Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.”– Bruce Lee
With our industrialised world today, it is important for both the employed and unemployed people to take control of establishing, developing and managing a Personal Brand. A Personal Brand allows you to speak about yourself in your own terms, it allows all that is strong and effective about your personal and professional style to shine through and known to your business and social community.
When you are in control of marketing yourself and your brand, you can direct the content and how you want others to perceive you.
Related: 5 Tips To Create A Strong Personal Branding
These are the 6 Must-Do’s to achieve success with personal branding:
1. Figure out and state who and what you are
Cultivating a personal brand gives you a chance to know who you really are. Remember when you first meet someone new? We all tend to show our best side and put our effort in making ourselves look picture perfect in so many ways.
Overtime, you will fall back into who you really are and this is where everyone gets disappointed when you are not able to deliver what you claim you possessed. It is important that our branding is consistent from the beginning till the end, show your accomplishments & expertise but don’t overstate and over-exaggerate to the point that execution is not possible. In short, authenticity is key.
2. Ask yourself honestly about your value proposition
Ask yourself honestly about what your core strengths and weaknesses are. Prepare a list of your top 5 accomplishments in the past 5,10,15 years that stands out the most and provided value to the company. It is best to try to do this while you are still employed in a company when you are sitting at your desk with familiar surroundings to trigger your memory as to how you’ve benefited the company.
3. Prepare now and reap the benefits when needed.
Make a schedule to update your professional profile such as resumes regularly. This will help prevent small hassles to turn into a big one. Take care of your digital footprint before it gets expensive and intrusive. Don’t wait until you run into trouble and crisis to realise how important personal branding is. Preparing before-hand makes things a lot easier and efficient.
4. Interact more than less.
Find a perfect balance in interacting online. You need to be looking to gain attention to yourself, your company, your product/service or your potential new boss. It is important to keep your interactions positive, authentic and knowledgeable. Make a schedule to interact online and do what works best for you.
5. Be Patient, Gear Up And Stay Prepared.
Be patient on cultivating your personal brand and understand that it takes time for you to add value to your name and brand. You will need consistency and perseverance will also be needed to reap the results of your hard work. Keep adding value to your brand whenever possible. Focus your attention on adding value that distinguishes you from your competitors.
Remember that online branding as a digital tattoo that stays there once you send it out. Have your personal branding properly established and you’ll be in a much better position when current clients, perspectives’ or recruiters come looking for you or google you, your brand, your product/service. Amaze them even before they pick up their phone to contact you.
You’ll be glad you did!
Related: The Facts You Need to Know About Personal Branding
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