Today is Tuesday, so this post is on positive personal impact.
Developing and nurturing your personal brand is one of the best ways to create positive personal impact. 20 years ago, brands were for products. 10 years ago, people like me (consultants, coaches, speakers, authors) began developing personal brands. For example, I’m the Common Sense Guy. Now, people who work in large (and small) companies have begun to develop personal brands.
This is great. Personal branding allows you to set yourself apart from others and create positive personal impact. William Arruda is a personal branding consultant. He helped me develop my Common Sense Guy brand. Recently, William was featured in a Time Magazine article on personal branding.
William suggests a three phase approach to developing your personal brand: 1) Extract, 2) Express, 3) Exude.
Read on for a summary of each of these three phases…
William Arruda’s Three Phase Personal Branding Process
Extract
Before you can clearly describe your personal brand, you need to look at the big picture. In the Extract Phase, you paint the big picture of your brand. In the Extract Phase, you unearth your unique promise of value -- your brand. This unearthing process takes time and requires you to think hard about who you are and what makes you unique. This is the most important phase in the branding process because it reveals the core around which you will build your brand.
You uncover your authentic brand by identifying:
- Your vision and purpose
- Your unique strengths and differentiation
- What others think about you
- Your values and passions
- The competitive landscape
- Your target audience
You start with your vision and purpose. Your vision is external. It is the essence of what you see possible for the world. Your purpose is internal. It is the role you play in supporting that vision.
Additionally, your personal Brand needs to be tied to your goals. Your goals give your brand direction. You are almost twice as likely to accomplish something if you write it down. So, documenting and regularly reviewing your goals is critical to building a winning brand.
In the Reach 1-2-3 Success! Personal Branding Process, you work through a series of interviews, exercises, surveys and projective techniques. These help you develop a clear understanding of your promise of value and ways you can position that uniqueness so that it is relevant and compelling to your target audience.
Your brand definition and personal brand profile are the outputs of the Extract Phase. Once complete, you can develop a plan to express your brand to those who will be instrumental in expanding your success.
Express
The Extract Phase helped you know yourself, your competitors, and your target audience. You can now identify the ideal combination of communications tools to reach that audience effectively, while ensuring that you’re standing out among the numerous others who are offering similar services.
During the Express Phase of the 1-2-3 Success! Personal Branding Process, you:
- Document your target audience demographics and psychographics
- Evaluate all potential communications tools
- Identify the subset of tools that will reach your audience and support your goals
- Build your personal brand communications wheel
- Identify key content themes
- Craft your Personal Brand Statement
- Prioritize communications activities to provide maximum impact
- Establish a communications plan with goals and milestones
- Develop a plan to link your brand to all that you do
The output from the Express Phase is your comprehensive personal Brand Communications Plan.
Exude
In the Express Phase, you developed a strategy for making your brand visible to those who need to know about you so that you can achieve your goals. In other words, you designed a way to compellingly communicate your personal brand. But to communicate most effectively, you need to align your brand environment—that is, everything that surrounds you—with your personal brand.
Your brand environment is made up of your:
- Office/Work Environment
- Home
- Image and Personal Style
- Leisure Activities
- Volunteer Efforts
- Professional Organizations/Associations
- Professional Network
In the Exude Phase of the 1-2-3 Success! Personal Branding Process, you ensure that all elements of your Brand Environment are supporting your personal Brand. Whether you realize it or not, everything that surrounds you says something about you. The key to successful branding is to ensure that your brand environment reinforces your unique promise of value.
Your professional network is a particularly important component of your brand environment. Having a strong personal brand requires being connected to a network of resources for mutual development and growth. You will achieve your greatest success through your relationships with others. That's why it is critical to build and maintain your network.
But approach is everything. If you build your network with the goal of supporting others, you will be far more successful than if your objectives are solely to satisfy your own objectives. Your network is a valuable component of your personal brand. William suggests five ways to build and a strong network.
Speak
Take every opportunity to speak about your passion. This means everything from talking about what you do with the local shop keeper to making presentations to large groups. People with whom your message resonates will connect with you and quickly become a part of your network.
Participate
Join professional organizations. It is better to belong to fewer organizations and take an active role in them then to belong to many with organizations with superficial connections to the membership. Truly participating allows you to really get to know people and thereby supports your desire to build professional relationships with them.
Publish
Writing articles and e-articles is a great way to communicate your passion. Take some time to write a few articles related to your goals and interests that will provide value to the readers. Take a look at all the e-zines that accept article submissions. Readers of your articles will seek you out and become part of your network.
Create
If there isn't an organization that fits with your objectives, create one. It can be a physical organization or a virtual one. Being the founder of the organization gives you instant credibility with your entire membership and gives you opportunity to define and mold it.
Volunteer
Volunteering is a great way to build professional relationships while giving back to the community. Take a volunteer position that allows you to use your skills and express your passion. Your network will grow along with your sense of accomplishment.
I know this was a long post. But I think that William Arruda has some great ideas on how to build your personal brand – and create positive personal impact. I encourage you to spend some time with this article and to visit William’s website to learn more about personal branding.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense. Check out my other blog: www.CommonSenseGuy.com for common sense advice on leading people and running a small business.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand – my fundraising page is still open. Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.
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