Personal Branding: Knowing Who You Are and What You Stand For
Who you are and the impression you make either work for you or they don’t. If you are committed to being successful in life, it is worthwhile spending some time on your personal brand.
Personal branding has much of the same disciplines as business branding.
Start by asking yourself “What do I stand for?”. What is your promise? To yourself, your friends, your colleagues and your family. Or another way of saying it is, what are you committed to? How do you want to be seen in the world? You must determine what your values are. What are your codes of conduct? – Integrity – Family – Honesty – etc.
Developing Your Personal Brand
- Discover your existing brand. This can be a bit confronting. Go out and do some 360-degree interviews with the people who know you. How do you occur in certain situations? What is your normal mode of behaviour? What do they think of you? What is the impression you give? What do they think you are committed to? How do you come across?Why work on your personal brand? After a review such as the 360 approach, you may decide your personal brand needs some work, you may want to change the way you are perceived or you may just want to work at becoming the authority in your field.
- Determine who you want to impress or influence? This is your brand’s target audience.
- Define your true personal brand, what is your image, your style, the way you speak & dress.
- Design what is unique about you. Focus on your niche, what are you really good at?
- Then dominate your marketplace, tap into the trends, keep learning. Work at becoming the authority in your field. Don’t take anything on that is not aligned with this commitment.
- Develop your signature style and be consistent.
- Decide your resources, skill set and desired outcomes. If you are lacking in any area, get educated or get some assistance.
- Devise a plan to take your brand to market.
- Deploy a brand message and deliver it, always. When you are in integrity with your brand you are in integrity in your life. You are on the right path and doing what you are meant to be doing. You are passionate about life and excited every-day. You might not always get it right, but when you are on-brand things are sweet!
