5 Tips on How to Build Your Personal Branding (and Improve Business)

What is a ‘professional brand?’

Whether you are aware of it or not, everyone has a personal brand. Your personal brand is what sets you apart from the world. It can be likened to your competitive position – it’s what makes you and your business stand out in a world where standards and quality differ.

So what makes you stand out from the crowd? Everyone is different; so what’s different about you?

Are you a good negotiator? Are you super organised? Do you exude charisma and charm? Couple these qualities with your unique life experience and you have the building blocks for your professional brand!

Having a good professional brand will get you where you want to be in life. If you are an employee with a great personal brand, you’re more likely to get a promotion or pay rise.

For business owners, your personal brand adds value to your business brand.

Isn’t it time you showed everyone what you’re truly worth?

Here are 5 tips that will build your personal brand, draw others to you and enhance your business reputation.

1. Rediscover yourself.
Do a little soul searching. Ask yourself, what makes me special? What is in me that others love and that I love? In other words, what are your strengths and unique personal qualities? What are you better at than anyone else in your industry? In marketing jargon, we call this your ‘unique selling proposition.’

The best way to discover your strengths is to ask others for feedback.

2. Pay attention to your ‘packaging’.
As superficial as it sounds, your personal packaging is important. It is others’ first impression of what’s inside. You know that great packaging is what will make you buy Perrier bottled water over the home brand one. You want others to ‘buy’ you. Get them on your side. How do you look, dress and speak? Start with a friendly confident smile and good posture. Dress as the person you want to be in 3-5 years from now. Look the part, and people will see you as this person.

3. Be good at what you do.

Don’t waste your energy on trying to change little weaknesses in your life. They are an intricate part of who you are. Instead, pour all your energy into your strengths and polish them until you positively shine! Spend time on the work that you know will achieve the biggest benefit to your organisation, clients and your career.

4. Make a name for yourself.

Now you know what you’ve got to offer, put it into action! How? Put your hand up for special projects, especially those where you’ll come into contact with key decision makers in your organisation or industry. Join a professional group in your industry – attend regularly and get involved. Run seminars, contribute to blogs, write articles… anything that gets your name ‘out there’ in a positive way.

5. Do your best to help others.

Get to know the people around you and find out how you can sincerely help them, even in small ways. Being a supporter of others and working with them is a win-win situation! Encourage others, help them achieve their goals and you’ll find they want to do the same for you.

Building your personal brand is about finding out what’s great about you. Then in a intelligent way, let everyone else know! Find ways to add value to your organisation and your colleagues. If you can do this, opportunities will come to you.

A step-by-step guide to building your personal brand

It’s the start of a new year… and the start of new adventures and fresh opportunities to grow yourself! So achieve what you want this year:

1. Go back and look at each of these five items. Get a pen and paper and write down your own ideas and answers to each one.

2. Make them into a plan. Look at where you are now, and where you want to be in the next 3-5 years. Write down step-by-step specific actions required to reach each goal.

3. Put a deadline against each action. When are you going to achieve this by? Make it realistic but put some pressure on yourself.

You’ll be amazed at how such small actions can make all the difference to your life.

Need some help in getting started?

We’d love to help you. Contact Dianne by filling out the form below and she will send you our ‘Powerful Planning Tool’ plus an Ideas List to help you complete these steps to building your personal brand.

With over 25 years as the co-owner of a successful engineering business employing 30 staff, combined with a background in leadership development and education, Dianne has a wealth of experience to draw upon. Dianne’s practical experience is supported by qualifications in coaching, training, human resource management and business.

As a business management and leadership coach, consultant, speaker and trainer, Dianne is passionate about helping people and organisations discover and realise their potential. She believes that life is too short not to enjoy what you do and she helps her clients to discover their unique purpose, strengths and passion and build a successful and satisfying life around them.
a. Have a look at Anderson Gray Worldwide – http://www.anderson-gray.com

Many of us use the Internet for every little thin in our life, from finding the closest store to buy some milk to looking up a word on dictionary sites, because we’re too lazy getting our behinds up from the comfortable recliner we’re in and make to steps to the thick dictionary in our bookstand. We even diagnose ourselves based on the symptoms we have, but the majority of us do not stop there and go to the doctor and let the expert tell us what’s exactly wrong with us.

 Why is that? It’s probably because with the most important things in life, we prefer not to fool around and just directly to the experts in the field. It saves us time, money, our sanity and maybe even our life.

 So how do you get people to trust your advice right away and seek it without you even offering it? How do you get people to come to you, to your online business and be ready to buy on the spot?

 You need to establish yourself as a leader in your area of expertise, which is Internet Marketing. This is the most powerful technique for Effective Personal Branding.

 How do you do that? It’s not as hard as you might think, especially when you’re all invested in your Internet Marketing Business.

 To become an expert:

 1. Read as much as you can on the subject. There are lots of free ebooks offered online by other experts trying to sell you their product/services. Go to public libraries.

 2. Keep up with the news. Striking up a conversation about the present events is easy and will make you look like a well informed person, which is at the ‘expert’ level that you want to achieve.

 3. Write your own ebook. Or hire ghostwriters on freelance markets like elance.com, guru.com, mediabistro.com etc.

 4. Create unique content on your website. It’s your business card. Make it count!

 5. Listen to everyone else: forums, advice sites, like yahoo answers, groups, blogs.

 6. Speak their language! Listen to how your potential customers think, how they relate to one another, they slang they use.

 7. Be creative, entrepreneurial!

 8. Offer your advice.

 9. Always develop new skills or enhance the ones you have

 10. Speak up! People can’t wait to listen to your expertise.

 Don’t think to much, act on it NOW!

 To find out more information and tips on Internet marketing contact the Author Paul Hemmant

Paul Hemmant is a business coach and mentor that assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple income streams. Paul and his team have assisted many people in generating profits that exceed $250K or more in their first year. For more information and to contact Paul go now to http://paulhemmant.com/?t=Ar3 or visit his blog site at http://meetpaulhemmant.net/?t=Ar3