Personal Branding
Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. Personal branding is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual.
Tom Peter’s first wrote about personal branding in an article called “A Brand Called You” in 1997. He said “we all need to understand the importance of branding as we are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called you“.
Four steps to building your personal brand:
- Ask yourself: What do I do that’s remarkable, measurable, distinguished, distinctive value? Ask yourself: What do I do that I am most proud of?
- You’ve got to be an exceptional expert at something that has real value.
- Be a visionary, leader, and teacher.
- Be a businessperson that’s obsessed with value adding and pragmatic outcomes.
Strategies to enhance your profile and build your personal brand:
- Develop a carefully managed LinkedIn profile.
- Write articles which disseminate original ideas on personal business and industry blogs.
- Develop an online following.
- Teach a class to students at a TAFE or University.
- Contributing a column or an opinion piece to your local Community newspaper.
When you’re promoting brand you, everything you do — and everything you choose not to do — communicates the value and character of the brand. That is, your emails, phone conversations, dress, logo, office are all part of the larger message you’re sending about your brand.
