Interpersonal
Branding
Find alignment between
who you want to be
and who your audience
needs you to be.
Interpersonal
Branding
Find alignment between
who you want to be
and who your audience
needs you to be.
I’m Carrie Wiita.
I have a master’s degree in counseling, but I’m not a licensed psychotherapist…
I’m more like a branding therapist!
Just like a psychotherapist helps you become the person you want to be, I’m here to help you become the professional you want to be.
And just like psychotherapy sometimes requires understanding how we impact the people in our lives, this work requires you to develop an awareness of how you impact your clients, so you can leverage that impact to achieve your business goals.
Interpersonal Branding is the marketing and professional development framework that I developed for my graduate thesis in my counseling program. It is based on the latest research and trends in marketing, business, psychology, and more.
Outdated marketing approaches have left us hyper-fixated on the bottom-line and tools like social media, SEO, and sales funnels. It’s time to get human again and refocus our attention on the person-to-person service at the heart of every exchange.
And that starts with you.
I’m Carrie Wiita.
I have a master’s degree in counseling, but I’m not a licensed psychotherapist…
I’m more like a branding therapist!
Just like a psychotherapist helps you become the person you want to be, I’m here to help you become the professional you want to be.
And just like psychotherapy sometimes requires understanding how we impact the people in our lives, this work requires you to develop an awareness of how you impact your clients, so you can leverage that impact to achieve your business goals.
Interpersonal Branding is the marketing and professional development framework that I developed for my graduate thesis in my counseling program. It is based on the latest research and trends in marketing, business, psychology, and more.
Outdated marketing approaches have left us hyper-fixated on the bottom-line and tools like social media, SEO, and sales funnels. It’s time to get human again and refocus our attention on the person-to-person service at the heart of every exchange.
And that starts with you.
The Framework
-
AWARENESS
Interpersonal Branding starts with you. No marketing strategy or tool will work until you figure out who you are personally, professionally, publicly, and interpersonally. Every exchange is an act of service, so if you're trying to sell something, the question you need to be asking yourself is, "how am I of service to others?"
-
DISCOVERY
No niche? No problem!
Interpersonal Branding goes beyond “your ideal client” or “niche,” because it is rare for any service provider to sustainably hyper-focus on a very narrow market segment. Instead, we consider your audience segments—all the people you serve in different ways. We use service-dominant logic to understand our place in the world and our relationship with those we serve, eliminating imposter syndrome and “the hard sell.”
-
COMMITMENT
At the heart of Interpersonal Branding is your Commitment—your promise to your audiences about what they can reliably expect from you and who they can reliably expect you to be. This is the North Star that will guide all of your marketing activities as you develop your Service Presentation (the sum total of your brand architecture).
-
INFRASTRUCTURE
It doesn’t matter how effective a marketing tactic can theoretically be—if it’s not a good fit for you, you won’t do it. Fortunately, there are no marketing activities you HAVE to do (I’ll make a vehement case for a website, but even that is negotiable). You need a personalized marketing strategy that is as unique as you are.
-
EVALUATION
Because Interpersonal Branding is a dynamic and iterative framework designed to constantly incorporate feedback, evaluating audience response to your marketing activities is critical. Without this responsiveness, you’re just putting out content that pleases you, regardless of how useful it is for your audiences—and that’s not good service.
-
REFLECTION
If you feel icky doing this work, something has gone terribly wrong—and it’s not always your mindset! A critical signal to listen for is your own reaction to your Interpersonal Branding. Sometimes responses like procrastination and avoidance steer us away from something that isn’t authentic or resonant—this is more feedback that needs to be incorporated into the Interpersonal Branding system.
-
SYNTHESIS
We are all constantly working on the project of the Self, a lifelong journey of identity-crafting. A fundamental component of your Self is your professional identity. It is a part of how you understand you, and how others understand you. Marketing activities are symbolic contributions to this project—it’s so much more than just a blog post or a website or a tagline! Interpersonal Branding gives you the chance to forge a professional identity that is meaningful and authentic to you AND useful to your clients, so your business success and personal sense of fulfillment are aligned.
The
Framework
-
AWARENESS
Interpersonal Branding starts with you. No marketing strategy or tool will work until you figure out who you are personally, professionally, publicly, and interpersonally. Every exchange is an act of service, so if you're trying to sell something, the question you need to be asking yourself is, "how am I of service to others?"
-
DISCOVERY
No niche? No problem!
Interpersonal Branding goes beyond “your ideal client” or “niche,” because it is rare for any service provider to sustainably hyper-focus on a very narrow market segment. Instead, we consider your audience segments—all the people you serve in different ways. We use service-dominant logic to understand our place in the world and our relationship with those we serve, eliminating imposter syndrome and “the hard sell.”
-
COMMITMENT
At the heart of Interpersonal Branding is your Commitment—your promise to your audiences about what they can reliably expect from you and who they can reliably expect you to be. This is the North Star that will guide all of your marketing activities as you develop your Service Presentation (the sum total of your brand architecture).
-
INFRASTRUCTURE
It doesn’t matter how effective a marketing tactic can theoretically be—if it’s not a good fit for you, you won’t do it. Fortunately, there are no marketing activities you HAVE to do (I’ll make a vehement case for a website, but even that is negotiable). You need a personalized marketing strategy that is as unique as you are.
-
EVALUATION
Because Interpersonal Branding is a dynamic and iterative framework designed to constantly incorporate feedback, evaluating audience response to your marketing activities is critical. Without this responsiveness, you’re just putting out content that pleases you, regardless of how useful it is for your audiences—and that’s not good service.
-
REFLECTION
If you feel icky doing this work, something has gone terribly wrong—and it’s not always your mindset! A critical signal to listen for is your own reaction to your Interpersonal Branding. Sometimes responses like procrastination and avoidance steer us away from something that isn’t authentic or resonant—this is more feedback that needs to be incorporated into the Interpersonal Branding system.
-
SYNTHESIS
We are all constantly working on the project of the Self, a lifelong journey of identity-crafting. A fundamental component of your Self is your professional identity. It is a part of how you understand you, and how others understand you. Marketing activities are symbolic contributions to this project—it’s so much more than just a blog post or a website or a tagline! Interpersonal Branding gives you the chance to forge a professional identity that is meaningful and authentic to you AND useful to your clients, so your business success and personal sense of fulfillment are aligned.
The ultimate goal
is a sustainable professional identity,
meaningful and authentic to you
and useful to those you wish to serve,
that will guide your career and self-marketing
for the rest of your life.
The ultimate goal
is a sustainable professional identity,
meaningful and authentic to you
and useful to those you wish to serve,
that will guide your career and self-marketing
for the rest of your life.
Why Interpersonal Branding?
Why Interpersonal Branding?
These days, you get one public professional identity.
But now, thanks to the internet, everyone from these different silos of our lives can all see the same “performance.”
This is called…
Some marketing approaches (like personal branding) tell you to focus on yourself.
They ask, “how do you want to be known?”
You are encouraged to build an identity that is authentic, yes, but not necessarily useful to anyone else.
Other marketing approaches tell you to “niche down” to your “ideal client.”
They ask, “who do you want to serve and what do they struggle with?”
You are then encouraged to hyperfocus on a definable target client, positioning yourself as the solution to their “pain points.”
This identity may be useful to others, but it may not be meaningful and authentic to you…
and therefore will be unsustainable.
We start from the assumption that every exchange is an act of service.
Whether you’re exchanging a product or service with a consumer for a fee…
or you’re exchanging your time and talent with an employer for a salary…
you’re fundamentally offering to be of service in some way.
We used to be able to be different versions of ourselves based on the context — at home, at work, with our friends on the weekend, and so on.
“Context Collapse”
Those you serve just need to know you in a way that is useful to them.
How can you help?
Interpersonal Branding is about finding the alignment between
who you want to be and who your audience needs you to be.
It’s about authenticity, relationship-building, and being of service.
And it’s about building a public professional identity that can flex and grow with you throughout the course of your career.
Are you ready?
Context collapse makes marketing yourself very difficult because you can only be one person publicly.
Interpersonal Branding bridges the gap.
You need to have a professional identity that makes you feel proud, confident, and fulfilled.
Who do you want to be?
These days, you get one public professional identity.
We used to be able to be different versions of ourselves based on the context — at home, at work, with our friends on the weekend, and so on.
But now, everyone from these different silos of our lives can all see the same “performance,” thanks to the internet.
This is called…
“Context Collapse”
Context collapse makes marketing yourself very difficult because you can only be one person publicly.
Some marketing approaches (like personal branding) tell you to focus on yourself.
They ask, “how do you want to be known?”
You are encouraged to build an identity that is authentic, yes, but not necessarily useful to anyone else.
Other marketing approaches tell you to “niche down” to your “ideal client.”
They ask, “who do you want to serve and what do they struggle with?”
You are then encouraged to hyperfocus on a definable target client, positioning yourself as the solution to their “pain points.”
This identity may be useful to others, but it may not be meaningful and authentic to you…
and therefore will be unsustainable.
Interpersonal Branding
bridges the gap.
We start from the assumption that every exchange is an act of service.
Whether you’re exchanging a product or service with a consumer for a fee…
or you’re exchanging your time and talent with an employer for a salary…
you’re fundamentally offering to be of service in some way.
You need to have a professional identity that makes you feel proud, confident, and fulfilled.
Who do you want to be?
Those you serve just need to know you in a way that is useful to them.
How can you help?
Interpersonal Branding is about finding the alignment between who you want to be and who your audience needs you to be.
It’s about authenticity, relationship-building, and being of service.
And it’s about building a public professional identity that can flex and grow with you throughout the course of your career.