personal-branding

When Ralph Lifshitz wanted to become a famous fashion designer, he didn’t start by working 24 hours a day designing clothes. The first thing he did was to change his name to Ralph Lauren. Branding seeks to create a better perception. Not a better product. So your role is to make the changes necessary to create a better perception.

Personal Branding is the process that takes your skills, personality and unique self and packages them into a powerful identity that lifts you above the sea of anonymous faces and competitors. Your personal brand is the powerful and clear idea that comes to mind whenever they think of you. It therefore, should be positive and should represent what you stand for – the values, abilities and actions that others associate with you. So let them know:

  • Who you are

  • What you do

  • How you are different

A Personal Brand is all about influence. It influences how people in your target market perceive you. To be effective, your Personal Brand must evoke three basic perceptions in the minds of your target market:

  • You are different

  • You are superior

  • You are authentic

Everyone has a personal image totally different from a Personal Brand. It’s the collection of qualities people identify with ‘You’ such as your fashion style, hairstyle, and sense of humor, etc. Together, these qualities help people form a mental picture of you.

A brand cannot be built overnight; it is another person’s gut feeling about you because they are emotional, intuitive beings. Here are four Personal Branding Commandments:

  • Brands take time to develop

  • Brands grow organically

  • Brands are not rational

  • Brands demand consistency and clarity

Since personal branding is a process and a lot more depend on how you interact with people. There are five elements of Personal Branding:

  1. Personal Brand Development

  2. Personal Marketing

  3. Customer Service

  4. Public Relations

  5. Personal Presentation

Last but not least, something about Positioning. It stands for spy on a place for yourself in the minds of your target market, so they identify you with a single powerful idea. So keep your brand simple, clear and concise. Build it on the core elements [who, what, how] of positioning. Line them up as a single sentence, and write Your Personal Brand Statement (PBS).