BRAND PERSONIFIED – LIFE OF A BRAND
Businesses create vision and mission statements. Creating a personal brand begins much the same way as creating a personal vision.
Personal Branding is the process of developing a “mark or uniqueness” that is created around your name or your career. You use this “mark and uniqueness” to express and communicate your skills, personality, and values.
We all have the ability to be a brand and cultivate our power to stand out and be unique. This uniqueness draws people to our product, our services, or even just our message. Your personal brand should be about who you are and what you have to offer.
Your life’s vision should include how you see yourself in 10, 20, and even 50 years. Consider the elements in life that would make you happy—a family, a beach house, or a challenging corporate job.
Why Personal Brand is for Everyone
Personal brands should be important to everyone. Personal brands are not only for entrepreneur that owns their own business. It is the secret ingredient that can make you stand out from a stack of resumes.
A strong personal brand will impact your ability to get the right jobs, and promotions, and increase your ability to attract talent and capital. So, let’s look at these tips that can help you in creating your own personal brand:
1. Identify Your Uniqueness and Your Strengths
Think about the characteristics and strengths you’ve got. If you are stuck thinking about that “one thing” that everyone says you rock at. If you’re still stuck, ask others if you don’t know.
2. Own a Place or Platform:
If you are going to have a personal brand you will need a platform like a website, group, or sphere of influence. Your platform must be the type that you have total control over. You will also need social media accounts that represent your brand. You will use these platforms to share the three (3) powerful ingredients of branding – Be seen, Be Heard, and Create an Enduring Experience.
3. Master Your Art.
Once you’ve identified your uniqueness and strengths, perfect them. Learn all that you can and become an expert in that area. You can never stop learning. Read, absorb, and teach.
4. Share Your Knowledge
It’s not enough to learn it; you have to communicate it currently, consistently and share your knowledge by helping others. Do this through videos, social media, and writing both online and offline. This is where you prove you know your stuff and gain exposure from doing so. Use every available space to communicate and share who you are.
5. Be Yourself – Persona Branding
Find your own style. You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing and just follow the crowd. Use your style and uniqueness to attract the jobs and clientele that you desire. Find your own style and create a new set of footprints for others to follow in. Do what you love to do with fun.
6. Identify Your Values and Set Your Priorities
It’s important to have a clear picture of your personal and professional goals, both short and long-term. This will help you not only identify the most important things to spend your time on but will also have something to align new projects with. Use your values and priorities as a compass that guides you both in action and your decision-making process.
7. The Bottom Line
Use these exercises to create a strong personal brand persona that you can always refer to when it comes to creating materials that support your brand.
8. Developing your personal brand is the proactive way of managing your life conscientiously with a commitment to achieving an overall vision of who you are and would want to be in the marketplace.
The need for a personal brand will continue to increase. It’s the one thing that no one can take away from you and it can follow you throughout your career. It’s a leadership requirement that lets people know who you are and what you stand for.
