8 Guaranteed steps to build an enduring personal brand.

8 Guaranteed steps to building an enduring personal brand.

The need for a personal brand cannot be over-emphasized, particularly in an increasingly competitive environment where the economic law of scarce resources and endless needs and wants can’t be truer.

The population of the world experiences geometric growth daily, while the resources needed to meet the needs of the population are reducing by the day.

Personal branding therefore is no longer negotiable or a luxury. It is a NEED.

Survival of the fittest can also start reading….” survival of the best branded”.

While personal branding may sound like the exclusive reserve of the highly intellectual, exposed or rich, it is something anybody, irrespective of background, education or culture can practice.

An understanding and aggressive implementation of the eight steps below would no doubt, put you in good stead, to build your brand.

1.????? Discover yourself. One of Plato’s most profound quotes is “Man, know thyself”. That man needs to discover self would be putting it mildly. Self-discovery is everything. Why? Because, without self-discovery, there can’t be self-mastery. And without self-mastery, there can’t be true mastery of any other subject or the essence of life and existence.?? To discover yourself, an easy and popular framework to use would be the SWOT analysis tool. SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat. While Strength and Weakness are internal factors, Opportunity and Threat are external factors. But, as I said earlier, it is important that one first understands oneself, obviously commencing this journey to self-discovery with SW, before proceeding to OT.

Your strengths refer to those things you are extremely good at, and that you have easy understanding and execution of. It refers to your talent, gifts and innate abilities.

Your Weakness refers to that thing or those things you know you are not exactly good at. An understanding of this is important, so you don’t bark up the wrong tree.

Your opportunity refers to the fertile ground where you can start sowing your seeds, the identified gaps that your identified strength and skill set can bring value to fill.

The Threat refers to that thing or factor that can nullify or mitigate your efforts.

2.?? GET EDUCATION/TRAINING: Upon doing the SWOT analysis and discovering yourself, the next step would be to start learning more about the discovered you, more about your discovered strength, and learning about how to exploit the discovered opportunities. This could be through formal or informal education. It could be online or offline. It could be through graduating from a university or as a footballer, graduating from a football academy. The beauty of this part is that it paves the way for the third step you need to take.

3. GAIN EXPERIENCE: Having gotten the education/training, the next logical step would be to gain experience. Notice I did not say ‘get a job.” It was not an error. What this means is that you need to start practicing everything you have learnt at school. Whether you are paid to do it or not, is immaterial. The emphasis here is to hone your skills. No matter how well a student fighter pilot performs at military aviation school, he is still a student until he flies a fighter jet in a real-life aerial battle. ?I put it to you that a 3-star fighter pilot with 2 years of real battle experience is way more dependable than a 5-star student fighter pilot who has only been doing simulations without being in a real war where he is shot at with real missiles and has to maneuver for dear life and shoot down the enemy pilot.

4.?? BECOME AN AUTHORITY:???? You can’t become an authority without experience. Having gained experience, practiced for long hours, and getting 10,000 hours under your belt, you become an authority. Being an authority means becoming the best in your field. It means becoming a reference for other practitioners in your field.

5.?? KEEP A RECORD: You must keep a record because many times in your life, there would be a need to verify your claim to fame, your pedigree, your achievements, the process, your journey and everything that got you to where you presently are. Sceptics, journalists, regulatory bodies, the government, mentees, and the general public would need to know about you. There is a need to be able to clearly articulate your story. How do you keep a record? There are two ways to keep a record…. Online and Offline. Online, you keep your record via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blogs, websites, and every other platform that leaves a digital imprint. This would ensure that your achievements cannot be debated, denied or disparaged. It also ensures that everybody has access to it for objective public opinion. Offline, you keep your records by clear documentation in your resume or by writing a book. It is important to be able to link everything stated offline to its online version, for the sake of objective and independent third-party authentication.

6.??? ADVERTISE YOURSELF: In advertising, a famous quote reads “Selling without advertising is like winking at a woman in the dark. You know you are winking at her, but she can’t see it” So, what’s the point of going through steps one to five above if nobody knows about it if nobody can learn from it, if it is not usable by the next generation? You need to aggressively advertise yourself. How do you do this? By seizing every opportunity to share knowledge, to solve problems, to contribute to intellectual discourse. You ensure you have a presence in industry activities, you have an active, value-adding social media presence, and you have active community involvement in any and every activity relating to your field.

7.?? BUILD RELATIONSHIPS: Your network equals your net worth. The major difference between the highly successful and the average, mediocre person is in the value (not volume) and quality (not quantity) of the strategic relationships they have. Success is built on relationships. DEPENDENCE as a child must always give way to INDEPENDENCE as an adult, and if one is wise, to INTERDEPENDENCE. This is where the law of leverage kicks in.

8.?? GIVE BACK: A mentor whom I hold in high esteem, is fond of always saying “Success without succession planning is Failure” Nothing is truer. Growing up, we all were beneficiaries of many things from parents, family, society, and the government. If we must become an enduring brand, we need to start giving back. All the global and local brands we adore today were mostly built sacrificially by an individual or a family. But long after they have passed on, their legacies have been passed on to us, ensuring there are jobs for people, brands for consumers, case studies for business schools, and reasons for aspiring entrepreneurs to believe in the validity of their dreams.