Personal Branding: Marketing Yourself

Last week I attended a workshop on Personal Branding and although I am into Marketing, I had never thought so much of my own “brand” and marketing myself. Herewith I will share with you some of my take aways of this very interesting experience.

What is meant with a personal brand? Yes certain corporate brands have done a great job on making clear what they want to stand for such as; Coca Cola (refreshing a thirsty world), Disney (using the power of entertainment to educate & enlighten) & McDonalds (world’s the best quick restaurant experience) , but people can also do is. Some of the best current examples are probably Barack Obama (who clearly stands for change; “yes we can”) & Richard Branson (adventurous entrepreneur, going against the establishment).

How do you define and build our personal brand?
The workshop started with looking at ourselves from a number of different angles. We had to select our core values, define what is truly meaningful for us and what the values are that we really do not compromise on. Although the list of words you come up with are still very generic, they already tell some important things about what you want to stand for. This you can further sharpen by defining statements of what you want your brand to be associated with “I am…” and what not “I am not…”. Also making a list of your true passions and things that motivate help.

The next angle to take is the view of others have on you. How do your bosses, colleagues and friends currently describe you, what are your strengths and which achievements have you been recognise for and what are the important things you have learned along the way? Try to describe the points that make you unique as good as you can.

When you have all this, you can start articulating your brand. First step here can be taken into the direction of describing “I want to be known for…. because….”. Keep in mind that in order to have a believable brand, you of course need to have reasons to believe or in other words, evidence, which convinces people that you live up to your brand.

Before you make your brand description it is important to describe who your target audience is; who do you want to market your brand to (new colleagues, potential clients, your community,..). When writing your Brand description try to make it exciting and keep it simple. Think of the famous 30-sec elevator pitch in which you try to market yourself. In order to sharpen your story, you should try it out on a few people and check what their take away/feedback is.

I herewith give you my example of the brand description I came up with as an example:

“I am an all-round international business leader, who can change, innovate and grow businesses. My passions are in the areas of strategy, marketing and innovation. I have a very broad experience; having lived and worked in 7 countries (across Europe & Asia), in different businesses (both B2B & B2C) and inside various functional areas (business management/development, up-/downstream marketing, strategy, product planning/management, project/process management & logistics). I can drive and motivate multicultural & geographical dispersed teams to high performance and engagement levels”

This is just one of the many outcomes. There is a lot more you can get out of the exercises, such as; how describe why people should work with you, who to ask for help with positioning/ communicating your brand, etc. More on this you can find in the literature of people who specialise in Personal Branding. For me this was a very good learning experience, it makes communicating/connecting to people a lot more effective (as you can see I am using my brand statement now in the "About" part of my Blog) and also gives you a framework which you can use when making certain decisions. Personal branding makes sense!