How many millions do companies the world over spend on developing their brand? Why do they spend all this money? Here are just a few reasons:
- They want to create a clear impression in the minds of their customers and potential customers that separates them from their competitors. This allows them to play to their strengths and position their offering in the minds of those they want to attract and retain.
- They want the customer to automatically think of them first whenever the customer’s mind wanders near to their value proposition.
- They want to focus their employees so that they present a consistent customer experience, which reinforces their competitive strategy.
- They want to make more money by taking a larger share in their market/a higher margin.
Why should you invest time and effort in building your personal brand? Here are just a few reasons:
- It will help you and your talents to stand out from the crowd in the race for exciting new opportunities and promotions.
- You will gain visibility and will be remembered for the things you do really well.
- It will help you to decide what things you focus your time and effort on so that you can increase your impact.
- People around the organisation will know who to come to when they need the help you can offer.
- You will probably make more money and become more influential.
- It can be quite fun building your brand and creating a reputation around the organisation.
Although this is a simple approach, my suggestion is that you plan to do this over the next month. Take your time and you will benefit all the more as a result of the occasional moments during the next few weeks when you can reflect on what you want and how you are going to get there.
- Step 1: A Simple Approach to Personal Branding. In this article, you can consider the background to personal branding and how it affects you. It will also cover what it is not, or should not be. There are many experts out there touting approaches which are not very practical and can keep you spinning in circles getting nowhere particularly fast. One reason why I like to keep things simple!
- Step 2: Exercise: Creating Your Personal Brand. Keep it simple and use this exercise to quickly refine your thinking about the impression you want to create among your colleagues, stakeholders and customers.
- Step 3: Exercise: Establishing Your Personal Brand. Once you have your focus, you now need to start thinking about what to do differently. This exercise will help you to figure out what you can do to begin aligning your behaviour to your brand objectives.
- Step 4: Exercise: Boosting Your Personal Brand. Never stop. One of the most important lessons here is that you have to continually work to improve the impressions you want to create. If you don’t, you will quickly lose focus and dilute your brand – probably without even realising it!
- Step 5: Personal Branding Caveats and Warnings. Here are a few points to stress that could catch you out and either spoil your hard work or perhaps make things a good deal worse for you.
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