Rebrand Part 3: What is brand personality?

For a solo business owner, developing a defined brand personality can be easy to skip. Because it’s the same as your personality, right?

Not necessarily.

In my personal life, I make fun of myself and can be self-deprecating. I’m often messy, and my introvertedness to extrovertedness can fluctuate wildly depending on, well, many things. Are these ALL things I want to exhibit in my professional life? Absolutely not!

I will make fun of myself occasionally, yes. But it’s not appropriate to self-deprecate because it undermines trust in my ability as a designer and strategist. My work desk is usually the tidiest place in the house and alllll the brand files in my archive are kept in meticulous order!

Brand personality is your best self

Am I shy with my clients? Rarely! I read the room of course, but I don’t shy away from being the confident person you need me to be in order to take you through the design process with care and professionalism. If you need extra nurturing, I am the safe person. If you need some direct but kind advice, I am the quirky design expert you hired me to be.

So what is the brand personality in all this?

It’s the words you use to describe the way people and challenges are approached. And importantly, how the approach makes people feel.

Something I thought about a lot while working on this, is how to be authentic and genuine while defining a new brand personality. One that has a single business owner doing the talking. You see, I’m no good at acting…

And I realised it’s like when you go for a job interview. You want to present the BEST version of yourself. You curate your CV to emphasize your strengths.

This is the same!

Each time your present your business to the world, you are reaching new people who may be “interviewing” for their next investment/purchase.

You don’t need to pretend to be someone you’re not

It’s the best version of you that you know your audience will appreciate.

There’s a sweet spot where your audience’s needs, which are revealed when creating your audience persona, cross over with your personal and business strengths.

Sometimes this comes naturally, but it really helps to have the edges defined for reference on the inevitable off days!

How is the brand personality actually defined?

In a few ways:

• with words
• with images and colours
• with lists

This way, when anyone who works in your business needs to channel the right look/feel/voice, they have a comprehensive guide to how to do it.

For example my audience needs an extra-creative design expert who will make them stand out. So the Design Salad brand personality will include joyful, confident, kind and quirky.

Brand Personality is just one part of a comprehensive brand strategy

Brand strategy and design is the right investment for you if you’ve been in business for at least a year and have some experience with your current offering. AND you either have or *almost* have your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) defined and are ready to chase those goals!