Personal branding with agency - New design of personal brand Adrian Prękiewicz

The beginnings of collaboration - Creating expert content

Our partnership with Adrian started in 2019 when we started to create expert content for our company blog. During this time, we managed to write and publish many texts that still serve users today and are available on our blog.

Personal branding has become an important tool of his business over the years. There was a need to modernize and adapt to the current trends of all advertising materials, presentations and marketing content. The client gradually increased the scope of activities related to personal branding, and in 2020 he noticed the need for a clear change.

This led to the beginning of cooperation with logo design and corporate identity, which was to be consistent with the values it represented and the chosen market niche. He chose us because of the efficient contact, the accuracy of execution and the unconventional nature of the existing projects, which he noticed in the portfolio.

Challenge - New personal branding for Adrian Prękiewicz brand

The client decided that the entire branding needs to be clearly structured. So, made a few years ago, spontaneously, the logo, ceased to respond to the emerging needs. Both the fonts, the color scheme and the shape had to change. They were supposed to be more original than before.

New logo personal brand was to be characterized by modernity, delicacy, lightness and the possibility of use in many channels. The challenge was to create an identity that would be different from personal brands in the marketing and consulting industry and has a chance to create this market segment.

Solution - Innovative and modern brand logo

The solution that worked perfectly in this situation is the use of two letters A and P, that is, the initials of the personal brand. The logo was created in such a way that, depending on the focus of a person, he saw AD (from Adrian) or AP (from Adrian Prądkiewicz).

This made it possible to increase the likelihood that the recipient will remember the personal brand symbol and induce them to focus their attention for longer than is usually the case.

The whole was completed with a minimalistically designed name “Adrian Prękiewicz”, where the goal was to correctly read the sign by the recipient while using as few elements as possible. This treatment can form an association with the industry in which Adrian operates, where a wisely executed, strategic number of moves can be as effective or more effective than extensive but ill-considered actions.

Result - Project Acceptance, Consistent Personal Branding

We perfectly managed to fit into the preferences and expectations of the client, which resulted in great enthusiasm and acceptance of the project. All assumptions were met, and expectations were clearly exceeded, because we were asked about the possibility of issuing a recommendation even before we had time to ask about it. Now the marketing expert's personal brand is consistent and fully identifies with Adrian's person.

Cooperation with Karol and the Cary One agency was professional, efficient and pleasant. We worked together to rebrand and create an identity for a personal brand. Karol thoroughly researched the needs from the beginning during the initial conversations to later tailor the design and deliver ahead of schedule. What I appreciate about working with Karol and the Cary One agency is their thoroughness, ability to listen to needs and creativity, which is very important for this type of project. I am satisfied and recommend without a doubt!

Adrian Prędkiewicz

Marketer

Logo manual

Together with the design and materials, we provided, as we usually do, the logo manual, that is, a book that becomes a guide for the customer. It includes, among other things, the construction of the sign, the protective field, the corporate color scheme and the rules for applying the designed logo. However, the entire scope of the book can be expanded upon presentation of individual needs.

And what exactly is conscious building of a personal brand?

The concept of the brand itself is probably well known to you. But what about personal branding? Is it possible to label a person as a company is labeled? What are the benefits of such an action?

Building a personal brand is making a promise to potential partners, customers or an employer. When you hear the name UPS or InPost you already know that it is about packages, delivering products and getting them to the place quickly. The same goes for personal branding.

It is an unwritten promise to deliver results, effects or products according to a given specification. The recipient, hearing a given name and surname, already knows what the person is doing.

Personal brand is what people say about you when you leave the room.

Jeff Bezos

Amazon founder

Simply put, it's a combination of who you are, what you do and what things you sell to others. You can sell your skills, your time as a professional or specific products stamped with your name.

Building a personal brand, however, is associated, as in the case of building a company's brand, with the need to undertake marketing activities. Fortunately for all those who decide to do so, especially in the SME sector, the path turns out to be shorter. This is because people trust a face more, a specific person who signs up for something, than an impersonal brand.

Hence, the creation of the image of the company through the careful selection of influencers who are supposed to associate it with a specific personality trait or function in society. They want to give it a special narrative.

Why do personal branding?

You may be wondering if the steps you need to take to build your personal brand pay off over time. After all, since it costs so many sacrifices, it would be good if it paid off in concrete numbers, a profit and loss account.

It should be mentioned that such an investment does not always pay off, because we have to take into account many factors, such as the range of services and the demand for them, the quality of the products themselves and the potential risk of image crises. Most often, we build our personal brand in order to:

• show yourself as a trusted specialist in your field,
• prove that we can be trusted, and behind our services and products we stand a wall,
• gain a competitive advantage over other entities in the industry,
• show yourself and your competence “from the human side”,
• reduce the distance between us and the recipient
• develop the company and better respond to the changing needs of an increasing part of the market.

Before moving on to how to create personal brands and grow their reach, let's pay attention to a key aspect, that is, the services or products themselves. Even the best marketers will not fix bad quality effects sometimes, so we should always have a product in the foreground.

Marketing and promotional activities on many fronts, on the other hand, can increase the results obtained from sales and support the company in long-term expansion. However, it is best to first focus on the core of the business and competencies, and then on the image. If we have the first, it is time to move on to the next steps.

The above mentioned topic is aptly developed by Tomasz Miler from Miler Menswear in an interview with the channel Entrepreneurs Adventures. The material also presents many practical tips that have made it possible, among other things, with the help of personal branding, to develop the company to the level of more than thirty employees.

Let's not hide that the brand also influences the price. For example, personal trainers with strong personal brands can value an hour of their work with a client for amounts reaching several hundred zlotys, while others, not having such an advantage, maintain prices at the level of several tens of zlotys.

Examples of strong personal brands in the local and international market in business

There are more and more examples of personal brands over time, as specialists from different industries are aware of the advantages associated with building it. We are surrounded by brands like Alexander Wang, Tom Ford, Elon Musk, Seth Godin, Anthony Robbins and each brings to mind different emotions. However, it cannot be denied that they are not indifferent to the recipient, because they are associated with something. This is the result of many years of work.

An example of strong personal brands on which companies are built in Poland:

• Julia Wieniawa and her cosmetics brand Jusee
• Tomasz Miler and Miler Menswear
• Marcin Osman and OSMPower
• Jakub Grabowski and Mr. OH/MISS YOU

How to develop a personal brand step by step?

Now that you know what your own personal brand will help you with, it's time to discover the tabs on the process of building it. What will you need to go through this process efficiently and generate satisfactory results? Below we have provided a plan to help you spread your wings on this topic. By following the tips and committing to each of them, you have a good chance of long-term success.

Selecting Your Market Segment

It has long been known that most often, when something is for everyone, it is also for no one. If you want to increase the chances of success of your activities, you should carefully specify your industry, niche, market segment.

Only then will you be able, in the next step, to characterize the customer you care about the most. We call it a persona. It is considered one of the most important elements of a marketing strategy, because without knowing who you want to reach, you will not know where to appear, how often and with what material.

When creating a persona for your personal brand content, answer yourself the following questions:

• Who is the person you want to reach? (demography)
• what does he do in life? (work)
• What does her typical routine day look like? (rituals)
• what goals does it have? (values)
• What things is he afraid of? (fear)

Later, you can add the following sentence:

My personal brand (... product/service) helps (... audience segment)who want to (... goal).

I do it by (... verb, e.g. increasing, decreasing) (... problem) and (... assets)

Jacek Kłosiński talks about this topic in more detail in his cycle of materials, which he called “personal brand week”.

Why does someone have to watch you? Offered Value

According to the theory of the economics of gratitude, described by Gary Vaynerchuk in his book of the same name, the value you offer will return to you in the form of new contracts, partners and more revenue.

The premise is... not to expect anything and to respond systematically, regularly, to the needs of the market and the target group with a certain value. This value can take the form, for example, of a free material (e.g. with the possibility of obtaining a larger part of it for a fee), a sample of the service (e.g. 30 days of a trial period before deciding to use the software permanently) or an educational blog (e.g. in the field of home decoration, as a seller of interior decoration products).

Then people have the motivation to watch you, because they get real benefits from it. You help them reach their goals. They are also willing to repay you for the knowledge gained by using your services or buying products.

So, decide at this stage what change you want to make and what to offer so that your communication does not resemble an advertising column.

Personal Branding Channels

If you have done the above, it is time to determine the communication channels that will serve you in achieving the strategic goals of personal branding. You have to decide, based on the strategy and the created personas, where it is worth to be in order to achieve the desired effect.

For example, if your target audience is women between 25 and 35 years old, you may want to think about creating content on Instagram. If, on the other hand, you direct your services and communication to professionals, it may be better to completely abandon Instagram in favor of LinkedIn or your own podcast.

By choosing channels in line with your strategy, you minimize the risk that your content will fall into a vacuum.

Examples of marketing channels:

• trade writings grouped according to your specialty and expert statements in them,
• own thematic podcast,
• educational cycles on the Facebook portal,
• specialized, expert industry blog,
• open events, lectures and sponsorship,
• systematically maintained profile on LinkedIn,
• A physically published book.

In reality, however, there are so many ideas and channels of communication that it is impossible to count them. We are limited here only by the imagination and the recipient, because after all, not everywhere he will be present and willing to consume our content.

Work plan for a personal brand

If you managed to get to this point and complete all the tasks from the above, it's time for a plan that will allow you to reach certain goals and monitor the results. You can make such a plan, for example, for 12 months, during which you will increase the selected indicators.

Set KPIs to achieve - choose a few metrics that will allow you to verify that what you are doing makes sense and it is worth committing to it further temporally. An example of such a provision in the case of blog development can be:

• reach 1,000 unique users per month by writing 12 articles per year.

It is also worth determining what we will do with the direction of our personal brand when we fail to achieve the set goal. Will you try to change the channel of communication? Will you change the industry in which you operate? Or will you remodel the strategy and segment of the customers to whom you are directing the message?

Having the data after the first actions you will draw better conclusions, but to do this you need to define your reference points, the metrics, from the beginning.

Then build a systematic approach by deciding that, for example, once a week, for 4 hours, you will only be engaged in creating a personal brand and marketing activities related to it. By building such regularity in yourself, with the method of small steps, you are able to work out huge results.

Personal Branding Science — Who Should You Watch?

If you would like to learn more about the effective creation and development of your personal brand reach, take advantage of the knowledge available free of charge on the Internet. In Poland, you will easily find many online courses, books and free articles, along with a video on YouTube, where practitioners talk about every element of an effective brand.

A few of the authorities in this field that are worth following on social media and on YouTube:

• Mirek Burnejko
• Marcin Osman
• Jacek Klosinski
• Joanna Cepplin
• Paweł Tkaczyk

Summary and role of visual identity in personal branding

We come to a point where we need to remind ourselves of the role of visual identification, which helps in creating an effective brand. If you want to achieve better results and increase the chances of being remembered for your business, you should consider a logo. It will help, with the help of a given color scheme, shape and sensations at the reception, to “settle comfortably” in the consciousness of your recipient.

Let this article serve you well on your way to greater coverage, better effects, and recognition in your defined market.