Learn how to brand yourself in 10 easy steps
Does the question, please, tell me a bit about yourself make you anxious? It’s the pressure to keep this answer short, interesting, and valuable. After extensive research, we came up with these 10 easy steps on how to brand yourself.
A personal brand allows you to build more trust between your business, colleagues and clients. It builds a bond between your job and personality that can boost your reputation and popularity. This can help you establish a strong relationship with existing clients and expand to potential ones.
The most difficult part is to make the first step.
1.Discover your identity
This is your foundation for growth and development.
Your identity is influenced by internal and external factors in your life. Start with the basics. Create a list of things that describe you. In the most simplistic form. Focus on the details about yourself that are obvious.
Continue with your skills, traits and passions. Draw ideas from your friends, ask them to describe you in 5 words. Take an online personality test to get inspired.
A good tip is to observe what characteristics and qualities you find valuable in other people. Is this their expertise, professionalism or relatable personality? How many of these traits do you possess? Start with the base and built on it.
2.Explore your goals
This is the part where you use the outcome to break down the steps to get there. Simply, the importance of planning and envisioning the future. Outlining your goals from short-term to long-term.
Make a plan of your daily, 1-month, 3-months, 6-months 1- year and 5- year goals. Your plans can be personal or professional. These categories are interconnected. They tend to influence each other. By separating them, just makes it easier to understand the steps to get there.
Like a closet well organized and colour coordinated. You can easily see what you have to pick up to create that gorgeous look that will impress.
3.Write down 3-5 steps to reach each goal
The destination has been added to your GPS it is now time to figure how to get there. You need to break down the steps.
Calculate the amount of time and effort needed. Focusing on one step at a time will take out the stress and pressure. As time goes by you will look back and realize you’ve come a long way. Step by step.
4.Find your audience
To help you define the necessary steps to reach your end goal it is important to identify your target market.
Do you want a promotion? land your dream job? or become an entrepreneur?
We all wear different hats on different occasions. Who do you want to send your message?
This is the part where you put yourself in other people’s shoes. What they might be looking for or what you would expect in their place. It is important to mention that you can never please everyone. You do not necessarily need to be everyone’s cup of tea. You can be an acquired taste. Each one has an audience.
6. Build a positive brand profile
This is a necessary step to understand your value. Your brand is your product. What skills do you have and what can you offer. Create a list of your skills and a list of positive traits.
Have you ever spend time writing positive things about yourself on a paper?
You will be surprised by what you can discover. Think about it like an empty white room you start decorating. Adding things here and there, clean the things you don’t want and organise them. Your room starts looking good.
7.Do not seek perfection
There is no such thing as perfection. Sounds like a cliche but yet again needs to be mentioned. That little voice in your head telling you its not good enough, exists in most of us.
The result?
Stress and procrastination. That fear of judgment and failure. Only when you understand that there is no such thing as perfect you can really progress. It’s easier to succeed through trial and error.
There are a lot of mistakes behind most success stories. As an ever-evolving entity, you constantly learn, develop, and change. So is your brand. You will have to review it frequently. So do not obsess about getting it right from the start.
8.Stand out: Why you?
No matter how big or small, we all bring something to the table. Remember we are all different but in many ways much alike. What you offer can either be of practical or theoretical value. Stop asking yourself why me and focus on why not me?
9.Be yourself
Let your message be genuine. Brand yourself around the idea of who you are not an imaginary version of you. Otherwise, you will not be able to stay consistent or happy for that matter. Align your goals with your personality not the opposite.
You might be able to adjust here and there but do not go against your core values.
People will see your intentions and how honest you are.
A few years ago they asked me during a job interview: ”What do you do on your free time?”.
Without thinking twice I said: ”I am sleeping”.
I could tell they didn’t see that coming. However, it was the most honest thing I could have said.
That was a time of my life that I was working really long hours counting down the days to get a good night’s sleep. Like a vicious circle, my life was basically working and sleeping. Had no energy to do anything fun or creative. In fact I did not even have the energy to pretend I was doing anything interesting with my free time.
Thankfully they offered me the role.
In retrospect, I thought my unfiltered answer probably gave them further proof that I work hard. Plus, they probably do the same thing in their free time. Well, at least most of the time.
10.Be reliable and consistent
Last but not least, do not underestimate the importance of word of mouth. The way you interact with your colleagues and your clients is as important as the work you do. Both online and offline. Make sure that you have a consistent message across all platforms and top-notch customer service. In-person and online. Leave a positive memorable impression that will lead to new referrals and returning customers.
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