Creating your visual aids

Personal Branding – The Litmus 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

So far in this series, we’ve discussed why personal branding is so important for professionals, whether you stand up to speak once per year, or every day. We’ve investigated the four key aspects to building your personal brand: niche, differentiation, branding and affiliation. And we’ve given you practical ideas of how you can give your personal brand all of these things. But how will you know if you’re doing the job?

If you’ve worked through the previous posts in the series, you might have a good idea of what your personal brand is, and even how to communicate it. But unless others pick up on your brand, it won’t do much good. You need to give it time to work, but when audiences have seen your branded presentations a few times, you could carry out this simple test to check you’re on the right tracks.

The Four Word Challenge

All good brands have a simple, clear message about who they are. As should you. Are your presentations, “funny, professional marketing ideas”, or “psychology driven sales discussions”?

Knowing your four word brand statement has two benefits: it helps you to make sure everything you do has the same aims and ethos, and gives you a way to test whether your four brand elements are working.

After a few months, approach members of your audiences and ask them to describe your presentations in just four words. Then compare those words to the four you would use to describe your personal brand.

If both statements closely resemble each other, you’re on track. If not, you need to work harder. I can’t tell you what personal brand Garr Reynolds is going for, but it wouldn’t take long to come up with four words to describe what he does. Presentation, design, Japanese, nature. What four words are you aiming for?

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
6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Pingback: Personal Branding Case Study – Garr Reynolds

  2. Pingback: Personal Branding – Affiliation

  3. Pingback: Personal Branding 7 Part Series

  4. Pingback: Personal Branding – Niche

  5. Pingback: Personal Branding for the Professional Speaker

  6. Pingback: Personal Branding – Differentiation

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

To Top