I SO get it! You’re selling a product or a service and that’s what you think the brand is. You are leveraging off ‘The NAME or ‘The LABEL’ you think is the brand. But you couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
You are selling YOU – Such a cliché. You Inc. We’ve all heard it before. But today with buyers calling the shots more than ever, with competition so fierce, with uniquity is such short supply, your personal brand is a priority and it is a MUST to showcase authentically (with that important mix of humility and hustle), but showcase none the less.
Your personal and professional success is based on you LIVING your personal brand. Being real. Walking your talk and when you do, the world around you will do the heavy lifting for you.
Take a moment, lift your eyes from this article, look around you and notice how many brands are right in front of you. Do you use Apple or Microsoft? Why? What brand shoes are you wearing, what car do you drive, god forbid! for the aficionado’s, what coffee do you drink? Why?
The answer is based on how these brands make you feel.
And people will buy YOU because of how you make THEM feel – personally and professionally.
But…let’s take it down a notch.
Like everything, your brand won’t resonate with everyone and that’s OK. We can’t control what others think, we can only influence them so it makes sense to give ourselves a chance to get off the starting blocks as easily and effortlessly as we can – to give ourselves a competitive and winning So here’s the ABC ideas to get your head around You Inc – and to finetune your real identity:
a) is for Appearance – The way you look and dress to begin with. Yes, the window dressing is important. Remember first impressions. My grandmother had 13 kids and not a lot of money and I emember her saying ‘it doesn’t matter if they are hand me downs so long as they are clean and ironed’. Now I’m not suggesting you make the most out of second hand clothes but you get my gist. People will look at your shoes, your car, your folders, your hair, your teeth, your speech. Perhaps you can add some more yourself and check in with the look of your brand.
b) is for Behaviour – The way you act, the way you have conversations, the way you treat others, how responsive you are when it comes to your clients and team, your language and the way you speak to people, your intentions, your actions and your inactions. The way you behave is based on either fear or connection with others, it is based on a sense of scarcity and lack of something (resources, money, ideas, time, energy and the list goes on forever) or it is based on a sense of OK-ness, plenty and abundance. It is based on optimism or it is based on desperation. You choose. What place is your behaviour coming from?
c) is for Cleverness – Your strengths. It’s easy today to find a strength finder online (gallup has a good one). Find out what your natural strengths are and play to them. Sometimes those strengths are so simple that we put zero value on them because they are so obvious to us we wonder how can they be a strength to anybody. For example, I would never have thought being a problem solver was a strength of mine (especially considering I create so many problems :)) but I am really good at drilling down to the underlying issue or challenge someone is REALLY having, seeing past the problem to the hidden problem that they can’t see, and I do it in a record quick time. (Perhaps those days of being told to slow down and not be such ‘a bull in a china shop’ is paying off). What that does is create cut through and momentum for people and teams to achieve success and when those results that really matter occur in the shortest period possibly, then that has value. It therefore makes sense I coach and mentor CEO’s, entrepreneurs and salespeople. I do it well.
What is it you do really well that people acknowledge you for?
What is it you do that comes easily and effortlessly to you?
There’s a whole alphabet of ways for you to own and showcase your unique personal brand. These are three to start with. Let me know how you go.
Be Bold and Brilliant!