Personal Branding with Dr. Talaya Waller

Hi everyone my name is Dr. Talaya Waller and I’m a personal branding consultant. Today with Canva design school we’re gonna learn quick tips for how to manage a personal brand. When people come to me and say Dr. Waller, can you help me build my personal brand? What I think that they’re asking me to do is make other people view them as valuable. So stay tuned because next we’re gonna talk about everything that there is to know to build a personal brand that can help you achieve your goal. Oftentimes it takes a strong personal brand to even garner the influence necessary to build a business, run a country, raise awareness or make a change, and that’s because people like you and me have always been the core of a brand.

Before we had corporate brands, we were selling goods and services to each other. Meaning if I’m selling you apples and my apples are trash, what are you gonna say? Talaya’s apples are trash. It’s not the apple’s fault it’s my fault, so no matter if you are a product, a company, a country, or person, the purpose of a brand is to build valuable relationships by providing experiences that people enjoy.

So first, let’s explore those enjoyable experiences you want people to have with your personal brand!
There are lots of useful brainstorm templates in Canva to help you get started. Let’s choose this one.
It helps to include other perspectives. Why not invite a few friends or mentors to collaborate in your brainstorm? You can use the share button to invite other people to your brainstorming session, like this.
Simultaneous collaboration makes it easy for you to work with others on a document at the same time.
You can use words, images and colors too! Remember you can also add your own photos from the uploads panel on the left.
Group the results into clear themes or categories. Try to
refine into 3 values that best describe you brand
Lastly, keep your moodboard somewhere for inspiration later on.

The first thing to know is that most of us don’t want to stand out. So that uncomfortable feeling that you have is absolutely normal. We’re humans, meaning that we are social creatures who are used to running with the pack, right? But in today’s global economy it’s imperative that you stand out

You need to use your skills and your personality to connect with people and promote your personal brand because you are valuable. Each and every one of us are, when we are properly positioned. My grandma knows a lot about positioning. She has a quilt that she gave to most of us and I really consider her as the CEO of our family brand. Our family brand represents family love and community. Each of these pieces of fabric represent our stories and they’re all perfectly positioned and together we exponentially become a powerful brand. Now it’s time to use the core values of your brand to create a logo. Start by choosing a template that feels right for you then you can update the logo with your fonts and colors. Once you’re happy, export the logo with a transparent background, then you can add it to your brand kit. Brand kit lets you keep all your brand assets in one place so you can easily apply them to all of your designs. Together these elements will form your brand just like grandma’s quilt.

So now, how do you pitch yourself? The fact of the matter is that everything in my home started with one person. One person who saw a problem and decided that their idea would be the solution to fix it.

Most of those people probably didn’t start off with the resources that they needed to have to turn that idea into a reality. For that idea to make it into my home they needed somebody else, somebody to believe in them. believe that they are the best person to implement this idea. So when you are pitching yourself, I don’t want you to get wound up in the details of the idea because, guess what? People do not invest in ideas. People invest in other people so you have to show up, be human and connect with your audience, because that person is the hero to your dreams.

Once you’re successful in selling your idea, you’ll need a business card. so let’s create one! Let’s begin by choosing a template to modify. With Canva Pro you can update your fonts and colors using the Styles tab. You can also add your logo from the folders tab, then add your name and contact details to the back of the card. Once you’re happy with your design you can order professionally printed business cards with Canva print. Choose the paper thickness, finish and quantity of your printed cards. Lastly, you can also download a PDF proof of your design before placing your order.

Fifteen years ago as I sat in my first marketing course, I learned that it takes about seven impressions before someone remembers your brand. Today that number has doubled. Meaning that we have to think about more and different ways to reach a target audience. The good news is that we now have technology, the internet and social media to help us achieve those goals.

Today people can scale like products. We can be in all places and in all forms, all at once. Maybe we’ve even met before. Whether it was on YouTube, LinkedIn, at an event or a dating app, our personal brands are all over the world. The best way to house all of these digital assets, such as our social media, our bio and maybe some clips from speaking events is a personal media kit. A personal media kit is just a short PDF document and I want you to think about it like your home. All of these digital personas should be similar because they all represent your brand. Like a room in your home, each offers a different experience but each one is also curated by you.

Let’s bring all your digital personas together in a personal media kit. did you know you can create yours in Canva? To get started, search for a media kit template in Canva and choose one that feels right for your brand. Apply your brand from the Styles tab then upload and add any photos you want to use. Add any extra pages that you need, then copy and paste your social links and any other media that you want to include. You can add all sorts of different media types, for example add a YouTube video by clicking the ‘more’ tab, then ’embeds’, then paste the link and click ‘Add to design’. Finally you can export your media kit as a scrolling website to share it instantly online, or you can download it as a PDF.

Personal branding is a lifetime journey, meaning that all of us are building our brands as we go. That also means that none of us have a perfect personal brand, it just doesn’t even exist, we’re human! We’re constantly evolving and our brands are evolving with us.

Personal branding is a tool because it allows you to spend less time trying to market yourself and more time building relationships. And as you build those relationships and these opportunities come, remember to always reach back and thank people. Because that is what it’s all about each other.

Remember, personal branding is all about being personal. As you grow your brand, make sure you reach out and thank people along the way. Let’s design a little something to give back. Start by choosing a ‘thank you’ card template. Next you can update the template or even apply your brand kit using the Styles button. You can easily switch out all instances of a color using the ‘change all’ checkbox in the color panel.

Once you’ve finished designing you can order professionally printed cards with Canva print. Or you can download your design and share it in an email. So that wraps up our course on personal brand management. I really hope that you enjoyed it, and thank you for joining us at Canva design school.