental if you are not considering how that is perceived and your social um sorry, your personal brand and your social media footprint. Um, so this then filters through right into networking and in-person spaces, networking online and networking in the studio, when you're guest teaching, when you're um going for social things, when you're meeting friends and family. Um, this relationships across all of these different areas are part of your personal branding. People will remember things about you, people will talk about you and and share information about you freely if you have made a a good impression or b a bad impression, unfortunately. Um, so think about it all the time. Relationships, relationships. Am I liking and commenting as me? Am I in the right places being seen? Are my family and friends um socializing and doing things and sharing pictures and things of me that I am happy with, that I approve of, that that help support the work that I am doing to develop my own personal brand and to be seen and to open those opportunities. There's loads to think about, I honestly know, and this podcast is probably gonna need a little bit of a re-watch and a re-listen. Um, and at that point, let's just take a little break to digest everything I've just said while I give you a little ad about my membership and have a little listen because the membership is open to absolutely everybody, and it will help you in these areas that I am talking about, about consistency, about authenticity, about clarity. And we are there to support you. So have a little listen to the ad and come back and we'll talk about where we are offline and um and what we need to be thinking and remembering about those spaces too. Whether you're performing, pivoting, or even just planning for what's next, it can feel confusing and surprisingly lonely. You might be shining bright in your current spotlight, but no one's talking about what happens beyond the stage door, or the mindset shifts, the strategy, and the support it takes to confidently step through it. Inside my membership, the Performer Preneur Collective, you don't have to figure any of this out alone. You get structure, business strategy, accountability, coaching, and a community of creatives building their next chapter alongside people who truly get it, who truly get you. If you're ready to explore and expand your next spotlight on the stage or beyond it, come and join us. Everybody is welcome. Hit the link in the show notes or drop me a DM. My inbox is always open. So back to personal branding, and we're just gonna have a little think about on and offline and all of those contributing factors to perception. Okay, and whilst we are here then everywhere, we do need to remain mindful of what we post, what we say, where we hang out, and who we hang out with. Share only what, and I mean share on social media and like physically sharing when verbally, when you're having conversations of what really aligns with you. Don't get into conversations that do not suit or do not serve. Um, just stick really kind of engaged and intentional about where you want to be seen and how you want to be perceived when you are talking, both online and off. Um, curate the story that you want to tell. Yeah, we don't have to tell it all. The bits that you think are going to be important for people and the perception of you and choose those rooms. I've said it and I'll say it again. You get to choose, you get to choose the rooms, you get to choose the platforms, you get to choose the conversations. Um, and whilst you're choosing, just put relationships first. It's not about vanity metrics, it's not about um likes, it's not about um cheers and and high fives and support, it's about being true to you, and that will build the relationships that are gonna serve you and they're gonna cement you and help you to to grow and to evolve when that time comes for you to pass through the stage door. Um, and just share everything with intention. And I love that word intention, intention, intention. Does it serve you? Does it work for you? Does it sound like you? Um, and will people get a true authentic perception of who you are? Um, so it's simple, really. You get to choose, you have the ability to set boundaries, you decide the line, you protect your energy, your reputation by doing this um authentically, by stopping yourself from going off down tangents and in conversations that don't align, don't serve you. You get to be visible in the way that feels comfortable. Um, there's no oversharing, and and it's accessible, but in a really kind of soft and intentional, I'm gonna say that word again, way a way that's individual to you. Remember, privacy is important. I am not saying show up and shout about every aspect of your life. I'm saying curate those conversations, create that catalogue of stories that you want to share. Um, remain private, creative, professional, whatever those pillars and whatever those boundaries are, you decide the line. And um then I kind of guess the last point that I want to leave you with is that you will evolve, your personal brand will grow as you do, it will change, and that doesn't mean deleting things that you've said before, because if you've stuck to these rules of being authentic and having intention and leading your own um personal brand consistently, that change, that evolution is part of the process, part of the story, and it shows how adaptable you are, it shows how courageous you are to keep moving and taking those steps forward. Nobody wants anybody to be static in life or career or business. Um, and so please do keep showing up and sharing and evolving and give yourself permission to pivot when that time is right. Um, and stay true to you. Those changes, those chapters, those seasons, those stages, they are opportunities that you've grabbed with both hands, you've used, you've worked through, and you've come through and evolved into the next version of you. And that is a beautiful thing that performers actually. Can do really quite easily because we have those understanding and trained abilities to tap into our confidence, tap into our energy, tap into our authenticity from that training and that studio and that stage experience. So keep using that as you step into new seasons, new spotlights, new chapters, and new opportunities, and take your personal brand with it. Don't get stuck. Grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, and always, always stay true to you. I hope this episode has been helpful. It is full to the brim of information, top tips, um, ideas for you to think about, and it's it's a download for me just to show how passionately I believe that this is an important part of your journey. You already have a personal brand. Understanding it and using it and leading it creates clarity and allows you to step into new opportunities with confidence. It's formed through your actions, your relationships, your presence, and it supports longevity. I'm just truly passionate about your future and what happens beyond the industry. So if I can give you these tools right now and you can start to understand where they fit in, both as a performer or an entrepreneur, you can use them to your advantage, and that gives me so much excitement for you and what is possible. And just remember, visibility is not vanity, so don't get stuck at that. Oh my god, I don't want to show up in rooms on social media, I don't want to step forward, I don't want to say and share who I am, um, because people will think X, Y, and Z of me. Like that has to go. It's professional awareness. You're taking control of your your life, your career, your your next steps. Personal branding is about taking the pressure off just performance, yeah. And we're not performing, we're not just about being a performer, we're showing up as our wholeselves, we're creating awareness of who we are and who we want to become, and that is incredibly empowering. It's not vanity. So please rewire that thought process. Um, and always, always, always stick to your own limitations. You get to choose. Um, there are boundaries, there are rules, and you get to choose them. And I think that's super important. I can't tell you what they are. I can guide you in the membership, I can guide you through the workbook that I'm gonna drop into the show notes below that you can work through. Um, and I can support you to investigate and to understand and get the clarity around what they are for you. Um, but honestly, being private is still okay. It absolutely is part of this discernment and self-respect. They protect your energy as well as your reputation. So I do think you need to understand personally what they are for you, and um just remember keep pivoting, keep evolving, keep growing, keep being curious, keep listening to the podcast because you've got my expertise, we've got my associate expertise that is dropping in weekly as well, and um the QA. So if you have a question, please, please, please go over to the website, send me the question. I will read it out on our QA podcast that happens monthly with myself and the other associates, and we will talk them through and give you the answers you need so that you can push through. Nothing is stopping you from being the person, the brand, the business, the performerpreneur that you desire to be. Um, have a fantastic rest of your day. Please do pop me some love and some likes onto this podcast on YouTube or any of your podcast um platforms. It really is appreciated. And share it with a friend. Please don't gatekeep this valuable information. We are not in competition with each other. We are collaborative, we are creative, and in order for performers to feel comfortable and confident to step through that stage door and evolve, we need to be all flying the flag, sharing these information, sharing these opportunities, sharing this awareness so that we can literally rewrite the narrative of what it looks like on stage and off. Um, big love to you all, thank you for listening. I am your host, Nicole Louise Geddis, and I so, so hope that you'll join me again for my next episode. Okay, guys, that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Thank you for joining me here on the Showbiz Side Hustle Podcast. So until next time, please do take a little bit of action, that very first step, and make sure that you are doing something for you and your showbiz side hustle this week to move you forward and get you heading quickly and swiftly and strategically towards success.