The Age of Personal Branding. Are you aware of yours yet?

A personal brand is not what you think about yourself. It’s got nothing to do with you. Well, what is it about then?

Associating oneself with a great university name or huge corporate brand, no longer remains fulfilling.
In this digital age — where the world moves towards creation of virtual personalities, we need to more than ever before focus on the importance of one’s best projection to the outside world.

Your thoughts, your speech, your appearance — tells the world an untold story — so how would you want yours to be told?

Seth Godin, an American Author once said, “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

What is a Personal Brand?

A personal brand isn’t that much different from a business brand. Instead of marketing a store or product, you’re marketing yourself.
Building up a personal brand has a ton of benefits, both personally and professionally, and it can help open many doors for you in the future.

Forbes conducted a study where — 70% of the professional believed that they had clearly defined their personal brand and were well aware of their public reputation. Except that only 15% were right about their reputation bit.

So what happened there?

People when they hear the words personal and branding in the same sentence usually think it is do with talking about themselves all the time — SELF PROMOTION is the key.

But here drops the BOMB — the thing personal branding is NOT about you. It is what OTHER people think about you or PERCEIVES you to be.

Why should you be concerned on building a strong personal brand?

There are three major benefits (to start off with!) of having an individualistic brand that features the best version of you:

1. You lead more — because people think they know who you are authentically and so they tend to follow you more enthusiastically and get more people to follow you.

2. You win more — Life is really a lot about negotiations, one right after the other. Be it getting into the right grad school, or negotiating new starting salary or if you are simply trying to win an argument with your significant half — it is truly essential to know what people value in you.

It is only then that your voice is heard and given the respect of being considered from your perspective.

3. You earn more — According to Forbes, consistent branding across all channels increases one’s revenue by up to 23%. If you have a strong personal brand, you tend to earn 10 to 25% more of earrings every year.

People cannot buy what they don’t know. This is where branding helps — it makes you visible. In today’s competitive world, you must be unique and authentic to stand out from the rest. Hence, Personal Branding is a weapon that every individual — be a it a student, a politician, an entrepreneur, your story needs to be told in most authentic manner.

So how do you build your own strong personal brand into what you would exactly want it to be?

Let me introduce you to a simple 3 step process:

Step 1: Self Awareness

Your personal brand is not what you know about yourself or the constant conversation you have with your ownself. That is your personal identity.
Your personal brand is much about your reputation within the outside world. Who others know you to be.

To know whether your personal brand matches the personal identity in your head, ask your friends, peers, colleagues. Listen to their comments and you will have your answers.

This is where you could start a step towards building an effective personal branding strategy for yourself, but first start by defining it for yourself — who do you want to be defined as?

Here’s a helpful read on how you can define your brand. Cheers!

Step 2: Telling your own story

Every word you speak or every move you make is always being constantly evaluated and interviewed, both professionally and personally. So, everything counts — the way you talk, the way you move, the way you dress, work, play, interact with people.

It is only when a specific set of people accept you to be similar to their given status is when they invite you to be part of their community. They hire you, the marry you, they offer you trust and the given respect. This is solely because they know you through the story you tell.

So what does it take to tell a compelling story to the market place you are a part of?

• Attaining their attention — “Attention is the most important currency that anybody can give you. It’s worth more than money, possessions or things.”. In this turbulent and chaotic world, if you fail to stand out and gain someone’s attention, you run the risk of losing the chance of telling your story.
  From correctly portraying your unique self, to engaging the correct body posture — every movement makes a distinct difference.
• Being relevant — your communications, offerings, thoughts need to be relevant to the audience you are addressing to. It is only then, they tend to lean and listen to you with intent.
• Memorable — When it comes to personal branding, being memorable is essential to success. You wouldn’t want the world to forget your name or the way they felt during your presence.
  Here’s a few tips on how you can make yourself memorable.

Step 3: Deepening your relationships

A personal brand is about the people you surround yourself with. A deep relationship is built upon all of the individual experiences you have with an individual, community or your tribe. It is only when you trigger the right human connection and emotion you build a long lasting relationship. This becomes your own unique identity and also a mirroring perception in the eyes of the others.

Final thoughts on why Personal Branding could be the NEED of the HOUR?

The world needs to see the authentic you cause every individual brings newness to the table, something that no other individual can replicate. Do not let world dilute your exclusive personality by blending the pool of commonness.

Be seen. Be heard. Be appreciated.

Grow your brand into a story that you would love to narrate to yourself in the coming years.
Start investing in your brand now…..