When I think of people who have managed to build strong reputations for themselves, I realise the most powerful ones are those that have stayed true to their authentic selves and aren’t pompous about their journeys. People who truly inspire others with their narratives are those who stay humble and share their learnings with others. Authenticity is the most powerful tool to leverage as there is no competition when you operate with your unique self. It’s never a great idea to trade authenticity in any form for approval.
So, in this context lets look at the next steps to build and grow the brand.
This brings us to the stage of assessing our value and here are a few indicative ways to do it:
- Understand your value and what you bring to the table
- Showcase your work rather than talk about it and be humble at every stage
- It’s about staying true to your work and your audience
- Benchmark the true value or worth of yourself and what it translates to
- Deliver to this value in a consistent way and get people to endorse and give you testimonials
- Learn constantly and increase your value through continuous learning…
Once you have this established, the next thing to do is a basic SWOT analysis on your own Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This will give you an assessment of where you stand and what you should work on. This brings us to how you should plan to go about this:
- Create your personal brand vision and stay with it
- Define your target audience
- Curate your online and offline assets
- Build through outreach
- Connect with mentors
- Monitor your brand
- Be your true self
Your Personality is the Key, Harness it
The work you do, your context, your background, your perspectives and your narratives are your own and make you unique. This is the edge you should leverage and get to work to your advantage. You are your brand and you should believe in yourself as a brand.
When you start the process, build a mind map of your areas of work and what it is that you can offer that only you bring to the table. Research and spend time understanding the space you operate in and the conversations that are creating value and pick areas you can add your insights to and work on.
Know your Strengths and Weaknesses
When you map your strengths and weaknesses you get clarity on what it is that you can use to build on your strengths and build on your weaknesses. This will give you a learning curve you can set for yourself.
Curate your Online Presence
Figure out what works for you in terms of social media and curate your platforms using platform-specific content. You also should pick this in terms of what works for you and how much time you can commit. Once done, you can look at these and keep them as reminders and add a timeline and begin the process.
- Build a website
- Provide value at every opportunity
- Never share without a purpose
- Build relationships with other well-known brands
- Reinvent yourself
This brings me to the end of this part of the Personal Brand series and after looking at how to go about this, we will in the next and final part look at actionable pointers that can help you sustain and grow Brand You!
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