Speaker 1: Hey guys, you're watching Chris Americos, and I'm going to tell you 10 steps that you need to take right now if you want to build your personal brand. And that might be your personal brand as a teacher, or it might be your personal brand that you want to grow into a language teaching business. Now when I say the word brand, you're probably thinking about big businesses, but you'd be surprised how effective small businesses can use their brand as well. And a small business could be just you. A lot of people have started their own language teaching business online or offline on their own. I mean, they're the only employee in their company. Sometimes it's easier like that. And to be the most effective that you can be as your own business, or as a small language teaching business, you need to have a strong brand. And some businesses might actually have multiple brands that they promote. There might be the brand of the company, and then there might be the brand of each product. Well, in a language teaching business, that's usually the teacher. So yeah, while the company needs to have a strong brand, the teachers also need to have strong personal brands. I know this might sound contrary to what you already believe about how language teaching businesses should operate. A lot of businesses out there are afraid that their teachers are going to steal their students, or that their teachers are just going to go work for themselves. And what we need to understand right now is that when we're building a brand, we're actually working together. Just think about it like this. If you're a great teacher, but you work at a company with a terrible brand, then people are going to associate you with that brand. No matter how good of a teacher you are, people are always going to weigh the pros and cons of studying with you, or dealing with that terrible brand. On the other hand, if the school has a great brand, and you don't have a very good brand, sometimes that can also carry over to you. People might think that you're a great teacher just because you work at a specific school. So in general, what we need to remember about how brands work is that when companies and teachers work together, they need to help each other. So one of the best things that a language teaching business can do for the teachers who work in this business is help them promote a great personal brand. This will not only give teachers the skills that they need to succeed now in this workplace, but it will also help them succeed in their future, and to help build their career. Now there aren't really a lot of businesses that take this approach, but think about the result. Three, four, five years later, after teachers have come and gone, what will they say to other potential teachers? And what will their clients who they've kept in touch with say about your company and your brand? You want them to say great things, and how are they going to do that if you don't provide them with tools to develop and move further in their career? From the teacher's perspective, a teacher also needs to provide brand support to the company they work with. By taking part in the company's brand image, the teacher can solidify a very professional personal brand. So here are 10 things that you should do right now. And first of all, there are three main points that we need to remember. We can say that these are the three steps to success, and the 10 points are included in these three steps. And these three simple steps are choose your online persona, maintain an online presence, and keep learning. Now those sound very broad and very general, so let me break them down for you so you can get more out of this video. If you're taking notes, definitely write this down. When we're choosing an online persona, the first thing that we need to do is be yourself and provide value. So what does it mean to be yourself? It's a very general thing. Well, what it means is don't be afraid to show who you really are, to talk about your real life, and to give real examples. Don't be afraid to show everything that you've got. Don't be afraid to be wrong. One of the most important aspects of successful brands today is authenticity. You must be authentic. People need to see that you are a real person. And they don't only want to see any real person, they want value. Look at it like this. If I were on this video right now talking about how I sit on the couch and eat potato chips, you probably wouldn't be watching. But if I tell you a story about how I went to Miami with one of my students and his brand new Tesla for New Year's, or the hilarious joke that the regional director of Coca-Cola told me after one of our lessons, or what the regional director of the biggest bank in Russia told me to say before I spoke to 500 of their top managers. It sounds a lot better than just watching Netflix and eating potato chips, right? Then you might start asking yourself, hmm, I wonder what this guy does. So when we're being ourselves, we also need to provide value to the people who are watching, the people who are spending time on this content. So we need to not only think about what we like, but we need to think about what other people are going to be able to use. Remember that the products that you produce and the things that you release and show other people is how they're going to judge your brand. They're going to associate you in the brand as one. So you can see that being yourself doesn't mean do what you want. Be yourself means show real value to people. If you don't know how to be yourself, or if you don't know how to provide value, then start with these three things. Write a definition of your brand. So you need to decide what your brand is, and you need to define it. The more detail you put into this, the better it's actually going to turn out. So put some time into correctly defining your brand. The second thing you need to do is choose a specialization. And after you choose a specialization, of course, you need to specialize. But also think about how you're going to incorporate that specialization into your personal brand. How are you going to tell people that that's what you do? How are you going to stand out? And the third thing is you need to write a biography, but you don't need to write it the same way that you wrote your resume. You know, like, I graduated this school, I finished this university, I got this job. No, your biography needs to be pointed, needs to be focused, to highlight all of the relevant moments leading you up to where you are now. And your biography should show that you have goals, and you reach your goals. Number two in our list of 10 things that you should do right now to start building your personal brand as a teacher, or as a language center, is demonstrate a wide range of emotions. And what that means is don't be afraid to cry, to laugh, to scream. That's what people remember. When you show how human you are, you separate yourself from others, and people will feel more comfortable with you. They'll feel more comfortable reaching out to you when they have a question. They'll feel more comfortable commenting or pressing like when they watch your videos. And they'll feel more comfortable paying you money and buying your services. For a teacher, showing a wide range of emotions might be as easy as taking photos and uploading them to Facebook or Instagram or another platform. But for a language teaching business, it can be a little trickier. We need to not only show that we're a good teacher, but we need to also show that we do other things well. So what is it that we can do well? What are these emotions that we can show? Well, everybody wants to study with a teacher who is not boring. So if we can show some kind of fun or excitement or energy, people will think that that's how our lessons are. And hopefully they're right. We also want to show that we can be serious, because getting results is key in this industry. To support this idea, we might take pictures with our students with certificates that say that they've completed a course. We might show diplomas or certificates of our own to build confidence in what we say or to build authority. And most importantly of all, we need to show that we are happy and successful. I mean, when you think about it, language learners come to teachers and language teaching businesses because they need advice on how to learn the language. So this is very similar to the work of a consultant or an advisor, because there are plenty of free resources online, completely accessible, that they can go and get and use as much as they want. So we really need to prove how we offer more value than all of that free content that's out there. What can they learn from us that they can't learn from everyone else? And that's where the third point comes in, demonstrate your values and priorities. You need to be able to communicate to people what you believe in. If you use music to teach or if music is part of your lessons, then probably people should know about that before they sign up for lessons with you, right? We need to communicate to people that we value music and show why music is important. On the other hand, if you're teaching business English, music might be a little out of place. Instead, you might want to give people useful information about case studies or about recent successes that you've had. So really showing your values and your priorities goes back to being yourself. And because you always need to put your best foot forward, you're showing everyone the best possible version of yourself. You'd be surprised how a person can actually change for the better when they have a clear understanding of their own values and priorities. And one part of displaying your values and priorities is defining what you want to achieve. When you set clear goals for yourself, students are going to know that you'll be able to set clear goals for them. When you demonstrate how you set a goal and reached a goal, students will think that you'll do the same with them. And guys, I keep using the word student, but this works exactly the same for clients of language teaching businesses and for other types of businesses. The fourth point that you need to remember to do if you're setting up your personal brand right now is highlight your strengths and differences. Not only things that you're good at, but also ways that you're different from other people. What makes you, you? This is very, very important because it gives your brand that unique touch that nobody can take away from you. You might do this by showing people that you have other hobbies. Tell people about that, even though it's not related to teaching English, and even though it's not related to your language teaching business, show people that. They want to see that. And guys, being different gives you a huge advantage in the market. There are hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of language teaching businesses out there, especially when we take into account all of the offline teachers that are now moving online. Being different and standing out has never been so important. When I first moved to Russia and I first started teaching English, before I started any of my businesses, I started building my own personal brand, following the steps that I'm giving you right now. And like I said, the first group of points that I talked about, they're all about creating your online persona. And what I decided to do was I took a derogatory word in Russian for American people, because I'm American, and I used this as my nickname. That way, everybody who heard it thought, what? That sounds strange. Why is he calling himself a derogatory term? I by far was not the only American guy in Russia teaching English. But somehow people remembered this name because it was unusual. It was different. Now I can say that that persona or that brand that I started building has carried me through several different businesses. And just being myself and showing my true colors and authentically wanting to help people get results has allowed me to be very successful in this industry. So any of you who are wondering about why I call myself Chris Americos, now you know. So we said that this is a three-step process, but there are 10 points total. And the first step was choose your online persona. And there are four points that we've looked at so far included in this first step. Be yourself and provide value. Demonstrate a wide range of emotions. Display your values and priorities. And highlight your strengths and your differences. Now the second of our three steps is to maintain an online presence. And that brings us to point number five out of 10, which is choose platforms and audit pages. That's right. Not all platforms are going to work for you and give you the best results. You need to look at your target audience. What do they like? Where are they most active? And how do they behave on that platform? A lot of people might think that Facebook is the way to go, but that's not always the best option. In different parts of the world, there are different social media sites or programs or applications or other tools that can be used to effectively reach people in that area. So if you've specialized in teaching Spanish speakers how to speak English, then you might want to find other sites that Spanish speakers commonly use. Forums and chats also work for this purpose. And I would say that a specialization of teaching English to Spanish speakers is not very specialized. You should probably specialize more specifically. Maybe Spanish speakers from Peru. Maybe Spanish speakers from Argentina. When you identify your target audience very specifically, they themselves will understand that you're the only option for them. You are perfect for them. And yes, I told you that you need to audit your pages. That means go back, delete all that stuff that you posted way back when. I know. There are great memories, but they're not going to help you move forward with your language teaching business. And they're not helping you build your personal brand. Who knows? Maybe they can help you in some way. But chances are, if it's questionable at all, delete it. You can always post something newer and cooler instead of holding on to questionable content. So here are three things that we can do to make sure that we've chosen the right platforms and we've audited our pages. First of all, we need to assess our current reputation. What do other people think about us? Imagine that a third party or a third person was going to write all of your friends on Facebook or on whatever social media platforms that you use, and they're going to ask that person who you are and what your reputation is, how they know who you are, where they know you from, and who they know you as. That's most important. So if you just post pictures of playing golf, then probably that's what people on your social media think you do. Sure, when they want to play golf, they might have a question for you. But when they want to learn English, they're probably not going to send you a message. And don't get me wrong. You can have a terrible reputation right now and turn it all around by building your personal brand. After assessing our current reputation, we need to choose a headquarters. Our headquarters is the place where we release everything first. The place with the newest information. The page or platform or site that we update most frequently. And this is the place where we're probably going to direct all of our traffic. When new people hear about us, we want them to go to this place. To our headquarters. Now, it's much better to build your own headquarters, like your own website. And you can find a million videos online on how to do that very, very simply. I'll also talk about some aspects of what you need in your website in my course on how to start your own language teaching business. But whether you choose a site or a Facebook page or another platform, you need to have a headquarters. And after you've chosen your headquarters, you really need to update, delete, and redo. Make sure the platforms you're using are actively updated. I don't mean every hour, but you should be able to do it at least once a week. And you can't be afraid to delete things. If they're not working for you, you don't need them. And one of my favorite things to do is to take old photos that I might have posted in a different context before and redo them. Recreate them in a way that's going to let me use them for my purposes now. All right, the sixth point that you need to pay attention to when you're creating your personal brand is creating a market plan and being consistent. So like I said, you need to post on your pages. You need to post wherever your headquarters is. And you need to do this consistently. And in order to do that, you need to have a plan. So remember, you deleted all those terrible photos, but you just deleted them from Facebook or from whatever platform they were on before. You still have them saved on your computer, hopefully. And maybe there's a way that you can just write a different caption or maybe edit the photo a little bit to make it look better. Or at least to make it seem like it's about what you're doing now. It serves your purpose. So when you're doing this, you want to think ahead. You want to think, what is this going to look like once I've posted 10 or 20 or 30 times? Will my wall or my page look like trash or will it look like it's well-designed? Do my posts have interesting content, pictures, videos, emoticons, or is it just a lot of text for people to read? Starting with a great plan is the easiest way to succeed. Believe me, guys. It all starts with a plan. The next point to pay attention to is be accessible, be helpful, and be polite. Remember, you're telling people that they need to contact you. You have something that they want or need. And that means you need to be able to answer when they contact you. If they send you a strange message or leave a strange comment, don't be tempted to make fun of them. Don't be tempted to respond negatively. Remember, they've got nothing to lose. They're just expressing their opinion. But you have a reputation to maintain. By being accessible, helpful, and polite, you will uphold the values of your personal brand. And you would be very surprised how people are attracted to other people who are very positive. That positivity can be contagious. Once other people note that these are your values and they agree with your values, and you start to build a client base, you'll also need to be thinking about how you're building a community. Because really what you're doing is you're forming a group of people who have common interests and common values. That's called a community. And you are right at the center of this community. So building your brand is really about building a community. And the last point that we need to be concentrated on when we're maintaining an online presence is becoming an opinion leader or a thought leader. An opinion leader or a thought leader is a person whose name is associated with this industry or this specialization. You can say that Warren Buffett is an opinion leader in investing. Michael Jordan is an opinion leader in basketball. And the list goes on and on. So what you want to do is you want to become the opinion leader of a community built around your values. Do some research and find out which communities already exist, which market niches already exist, and use your specialization to become an opinion leader of this group. So from our easy three-step process, we're talking about step number two, which has four points. Step number two was maintain an online presence. And the four points were choose platforms and audit pages, create a marketing plan and be consistent, be accessible, helpful, and polite, and become an opinion or a thought leader. Now the third step seems really, really broad. It's keep learning. But it's actually the most important step of all. Because you see, just building a brand isn't enough. Your brand needs to develop and grow. Because remember, the brand and you are synonymous to your clients or to your students. So if they see that the brand isn't growing, they'll think that you aren't growing. Should they question their decision to study with you or to work with you as a business? To avoid questions like this, we need to make sure that we continue to grow and develop. And the best way to do that is to keep learning. So point number nine to focus on when building your personal brand is to master your craft. Should always be looking for new techniques, new technology to use, new methods to use. You should be reviewing what other teachers and other people are doing in your sphere. If there's someone who's slightly different or just very similar to you, make sure you take notes on what they're doing. Remember, you need to show how you are different. And in order to do that, you need to be a master. And that brings us to point number 10, which is also about mastering something, but not only mastering your craft, because you need to also master the industry. I'm talking about your industry. Sure, we can talk about the huge industry that all of us are in, which would be ESL or teaching English as a second language or a foreign language or teaching English to people who speak other languages. It doesn't matter what we call it, it's all one industry. And many things in this industry work in a very similar way. So by understanding how things work in the industry, you will present clients and students with standard information. You will give them standards that they can compare to what other people are offering, and they'll be able to clearly understand why your offer is better. So once you've done all of these things, once you've focused on these 10 points, and once you've gone through the simple three steps to build your personal brand, you will already have an online persona. You will already maintain an online presence, and you will be dedicated to improving what you do and increasing your knowledge in your craft and in your industry. Guys, if you follow these instructions, your personal brand is going to be amazing. As a last note, it's very important to be confident in what you do. So when you're putting this advice into practice, make sure that you do it deliberately, directly, on purpose, and with lots of confidence. When people see someone who isn't confident in what they say and what they do, and how they present themselves, those people lose confidence in what you do also. So do yourself a favor and be confident in what you are doing. Thanks for watching this video, and I would love it if you would post links to your pages, websites, and other platforms that you use to build your personal brand and see how different people implement these simple steps. If you want more useful content like this, make sure to press subscribe, and if you like this video, go ahead and press like. And if you're interested in starting your own language teaching business, go ahead and click the link in the description of this video. And if you already have a language teaching business and you're looking for high-quality native-speaking teachers to work at your school or in your online school, go ahead and send me an email. If you have any other questions for me, you can find my email in the description below this video. Take care, guys, and good luck building your personal brand.