It’s Time to Brand Yourself

This is great information about creating our personal brand. Is there a tool that would help us accomplish that? Corporations spend millions of dollars on consultants and marketing firms to help them accomplish that. Obviously as individuals we can't afford that. Just like there are tools that help identify our personality type, maybe there could be one to help identify our brand

I am a strategist and a branding consultant for companies, there are models companies use that can apply to individuals, but for first you need to define your brand attributes which I think is the most difficult task. There are some books on the market you can read about self branding. I probably will write a short "story" book for easier understanding.

Where and when is Part II of this series available?

Good info. I think that there’s a misconception out there that Personal Branding is about how much other people like you. It’s much more than that. Its about what you bring to the table. This article does a good job of showing what Personal Branding really is.

Thank you so much for this well written, informative post!

More and more people need to get on the Personal Branding bandwagon. Our number one priority needs to create a "Brand YOU" that is more memorable!

Respectfully,
Paul Castain
VP Sales Development
Consolidated Graphics
http://salesplaybook.blogspot.com

There are certainly some gems in this article. 'Portraying yourself in a way that achieves your objectives' is a beautiful description of personal branding. So I would assume one place to start is with your objectives or goals.

I agree 100%! In fact, just this week I wrote about how personal branding can help people be more persuasive on my blog, Influence PEOPLE (http://influence-people-brian.blogspot.com/) My brand is "When it needs to be Done Well!" That goes out on every email (new, reply & forwards) and I use it as the lead on my voicemail message, "Do you need something done well? Then you've come to the right place." Almost daily I have people comment on it and some even say, "I needed something done well so I thought I'd call you." I owe success in this area to a co-worker, James Seay, who puts on a great personal branding workshop at State Auto Insurance. I encourage everyone to develop their own personal branch and begin to help shape the perceptions people have about you.

Brenton is correct. It is critical that step one is defining one's "mission." As cliche as that term has become, it is a necessary, and quite possibly, mandatory first step. A well defined mission is a goal of what you want to accomplish -- be it short or long term. Identifying this "assignment" will put you on your way to developing a worthy (read: valuable) brand.

In response to Gilbert Hernandez: This is great information about creating our personal brand. Is there a tool that would help us accomplish that?
Yes! Go to ReachPersonalBranding.com. Uncovering your personal brand is not only affordable, Reach is the only personal branding methodology that’s based off of corporate branding practices and has a 360-degree survey. You can take the 360Reach Survey for free.
And,Jiming Lindal: first you need to define your brand attributes which I think is the most difficult task.
Uncovering your brand attributes is a breeze with the 360Reach Survey!

Erin Yoshimura,
Reach Certified Personal Brand Strategist

Great article. I coach people on developing their personal brands (www.blossomingbrands.com) and have found that the crucial part of the process is discovering who you are. This ensures that you develop a personal brand that is authentic. I think many people think that they can do this on their own, but this is a mistake. Understanding who you are is a much easier task when there is someone to help you reflect. Also, thinking back to business brands, the brand is not what the brand owner believes it to be, it is what the market believes it to be. It is crucial to understand what place a brand occupies in the the market's mind. The same applies to a personal brand. What are other people's impression of you? What is your reputation? It is very difficult for an individual to find out the truth here. A third party can help them to understand what their current brand is, and what the gap may be between that and their intended brand.

I'm looking forward to reading parts 2 & 3.

Alexia

I think the idea of personal branding is very relevant for folks that find themselves in the job market. With more supply than ever, have less time to evaluate the extended credentials of all of their applicants, thus the effectiveness of brands - which help us to communicate more complex ideas and impressions using imagery, signs, symbols personal logos and other attributive information in a more timely fashion.

There's a great little article on personal logos over at economixt, as well as a good one recently on semiotics and personal brands.

http://www.economixt.com/2009/01/personal-branding-logos

http://www.economixt.com/2009/07/the-semiotic-anatomy-of-the-human-brand-relationship

This was a great article. James said it correctly, "Yes, and the self-proclaimed personal brand gurus out there aren't making it any better. Look, great brands are demonstrated, not told." Brenda Bence who built mega-brands for Procter and Gamble and Bristol Myers all over the world has adapted a proven corporate branding system to create a personal branding system to help everyone create their own unique personal brand. It is a strategic branding system to help lay the foundation of a great brand. Once the foudnation is laid, then you can take the approriate steps to "build the brand". As James said, great brands are deonstrated and not told. To create a great brand is not easy and it takes a lot of work, but it can be very powerful in your work, in a job search, or in other areas of one's life.

Great article!

I like this message. I know a gentleman in Omaha,Nebraska who has a terrific book called: Self Marketing Power: Branding Yourself as a Business of One. It is written by Jeff Beals. For more information about his book or to hear him speak go to :http://www.selfmarketingpower.com/ He does a great job explaining why its important to brand yourself and the how to's of doing it! Check it out.