[vc_row margin_top=”-40″ padding_left=”40″ padding_right=”40″ type=”3″ bg_position=”top” bg_repeat=”no-repeat” bg_cover=”false” bg_attachment=”false” padding_top=”25″ padding_bottom=”0″ parallax_speed=”0.1″ css=”.vc_custom_1399373744721{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]
Does Your Personal Brand Stand Out?
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][dt_gap height=”20″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]We are all branded whether we like it or not, and if you don’t take responsibility for branding and marketing YOU, others will do it for you.
The process of developing and articulating your personal brand does not happen overnight. The first key component of thinking about your personal brand, is what makes your brand special and unique.
Many people haven’t thought through what makes them unique and distinctive. The first author of the concept Brand You Inc, Tom Peters suggests that in many cases your unique selling proposition (USP) is more important than your CV. You need to ask yourself, “What differentiates you from all the millions of other financial advisors, accountants or bankers out there? What makes you stand out from the crowd?
Once you have identified your USP and established the type of personal brand you want to create, it’s important to ensure that you demonstrate the characteristics of your brand (your brand promise, as such) consistently in everything you do.
The concept of positioning your brand is an important one. Personal branding can be likened to mental real estate (a concept was first proposed by Peter Montoya), which seeks to find out what area in other peoples’ head you occupy. Do people put you in the same category as other professionals or business people in your field or do they see you as being different and ‘standing out’?
If you’ve given thought to your unique characteristics, the values that form the foundation of your brand, as well as ways in which you add measurable value, you are in a far better position to make yourself stand out. The important aspect of personal branding is that it is not about developing someone ‘new’, it is about identifying the best parts of yourself and finding ways to enhance them.
So here are some questions you may want to consider in defining your personal brand:
1) What makes you distinctive from your colleagues?
2) What characteristics make you unique?
3) What do you do that adds incredible and measurable value?
4) What are your personal brand values?[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]