Darren Rowse (Pro Blogger) offers tips on how to build your personal brand:

• Build trust. Talk both about your successes and failures.
• Be personal. Show something of who you are. This doesn’t mean blogging about your personal life, but show you’re human.
• Use story. Stories of my own experience, stories of other clients (shared with permission as case studies) etc.
• Establish expertise. Show what you know, show how you apply it and be a thought leader in your niche.
• Establish relationships in your niche.
• Be consistent. Every time you post you have the opportunity to add to or take from your reputation and brand

While reading Darren’s tips, I mentally scrolled through the last five years of posts here at smays.com, and –more by luck than design– I think hit most of these. And a week doesn’t go by that my blog doesn’t come up in conversation with current or prospective clients (from them, not me). I’m not sure how valuable smays.com is as a brand, but it’s out there.

Start building your brand. Your company is not and cannot do it for you. [via LexBlog]