The Little BrandMe

Guide

WHAT WHY HOWWhat is a personal brand?

Why should I brand myself?How can I brand myself?

The basic idea of this little guidebook is that a personal brand is an important asset in establishing trust, creating value and directing your life towards your dreams.

This guide will go through the three most important questions in personal branding:

what, why and how.

What a personal brand is, why it is important and how a personal brand can be built.

What is a personal brand?

PROMISEA promise of what you have to offer.A promise of what extra you have to

give.A promise of what makes you the best in

what you do.A promise of what you are.

SOULYour brand is your identity – what you are. It is your values, your personality, your expertise, and the qualities that make you unique among your competitors. It is the beauty of your soul with the ambition of your heart.

FACEYour brand is your identity communicated outwards. Your brand is your reputation – the image being created in your constituencies minds’ when they hear your name.

Your brand should show the best of you... and only you. Your unique brand should be sincere, because it is a promise you have to keep.

Why should I brand myself?

In the modern society life has traditionally followed a pattern clearly divided into sequential parts: childhood and play, youth and studying, adulthood and working, and pension, but working life is no longer what it used to be. It is not necessarily a base for long-term employments and secured monthly income, but it is evolving into a postmodern global networking system.

Career is not a ladder anymore, it is a checkerboard or even a maze. A career is a portfolio of projects that bring you new skills, expertise, develop your capabilities, grow your colleague set, and force you to constantly reinvent yourself as a brand. Your career is a life-long path of professional learning and development of your professional identity. Personal branding is not about changing yourself totally, it is about making more of what you already are.

In this century any one of us could do nearly anything. “What you do might not be unique. What is unique about you is who you are.” Developing a strong personal brand can be the key to rising above the competition. Through thorough branding it is possible to build a public persona that stands for something powerful, clear and compelling in the minds of one’s constituencies.

People are judged on the perceptions others have about them. Personal branding is all about perception – how others perceive you – and personal branding is about taking control over the things that affect how you are perceived.

People want to do business with people they feel comfortable with. Even though employers might rationalize their decisions by the merits on the applicants’ CV’s, in the end the decisions are made on emotional factors. Employers want to employ people who they can connect with and who feel right. A strong and consistent personal brand can enable connecting and create the right kind of feeling.

We all have a personal brand already, but it has been created unintentionally by accident. The key is to take conscious control over how your public perception is being crafted by every single action you do.

How can I brand myself?

To build a personal brand you have to figure out: 

What you are. Why you keep on going. How you can achieve your dreams.

What you are.What you are is your soul, your identity, the core of your brand. It is the untouchable core of you, the base you can rely on. It is the rock you can build your success on.  You have it, there it already is. But what you need to do is to get to know it better. Get to know yourself better.

Ask yourself: What am I?What am I like?What are my values?What is the best about me?How am I different from everyone else?

Why you keep on going.

Why do you keep on going? Why are you? Why do you get up in the morning?  It is your dreams. Your ambition. It is what you fight for. It is what makes you thrive. It is your mission, it is your goal.

Ask yourself: What is my mission?What do I fight for?What do I want to achieve?Where do I want to be?What do I want to be?

How you can achieve your dreams.

Now that you have made yourself clear what you want – choose your weapons. Choose wisely the ways you will tell your story. Powerful brands tend to have capturing myths behind them. Through stories, symbols and rituals they hold a place in people’s minds. To establish a brand you must tell a story. Give your soul a handsome face. Tell; why you are different, what makes you special. You have to tell what you promise. What makes you the best. Be honest. Be faithful to your style.

Ask yourself: What is my story?How does it go? Is it entertaining? Is it serious?

How should I tell it to keep my listeners intrigued?

Where should I tell it? In my blog? My CV? In a video? Should I scream it from a mountain

top? Should I whisper it in someone’s ear? Should I play it? Write a song about it? Write it

on a thousand post-its? Draw it in the sand? Color it with watercolors?

What ever you choose... How you will tell your story... How it will help you get closer to your dreams, and how it will make your life a bit more interesting... Love it. Have fun with it. Find happiness in it.

Write down your personal brand now.

Know it. Tell it. Live it.

This guide is part of my bachelor’s thesis ”How to brand a person?”.