The Importance of Personal Branding

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Seven part personal branding series:

1. The Importance of Branding
2. Personal Brand Building: Niche
3. Personal Brand Building: Differentiation
4. Personal Brand Building: Branding
5. Personal Brand Building: Affiliation
6. Personal Branding Case Study: Garr Reynolds
7. Personal Branding Litmus Test

You’re asking your audience to believe in you, your team, your company or your product every time you stand up to speak. Every audience is quick to form impressions of you based upon the way you speak, the language you use and the way you and your slides look – not to mention the content you’re sharing. You are a brand. Put simply, communicating a positive brand image could help you to be more successful.

Your brand says what your personality is like – whether you’re likeable, trustworthy or funny. It is a statement about your expertise, and what makes you different to others.

Your personal brand will be integral for getting you what you want whether you’re representing yourself, your team or your company,. So here’s your challenge: view yourself as your personal brand manager. Identify what your brand is; and work out how to deliver a consistent, unique brand image each time you speak to others. This series of posts will help you to rise to the challenge.

Personal Branding is Important

Love at first sight. Judging a book by it’s cover. She gives me the creeps. All are ways of describing Fundamental Attribution Error, the fact that we all make sweeping judgements about the people we meet based on the ‘thin slices’ of information we can glean about them. It helps us to save time and make judgement calls about who we can trust.

Your audiences make decisions about your personality from the way you present, whether or not you take time to think about your personal brand. Put some thought and effort into the way you present, and you can create an image for yourself as competent, knowledgeable, charismatic and funny.

So your personal brand decides how people think of you. It also decides whether people think about you at all. Brands help us to remember – whether it’s the restaurant which serves unusual food combinations or the speaker who always tells great fishing stories.

There are three elements of any brand – whether personal or corporate:

• Niche: the subject area your presentations focus on. This lets everybody know what your expertise is and the things you can present about. Find out how to create your niche.
• Differentiation: how you stand out from the crowd. Get some ideas for differentiating your presentations.
• Branding: look the part, and get remembered. Find out how to brand your slides and speech.
• Affiliation: boost your reputation by aligning yourself with somebody bigger. Find out how affiliation works in businesses.

Once you understand how each of these four branding tools can help you to stand out and be remembered, take a look at our branding case study, digging down into why Garr Reynolds’ personal brand works. And finally, find out how four little words can help you to craft a strong brand and test your success – the four word personal brand test.

Seven Part Personal Branding Series:

1. The Importance of Branding
2. Personal Brand Building: Niche
3. Personal Brand Building: Differentiation
4. Personal Brand Building: Branding
5. Personal Brand Building: Affiliation
6. Personal Branding Case Study: Garr Reynolds
7. Personal Branding Litmus Test

Personal Branding Litmus Test