Successful entrepreneurs and businessmen can all share their experiences about the benefits of personal branding. If you don’t start to take yourself seriously personally, then people won't take you seriously either. You must work hard on creating a strong personal brand for yourself and for your business in order to leave a lasting impression on every potential customer that you come in contact with. Building a personal brand or reputation is by no means an easy feat. It takes a lot of time and dedication, but if you are determined, it is something that you will eventually do.
If you're passionate about your business, love what you do,
and would like to see your business go to the next level, then personal
branding is just the thing for you. Your reputation is what sells you and your
product even when you are not around. Your reputation is even more effective
than the product you are selling, and in most cases, it is the product that you
are selling.
For example, there are a lot of mobile phone manufacturing
companies, but how come people only like to go for the big brand names? It is
not like these other mobile devices can’t do the exact same thing. This is as a
result of the branding and reputation that they have been able to create. Doing
this for your business can transform your sales and introduce you to a whole
new audience. Having a good reputation is not something that happens overnight.
You need to build it gradually
Know Yourself:
This is the first and most important part about creating
your own personal brand. If you do not yet fully understand who you are, how
can you expect people to understand your brand? Getting a good reputation is a
lot more than just being noticed, it goes a lot deeper than that. It is you
knowing how you see yourself, which ultimately affects how your consumers see
you. If you are working on building a personal brand, you need to first of all
understand who you are. You need to know your values, what you stand for, your
goals in life and for your business, things you can and cant do and then see
how to make that easily applicable to others.
Connect With People:
You need to connect with people in order to build a personal
brand that works. Human beings are naturally made to connect, so whatever makes
you special is bound to apply to a lot of other people and they will most
likely be able to connect to that. You need to harness your networking skills
and work on creating a connection with as many people that identify with your
brand. Doing this will create an immense followership that will push you and
your product to new heights.
Never Be Afraid Of Self-Promoting:
If you do not hype yourself, then who will. Once you have
been able to build a brand that works, you need to start selling that brand by
yourself. You need to be confident enough to share your vision and dreams with
people. All of these come from first understanding who you are and knowing the
kind of people that you apply to. You must create a plan for how you are going
to build a brand around yourself. Take your time if it is needed. Never rush or
pay to do things that you can do by yourself. Understand what works for you,
and promote yourself.
Establish An Online Presence:
Never ever underestimate the importance of social media.
These tools can take you from a small businessman to a billionaire in no time.
You must find a way to key into these social tools and create a presence that
works. It could be a personal website, Facebook profile, Twitter or any other social
media platform that you can find. Once you are able to establish an online
presence, it will be very easy to get people to understand and follow your
brand.
Manage Your Reputation:
No matter how ‘small time’ you think you are, you must learn
to manage your brand and reputation to the fullest maximum. You must know when
something can completely tarnish your image. Warren Buffet famously spoke about
how it takes over 20 years to create a good reputation but you can tarnish it
in just a matter of minutes. Understand what good press and bad press is. If
you are a small business owner of a startup, this is the perfect time for you
to start developing this skill, especially as you are out of the limelight.
Creating a personal brand is no easy feat. However, it can
be a totally fun and enjoyable process. Try as much as possible to create a
brand that is totally you, and in no way fake. This way you can build a
reputation and earn by just being you.
Jess Wolodkowicz
Tradeshow Strategist | Account Manager
Phone: +61 (02) 8093 3806
Mobile: 0417 468 487
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