Personal Branding 101 – Expand Your Success!

Everyone needs a strong personal brand these days. It doesn’t matter if you’re a C-suite executive, a newly minted solopreneur, or a recent college grad. Personal branding is essential for much more than simply finding a job or finding clients (although it’s necessary for that too). It’s the key to opening doors at every level while making your happiness quotient zoom. If you’re fortunate enough to work for a company that has an active personal branding program (many Fortune 500 companies do), the task is that much easier. If not, no worries; in this Blog, I’ll share with you the personal branding basics that I have used to help hundreds of corporations and individuals achieve new levels of success. These are explored further in my latest book (with my amazing coauthor Deb Dib), Ditch. Dare. Do! 3D Personal Branding for Executives.

But before we jump into the personal branding process, let’s talk about the benefits. Here’s what you get when you embark on a personal branding program:

• Increased self awareness – you learn who you are, what’s important to you and how position yourself to achieve your goals.
• Enhanced visibility – you become visible to - and start to influence - those who will have an impact on your success.
• Differentiation – you get clear on what sets you apart from others who want to achieve what you want to achieve.
• Control – you choose where you want to work and/or what clients you want to work with. You put yourself in charge of your destiny.
• Wealth – we pay more for strong brands than for commodities. Ever wonder why an Apple iPhone costs so much more than other smartphones or why a Starbucks coffee is more than double the cost of a no-name coffee from the shop next door?
• Achievement – because your brand is directed at your goals, you focus on them and are able to turn aspirations into reality.
• Happiness – you increase your sense of satisfaction and enjoy what you do because you are integrating who you are into what you do and how you do it.

Now, with those benefits in mind, let’s look at the three-step process:

Step 1: Know

When I serve as a personal branding consultant, people usually want to talk about the visibility aspect - using social media, getting published, going on a world tour, etc. But those activities don’t constitute the most important part of personal branding, and they’re a waste of resources if they’re not based in authenticity.

Know yourself before you show yourself

Personal branding is rooted in authenticity. You can only fool people for so long. To build a lasting brand, focus on who you really are and what naturally makes you great. Strong brands are unearthed, not created. Step 1 is to engage in an intensive process of discerning the key facets of you're your brand, including your:

• Vision and Purpose
• Passions
• Values
• Goals
• Talents/Strengths

What do people think about you?

Uncovering your brand also means understanding your reputation from the outside in. This action is critical because it helps you validate your self-discovery. Although your brand is based in authenticity, it’s held in the hearts and minds of those who know you. So you need to understand how others perceive you. I use 360Reach (Disclosure: 360Reach is a product of my company, Reach Personal Branding) to obtain honest, actionable external feedback. If you don’t understand external perceptions, you might be building your brand on a flimsy foundation.

Know what makes you stand out

Authenticity is critical, but it is not enough. Differentiation is also important to effective branding. That means knowing what sets you apart from everyone else who does what you do. If you don’t stand out, you’re a commodity, not a brand. You sit among a sea of others, unable to attract the attention of those who can be critical to your success. To understand what makes you unique, start by determining what you have in common with your peers. Then start to think about those things that make you YOU. You might think about things like:

• How you do what you do (how you create value)
• Life experiences
• Quirky characteristics
• Passions, interests and hobbies
• Personality

At the end of this phase, you’ll not only know what differentiates you from others – those things you do better than anyone else – but you’ll also have a realistic snapshot of your professional reputation, including what gets decision makers and influencers excited about you.

Know Your Audience

The last element of the ‘Know’ phase has to do with your target audience. Contrary to popular belief, personal branding is not about being famous; it’s about being selectively famous. It means being visible and available to those people who are making decisions about you. So create a list of those people who need to know you so you can achieve your goals and include those who influence the decision makers too.

Once you're clear about your target audience, take a look back at what you uncovered about yourself – authenticity and differentiation – and think about which elements would get your target audience excited about you.

In the ‘Know’ phase, you ask yourself a lot of questions. I have consolidated the 50 most important questions for you to ask yourself when uncovering your brand into one document. You can download it here.

If you are working with an executive coach, he/she can be instrumental in this phase of the process – helping you maintain momentum and gain clarity as you learn about the brand called YOU. If you’re interested in working with one of the coaches trained in my personal branding methodology, you can find them here.

Now that you understand what’s authentic to you, differentiating from your peers and relevant and compelling to the people who are making decisions about you, it’s time to move to step 2.

Step 2: Show

All the self-awareness you gained in Step 1 will have little value to you if you don’t make it visible to your target audience. When it’s time to get the message out, you’ll create your career marketing tools. The most important of these is your 3D brand bio (a truly captivating bio which conveys the whole you – who you are in your work, life and world). At this stage, you’ll also work to hone your point of view and the messages you want associated with your brand. Personal branding requires having an opinion and taking a stand. It’s not about trying to please everyone. This is also the time to tell your story in an emotionally compelling way, forging deep connections with those who have the ability to figure prominently in your success.

Tell people who you are

The 3D brand bio is a crucial supplement to your resume. Your bio is YOU when you aren’t there, speaking on your behalf in the form of your LinkedIn summary, on your company intranet, in your social media profiles and with your byline for content you publish. In a world where more and more people get to know you online before they meet you in person, you need to make your bio match who you are in the real world.

Just like every strong corporate brand, you’ll also get to define and design your personal brand identity system (PBID), which includes the font(s), colors, images and tagline that will make your brand recognizable and memorable. Think of it as the packaging that surrounds your brand.

Color is the most important element. It is powerful for building recognition and conveying emotion. Here’s how you can determine your brand color.

Of course, when you’re communicating on behalf of your company, you need to use their brand identity system. For all of your other communications, you should use your PBID consistently.

When you have written a bio that is a mirror of who you are in the real-world and you have established your PBID, you’re ready to increase your visibility and credibility. You do that in Step 3.

Step 3: Grow

This step puts your brand promise into action by integrating your brand into everything you do. You’ll start by creating a personal media plan - which will include all the communications vehicles you are going to use to reach your target audience. LinkedIn should be the foundation because it bridges the real world with the world of social media to optimally enhance your visibility and credibility. It’s also often the first place people go when they want to learn about you. Here's a link to my recorded webinar where I share the process for creating a stellar LinkedIn summary.

Build on the LinkedIn foundation by identifying other communications tools that you enjoy (for example, do you prefer public speaking or writing?). Choose the ones that will reach your target audience. Research your favorite options, and then start expressing yourself! Capitalize on social media, but remember that your virtual brand promise must match your real-world brand traits, whether you’re using LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Facebook, SlideShare or other online resources.

If you completed step 1 with in-depth attention to authenticity, your brand will be easy to communicate in any medium. When you are deciding on your personal media plan, ponder this:

• Don’t think of real-world communications – like public speaking or face-to-face networking - as distinct and desperate from online branding. Find ways to link the real with the virtual. This will help you build a congruent brand on- and off-line.
• Choose activities that sit at the intersection of what you love to do and that will reach you target audience. Don’t waste time expressing yourself if it won't fall on the right ears. You need to be visible and available to your target audience.
• Be lazy. Find ways to re-use and repurpose content to save precious time and ensure consistency of message. For example, turn a series of tweets into a Blog or transform the content from an article into a PowerPoint presentation.
• Consider video. Video is the future of personal branding. It provides you an opportunity to deliver a complete communication and connect more deeply with the viewer. In the near future, video will become commonplace. For now, it can be your opportunity to stand out from the pack. Watch this video for advice on creating your first video.

Visibility + Credibility

Further brand integration happens at this stage when you consciously inject your brand into everything you do every day. For example, if your brand is all about organization and structure, the way you write agendas, lead meetings, and compose emails – as well as everything else you do regularly (and everything that surrounds you) - must reflect that. Personal branding is not just about telling people what you are great it, it requires that you show them.

This is also the stage when you’re ready to start working on exponential growth. How? Through your network. If you’ve created a clear, visible message, your network can easily build your brand on your behalf. Take time each day to enrich your professional relationships and give something of value to those in your brand community. The strongest brands in the world regularly nurture their networks. Make this a daily habit.

Personal branding is not about hype or wearing a mask. It’s not about bragging or being self-centered either. Personal branding means making a commitment to be your best self in support of others. And for it to work for you, you must exude your brand with consistency and clarity every step of the way.

What have you done for YOUR brand today?

Get your copy of my latest no-cost ebook: The 9 Predictors of Promotion 

To keep personal branding top-of-mind and stay current with the latest personal branding tools and techniques:

- Link with me here on LinkedIn

- Follow my Personal Branding Column at Forbes

- Subscribe to my YouTube channel

Happy branding!