How to Know What Makes You Unique with Toni Collier
Dec 31, 2024
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Toni Collier, founder of the International Women's Organization Broken Crayons Still Color and author of two books, discusses the journey to finding your uniqueness. She shares how speaking for free helped shape her personal brand and the importance of authenticity in building connections. Toni dives into the realities of passive income and the need for diverse income streams. With a focus on embracing vulnerability through personal stories, she also reflects on her faith journey and the lessons learned from overcoming challenges.
Building a personal brand begins with genuine service and community connection, fostering both authenticity and self-discovery in one’s journey.
Relational capital, developed through unpaid engagements and mutual respect, plays a vital role in enhancing visibility and creating networking opportunities.
Sharing personal struggles and vulnerabilities is essential for authenticity, fostering deep connections and establishing brand authority with audiences seeking relatable guidance.
Deep dives
The Journey of Personal Branding
Building a personal brand often begins with service and genuine connection to a community. A speaker shared her experience, starting from humble beginnings by connecting with youth in her local church after feeling lost in life. This foundation not only helped her discover her passion for speaking, but it also emphasized the importance of being authentic and true to oneself. Over time, she transitioned her focus toward helping women through their healing journeys, illustrating that personal branding evolves with deeper self-discovery and context.
The Importance of Gaining Experience
Initially, many aspiring speakers begin by sharing their message for free, which can be a crucial part of their journey. One speaker recounted dedicating three years to unpaid engagements that provided invaluable experience and exposure in front of various audiences. This dedication helped her cultivate her voice and refine her skills, ultimately leading to paid speaking engagements. The repeated practice built what she referred to as 'relational capital,' creating a network that would later support her professional growth.
Cultivating Relational Capital
Relational capital refers to the relationships built through mutual respect and shared experiences within a community or industry. A speaker highlighted that over the years, her opportunities grew from word-of-mouth marketing as her peers recognized her dedication and authenticity. Generating genuine connections and being known as someone who adds real value can lead to new opportunities without costly marketing campaigns. Her experiences demonstrate that strong relationships, developed through service and authenticity, can significantly enhance one’s personal brand.
The Reality of Passive Income
The allure of passive income often oversimplifies the realities of earning money while you sleep. While partnering with established companies can yield passive income, selling courses or writing books requires ongoing engagement and marketing. A speaker discussed how developing products necessitates extensive relationship building and engagement with one's audience to create a buying market. Effective personal branding involves creating a diverse portfolio that caters to different audience needs and preferences, requiring hard work and consistent effort.
Embracing Vulnerability and Authenticity
Sharing the hard parts of one's journey is essential for authenticity and connection with an audience. A speaker emphasized how her struggles and vulnerabilities have become integral to her brand, allowing her to offer hope rooted in lived experience. By showcasing both triumphs and challenges, she creates a relatable narrative that resonates deeply with her audience. This level of vulnerability not only fosters community but also strengthens brand authority, as listeners seek guidance from someone who understands their struggles.
If you would do your work for free but are paid to do it because you’re so brilliant at it, then you’re on the right track! Today, we are joined by the incredible speaker and author Toni Collier to discuss how to figure out what makes you unique. Tuning in, you’ll hear all about how Toni built her personal brand and became excellent at what she does by speaking for free at first, the power of relational capital, her thoughts on passive income, why you need to diversify your work, how you can find your target audience, and so much more! We then delve into the value of sharing difficult experiences before discussing Toni’s faith and how she has found salvation after falling off track. Finally, our guest tells us why she decided to write a book about her story. This is an incredibly inspirational conversation that you do not want to miss. Press play now!
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