Danielle thinks like a customer. Even as a little kid she has always shown deep empathy for others. Dan uses this customer insight to help small businesses create practical marketing strategies that work. Using this customer centric approach and her 20 years experience in sales and marketing, Dan takes what is in your head, adds her expertise to create a system to assist you make better marketing decisions, attracts a regular stream of ideal customers and creates a brand that your employees and customers will love!
Changes in how people communicate, research and connect have created the need for you to own your digital footprint or personal brand. I have researched personal branding and have come up with a checklist which can assist you to do this. I hope you will find it useful.
“Your personal brand is comprised of your character, competence and charisma. It’s who you are, what you do and why you’re special. You have to create it, claim it and then make sure everyone in your network knows about it!”
“The fundamental unit of the new economy is not the corporation but the individual.” Tom Peters
Process – BRAND YOU!
Below is a process that you can use to create your personal brand. First Google yourself – do you come up? You need to control what is being said about you, how you are being represented and how you are being seen. If you are not online you are invisible.
1. Planning Stage
Why? What are your goals for branding yourself?
“Vision is a love affair with an idea.” Clarke and Crossland
Who? Who is your audience and who do you want to influence? Choose a niche or target audience (make branding easy).
“It is easy to decide what you are going to do. The hard thing is to decide what you are not going to do.” Michael Dell
2. Extract and Get and External View Point
What is your current brand identity? Identifying brand You. Me Inc.
This involves looking at yourself and your attributes in a brutally honest way. It takes guts to unflinchingly take stock of the details of your life, personality and achievements.
What do you like and what can you improve upon?
External Feedback – current reputation
“All the world’s a stage. I love the Brand You idea, the brand you life. It is my life. My love. My art. My craft. My performance.” Tom Peters
Your personal ethics: What you stand for?
3 Brand rules: clarity, consistency, constancy. One core message.
“Create a cause not a business.” Gary Hamel
What do you want it to be? Own your brand.
3. Express Stage – Getting your message out there
How will you reach your target market of people you want to influence? Choose the right tools!
“We are CEOs of our own companies: ME Inc. To be in business today, our most important job to be head marketer for the brand called you.” Tom Peters
Using collateral: your look, feel and style – evaluate your touch points:
The end game is a media or communication plan for you.
4. Ongoing Measurement
If you are not branding yourself, you can be assured that others are doing it for you!
Resources:
Reach – Online branding
Selfbrand Catherine Kaputa
Colin Wright – How to be remarkable
Jump start your personal brand
Tom Peters the brand you 50 – his book on Amazon
Dan Schawbel - Personal Branding Blog
Personal Branding Slideshare - Kristian Andersen
Your brand survey – Brand You
Personal Branding Summit in iTunes
Online Johari Window – your key attributes
“Personal branding is all about soft power. It’s about knowing how you add remarkable, distinctive, measurable value, and being able to communicate and market yourself and your ideas. The reason most people don’t succeed is not because they lack business or technical skills. It’s because they lack soft power skills: the ability to communicate well, to influence and persuade, to build a powerful network of business associates, and to plan a career strategy that maximizes your strengths and the realities of the marketplace.” Katherine Kaputa