Branding is as old as humanity itself.
It was only in the later part of the 20th
century that marketers and advertising experts started to understand that they
could create a specific perception in the minds of their consumers for specific
qualities and attributes of their products, which were so far only labelled
with a name but existed as a generic product.
These experts started to call this
“perception” a “brand.”
A
brand is a story that is always being told.
Personal
branding is about uncovering what is true and unique about yourself and letting
everyone who matters know about it.
Your
name, your brand has its own sphere of influence first with yourself, then with
your family, then your community and then the larger society that you live in.
Your brand must carry value within your own chosen sphere of influence.
As an individual, you
are constantly reinventing yourself through each stage of your life. A brand is
perceived by its target audience, based on personal experience, communication
and impression.
This determines its
success or failure. The same applies to each one of us. How we are perceived in
society and with our “target audience” determines how valuable we are or can
be. Your personal brand is your professional DNA. It is your professional gene
sequence.
Every successful person
has painstakingly built his or her own brand name.
Remember that your name
is a brand that you truly own. You are unique. As unique as your fingerprint or
your retina scan or your gene sequence.
A brand has been
registered in your name, through your birth certificate and patented for your
persona, through your deeds and investments, even though there may be hundreds
of other individuals with the same name as you.
There is no one else in
the World like you and therefore you need to invest in yourself, in your
environment and in your deeds and actions to get your own brand known and
respected. The greater your reach, the greater the investment that would be
required by your brand. At the same time, the greater and more prominent your
brand is, the more vulnerable will it become in future.
It becomes more and
more critical for you to know that every step you take, every statement you
make, every tweet you send, every photograph you post, every blog you write,
every post you like, make or share, every interpretation you share, every opinion
that you give is being read and interpreted by someone. Without you realising
the impact of your actions, each action is adding or subtracting from the value
of Brand You. Creating, building and developing your personal brand is only in
your own hands. Conversely, destroying or diminishing your own brand is also
only in your own hands.
What you do with your
own brand name could be the difference between being very successful and not so
successful. This is as true for personal branding as
it is for business branding. Your brand
is the essence of your own unique story. The key is reaching deep inside
yourself and pulling out the authentic, unique “you” from within your own self.
Otherwise,
your brand will just be a façade and you will wonder whether you recognise the
person behind the façade. Yourself.
You have the freedom to
create the career path that you choose. A path that will link your talent and
interests with the position that you deem fit. You must have the ability to
move both vertically and horizontally in your career.
Today’s hero can be
tomorrow’s zero and vice versa.
Your brand value will
wax and wane throughout your life. Your ability to negotiate a large salary
increase after a very successful year is much higher than if you have had a bad
year and not met your targets.
The value of your own
brand is what will give you the valuation that you may be seeking. A
well-crafted Brand You could get you that coveted promotion or the next senior
job. This brand valuation could also help you to determine what you are capable
of earning for yourself because of what value you and your name can add to
someone else’s business. This could also be in the form of recognition and
acceptance in your society, in your country or in the World.
A movie star can demand
huge fees after two successive hit movies but will have to drop prices and
maybe even work free after three successive flops! Unless
you recognise and accept your own self and your own reality, there is not much
you can do about your own brand. So many people in the government or in
corporate world, as they progress through their careers assume that their
organisation’s brand becomes identified with their own brand. Nothing could be
further away from the truth.
When a corporate
manager or a government official sends in his or her visiting card for a
meeting, it is the name of the company or institution that is recognized and
what gets the door opened for the meeting. So many retired government officials
and corporate managers are not able to accept that they have lost their own
identity after their retirement. They continue to hang on to their identity as
a “former Chairman” or a “former Secretary to the Government.” This is a
tenuous and weak thread linking them to their perceived identity that people
are not willing to let go of and this treaf breaks on the date of
superannuation.
Your personal brand
building must never have anything to do with narcissism. What you carefully
craft into the value of your brand must go well beyond physical appearance and
personal ego.
The circle of life will
continue, and your personal brand will continue to grow in its stature and
value.
Remember
the only legacy you will leave behind in the World is your name, Brand You.
*******************
The author is an Executive Coach and an
Angel Investor. A keen political observer, he is also the founder Chairman of
Guardian Pharmacies. He is the author of 6 best-selling books, The Brand Called
You; Reboot. Reinvent. Rewire: Managing Retirement in the 21st Century; The
Corner Office; An Eye for an Eye; The Buck Stops Here - Learnings of a #Startup
Entrepreneur and The Buck Stops Here – My Journey from a Manager to an
Entrepreneur.
- Twitter: @gargashutosh
- Instagram: ashutoshgarg56
- Blog: ashutoshgargin.wordpress.com | ashutoshgarg56.blogspot.com
