The primary principle is to think of yourself as a brand, and separate yourself in ways that stand out from the competition.
- The new world of work – In the past work included loyalty and reliance on a stable work force. Today the drivers are competition, globalization, internet. Companies value innovation and innovation comes from creativity. This creativity comes from each of us contributing our unique gifts, the value of strengths
- Economics – Today’s worker wants to be recognized for uniqueness. Faith Popcorn, a futurist, says that we are not happy to conform. We want to show our individuality and crave recognition for our unique value.
The intersection of these two societal trend is personal branding. Personal branding is permission to be yourself. From this point forward, use what makes you valuable, unique and outstanding to reach success
Personal Branding follows thee steps;
1. Step 1 is to extract and uncover what makes you unique and relevant to the company or your target audience.
2. Step 2 is the express stage. Here you communicate your message, to create visibility for success.
3. Step 3 is the exude stage. This helps to show that everything relates to a brand environment and sends the same brand message to everyone and everywhere.
Look at your goals – goals must be SMART: specific, manageable, achievable, r ealistic and timely. Goals are in the extraction phase, because it gives your brand a direction. You need to know where you are going.
In branding, consider yourself (your attributes), your competition, and your target audience.
Goals require knowing yourself and understanding what you want to achieve.
Test your goals by writing them down. Set your goals high and read, review and revise your goals periodically. Break milestones into tasks and put the tasks into a do list.
Your Vision and Purpose are also in the extract phase. It helps you unearth who you are and helps you understand yourself.
Vision is how you see the world, the vision of your world, what you want to contribute. Think about a world problem, what frustrates you or what you think about, what motivates you?
Purpose is more tangible. Now examine what you can do to actually turn your vision to reality. Listen to what other people, who touched you, say about how you contributed to their lives.
Values are your guiding principals. Violating them causes anger. If our vision and purpose is congruent with values, we are energized.
Passion is very important. If we can connect to a passion of what we want to do we are much more content with our lives.
Vision and Purpose provides the big picture. When you connect these with your values and passion you will be successful.
Even though personal brand is all about what is unique about you, it is also in the hearts and minds of others in the way that they perceive you, what they think of you. We all have positive and negative brand attributes which can be determined through those that know you.
Next we have to examine the target audience;
Look at demography; age, ethnicity, location etc.
Then look at the psychographics to help determine how you can reach them. For example, what professional organization do they attend? Where do they go on vacation? Where they shop? What Internet site they use. The challenge is to define the target audience as narrow as possible to find a niche.
Think about organization, location, industry, department, and who are the influencers within any organization.
You need to know about the competition
How is the competition different from you and is it similar? You need to differentiate yourself from the competition. Unearth your value by asking yourself what do you sell? Describe your differentiators. If a differentiator is not unique it is a commodity that competes on price. You do not want to compete on price, you want to charge a premium for what you offer.
THE EXTRACT PHASE
Identify all the strengths that support your goals.
Identify all your weaknesses that prevent you from your attaining goals.
Look at all the opportunities, many of which have not been previously considered and how you can create opportunities to leverage your strengths.
Examine what are the things that get in the way and prevent you from achieving your goals. Identify all the threats , some of which might be out of your control.
An example of a personal brand statements;
Sitting at the intersection of technology and business I use my passion for communication to help IT professionals in Fortune 100 companies express themselves in ways that are understood by business people.
Sample Attributes to use to develop brand statements
Enthusiastic, international, supportive, positive
I use my 20 years of branding expertise, my passion for human potential and my global prospect to inspire entrepreneurs and executives around the world to build winning personal brands so they can succeed by being themselves.
Ask yourself if your personal brand statement is relevant to your target audience, is it intriguing, is it interesting, is it easy to say, is it understandable? No jargon, no abbreviations. Is it consistent and constant and differentiate you from everyone else. You constantly have to refine it and change it over time?
Express Phase
How you communicate your brand and how to create visibility and get the message out. You will have to develop a communication wheel.
Consistency: you are always the same and Constancy: you are always visible to your target audience. Clarity: it has to be clear and easy to understand. Communication wheel is different for everyone.
You need to use the same messages throughout all your communication no matter what vehicle you use.
Your communication vehicles include: newsletters, articles, speaking engagements, blogs, a website, and volunteer work.
You can save time and use consistent messages over and over again. You need to ensure that all your communication has credibility and visibility. The target audience needs to see you and you need to get their attention. solicit testimonials from clients, former bosses, customers, colleagues.
After you develop your communications targets develop a media plan. Look at each communication channel and do your research. If you write an article do not just write it for one newspaper send it to other editors. If you speak to a group, find out what other groups are there who are interested in similar topics.
Awareness; you want to be relevant, and want to create an emotional connection. Become visible through a websearch, google, referral, articles, announcements, organizations meetings etc. Always build in a call to action to every communication materials.
Move from awareness to consideration. Strive for credibility, clarity, understanding, proof in the consideration phase. You want to give details and proof. Then you want to move to trial, you want to provide a good experience and validate everything you communicated to them. Trial: Give them options if you want to do this or if you want to do that? Confirm that you are the right service.
You need to have an online identity, either through a website, blog, newsletter, email campaign, signature line, newsgroups, e-lists, downloadable tips, ebooks, webinars, teleseminars, business networking groups.
THE EXUDE PHASE;
When we set the gem in the setting, this is your brand environment. Your style and how you look reinforces your brand, appearance is your surroundings, your vocabulary, your colors, your font and your professional network is all part of your brand environment. Everything that surrounds you is your brand environment. Make sure it is congruent and consistent with your message. Is it consistent with your brand? It will help you build your brand message
What is your brand identity system?
Your brand environment is made up of your identity system, your surroundings, your appearance, your professional network and it all transmits a message
You need to have brand identity system that reinforces your brand attributes, create recognition, supports consistency, and helps you stand out.
Use it everywhere: stationary, website, logo, voicemail, newsletter, portfolio, blog, email signature, thank you, business card
Your brand identity is your visual vocabulary, it supports recognition, helps you to stand out.
Professional networks extend your brand. All winning brands are connected to a group of resources for mutual benefit. #1 rule is to give to everyone and everywhere, Networking can be focused and can be serendipity.g
Build your network; speak to group, use blogs, elists, newsgroups organization, better to be a lead in one or two organization than to belong to 10 and go once a year.
Ask how you can help them ? Connect your network with others, share articles, invite them, send them a note, congratulate them, give them a free coaching or resources or some giveaway, share articles, send them a link, online network, ecadamy, linkedin , ryze. Go for quality and not quantity. Stay the same and give the same message. Build partnership, collaboration builds creativity.
Branding is not a one time event, winning brands are built over time, requires , focus, patience, feedback from others and it evolves. All brands have to be authentic, it has to be you.