The Importance of Branding
Branding is a cornerstone of marketing. Companies invest huge amounts of resources into cultivating their brand; creating a recognisable symbol that immediately evokes a response in the consumer. Developing a brand that elicits a positive reaction, especially an emotional one, is a proven strategy for generating sales and maintaining awareness.
We can do a very similar thing at the personal level. Ask yourself, what do you expect people think about when they hear your name or see your picture? The responses are likely very different depending on whom we ask. You would hope that those who know you professionally speak well of you, however. Perhaps they consider you a good salesperson, a great motivator, a natural leader, etc.
However, branding is most successful when the company or individual is the answer to a question. When we think about photo editing software, for many the first application to come to mind will be Adobe Photoshop. When we think about business productivity software, Microsoft Office may well be the first thing that pops into our head. And of course, “I’ll just Google that” has become common parlance.
The Power of a Brand
The power of a brand comes not just from being recognisable, but from its associations. What we would like, therefore, is when someone is looking for a good salesperson, a great motivator, a natural leader, or whatever it is that we specialise in to think about us. We want to come galloping to the forefront of other people’s minds when they are looking for particular solutions. We want to have a personal brand that people recognise and trust. More than that, we want people to associate the qualities and traits that they are looking for with us.
We cannot underestimate the importance of personal branding. I’ve often said that people buy from people, but that also extends to people work with people. Even the clichéd reclusive author living in a remote hillside cabin has to work with people. With the rise of social media as a means of presenting and selling oneself to others, our personal brands are under constant scrutiny. One retweet or share to the right person can unlock opportunities; it could also cost us dearly if it sends the wrong message. Consequently, we should endeavour to shape our brand the way we want it to be shaped. We need to move beyond defining ourselves by our job but by who we are.
Personal branding helps us to stand out from the crowd. When an employer is looking to hire, how do they choose from multiple candidates with similar levels of experience and qualifications? Put simply; they will opt for the candidate they believe best aligns with their company. They will consider a person’s traits, personality, strengths and values.
Personal Branding
Our personal brand transcends our experience and our qualifications. It is the reason why some YouTubers become millionaires, and some do not. Personal branding is why some blogs receive millions of hits a day, and others struggle for a few hundred in a year. It may very well be the reason one person got the job, and the other candidate did not. Skills matter, but only insofar as they permit us to do the job. A YouTuber with an exciting, innovative and personable delivery is more likely to attract an audience than someone who is monotonous and gruff; even if the latter is more knowledgeable in a field.
Your personal brand is how every facet of yourself coalesces into the whole. It is crafting your sense of self around your abilities, values, passions, strengths, weaknesses and ambitions and making this the foundation for how you present yourself to the world. By building your personal brand, you can unlock opportunities, work with people who you want to work with and who want to work with you, think strategically, deliver more value and most importantly be happier in your job.
Over the next few weeks, I will be publishing a series of articles on how to develop your personal brand, how to make it strong and how to benefit from doing so.
