Personal branding
Ever wondered how some people manage to pop up everywhere, build a profile
and get mentioned in all the right publications?
It's a lot about personal branding. This helps create a point of
difference for an individual and helps them standout from the crowd.
In today's competitive marketplace, where an advert for a new CEO attracts
150 applications, 80% of whom have an MBA, personal branding is very
important! There are 3 elements to developing a personal brand:
1. Defining your 'core values' shaped by your upbringing, family, values,
beliefs, personality and attitudes. If you don't know these, work on them
now.
2. Planning a process of self development that builds your knowledge,
specialisation and expert knowledge to set you apart from the masses.
3. Understanding your 'perceived personal brand'. Now researching this can
be quite confronting, because often, how you see yourself, is nothing like
how other people see you. Interviewing others to determine how you occur in
the world takes some courage.
Then you need to get your brand out there:
- Develop your own website, with your name as the domain name.
- Take on a leadership role (such as President of a community group or
industry organisation) to build your leadership skills.
- Start networking, public speaking and being seen in the right places
- Write and publish a blog, and start wooing the media, you might even
employ an agency who specialise in profiling individuals to help with this
process.
To be successful, a personal brand must be seen over and over again.
Visibility in the correct target publications creates credibility and the
presumption of quality. People assume because they have seen, read and
heard about a person regularly, he or she must be
superior to others offering the same product or service.
Do this in a consistent way, and you will create an effective - and
lucrative - personal brand. Think Richard Branson!
Remember, while strong personal brands take years to build up, they can
also be destroyed in seconds!