BRAND & BUSINESS
A brand can be a symbol, a specific colourful shape, a word or words or combination of all. A strong brand increases credibility, popularity & success for any business. Branding is often associated with name recognition. But the name recognition is just one component of other images that come from a brand. A good brand may convey it’s popularity, it’s style, it’s quality & it’s pricing with the name recognition.
In any given product or service there are many many competitors out there in the market place. But a big chunk of market is dominated by the big brand…! Why? Because they have created the identity that’s unique, they are able to provide the best value for the money of their target market & they have a loyal customer base for their brand.
JUST A FEW EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL BRANDS
- PORSCHE
- Marks & Spencer
- Coca Cola
- L’Oreal
- McDonald
- Starbucks
Just have a look on each brand name. Porsche immediately gives an image of a luxury car, marks & spencer…Stylish clothing. Some brands are even so successful that it’s almost a synonym of their product. Think of hamburger–what comes in mind? McDonald’s–right! Coffee? Starbucks! Cold drink…? Coca Cola! A brand image is more valuable asset for a business than any other possessions.
PERSONAL BRANDING? WHAT’S THAT?
Ok! Ok! I got that! You are thinking that branding is something to do with big business companies. What’s the relation with me? How come “i am a brand”?
Let me explain here-personal branding is the combination of your talent+ your personal relations (pr) + your differentiation/ your uniqueness
personal branding is all about you-your name, your work, your style, value you offer more than others & how people perceive you.
If you are in sales or any service industry I can’t over emphasize the importance of personal branding for your success. If you are selling any product or offering any service-most probably there are at least thousands others who offer the same thing. Now here is the big why comes…Why people should buy your products or your services if they could have the same from elsewhere? Because you selling it…? You are right my friend. Now you see…It all comes down to you! Your personal brand!
if you break down personal branding it comes to:
- value proposition
- differentiation
- marketability
Personal branding is what you offer more than your competitors, how you separate yourself from others & your marketability of both.
HOW TO BRAND YOURSELF
- YOUR NAME is the vital factor for Your Personal Branding. That’s how people going to identify YOU. Sometimes it’s okay to have Your Name as it is, example: Ann Sieg or Mike Klingler (Gurus of Online Marketing) or You may like to modify a little bit-may be you have a Longer name, you want to make it short so it’s more memorable (like one of my colleague Diyana Alcheva-now most known as DiDi)
- YOUR GETUP is like Your Packaging. People look at the packaging first when buying any product-that’s natural. Now YOU are the product & people DO make their judgment on Your outer look. So you have to pay special attention on Your Clothing, Your Fragrance, Your Hairstyle maintaining your Individual style & Uniqueness. (It’s most applicable for offline marketing).
- ADDING YOUR PERSONALITY in your marketing is the key to BRAND yourself successfully.
- KNOWING YOUR TARGET MARKET is as important for PERSONAL BRANDING as it is for CORPORATE BRANDING. Once you know your NICHE MARKET You immediately know Who is your competitor, What is that they are not offering, How can you fill the gap & How can you distinguish yourself from them.
- YOUR MESSAGE is what people are going to associate Your Name with. What do you do, how differently you do it & what value you offer. It’s like Your Mission Statement. It’s best if you can come up with a one line statement to introduce Yourself (it works both online or offline)
- YOUR CREDIBILITY counts! That’s what Your PERSONAL BRAND stands for. If you promise something & don’t do that OR provide misleading information Your Credibility Ranking will go down so fast that Your Name/Your Personal Brand will only be associated with all the negative calling. You surely DON’T want that!
- YOU IN VEDIO posting on YouTube or Your Website or any other video platform can boost Your PERSNAL BRANDING. Remember; it’s all about being recognized by the People.
- BLOGS / ARTICLES & YOUR BOOK also positions yourself as a value provider, an expert into the eyes of the readers, enhancing your PERSONAL BRANDING.
- CONSISTENCY is another important aspect of PERSONAL BRANDING. Whatever you do You need to be Consistent. You do something one day and for couple of days you do nothing-that’s not how you build YOUR BRAND.
A FEW EXAMPLES OF PERSONAL BRANDING
- Mother Teresa
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Donald Trump
- Michal Jackson
- Einstein
- Abraham Lincoln
- Oprah
Every name mentioned above has its own image, own identity. When it comes to humanitarian work one name pops in—mother teresa! A great political victory by non violence refers mahatma gandhi instantly. Donald trump…What fleshes? Yes! Millions!! That’s the power of personal branding. These people are not recognized by any company or organization instead the company &/or the organization are known by their name!
BRAND YOURSELF, SUCCESS WILL FOLLOW!
