Personal Branding is a popular term, widely used to promote yourself and it’s not surprising that most people are confused by it.
There are really only three aspects to Personal Branding.
Posture, Position and Profile.
Posture is all about your appearance. First impressions really do count. Leading business coach Brian Tracey suggests that it only take 4 seconds for someone to form an opinion of you and as little as 30 seconds to decide if they want to hire you or not.
Personal branding for your wardrobe is not my thing. I’m fortunate to ensure I dress myself properly each day, let alone advise others on what they should wear. But I’m sure having a consistent look that defines your personal brand is pretty important.
Positioning yourself is another Personal Branding area, more to do with your career.
Deciding where you want to be and plotting the route to get there. Getting the advice of HR experts to ensure you are following the right track. Makes sense. But given I’m pathologically unemployable (I did manage a a year contract as Brand Manager as a large corporation, but that was more than enough to confirm I wasn’t cubicle material).
Sure, if you want to climb corporate ladders, knowing yours is leaning up against the right wall before climbing to the top, only to discover there’s a better wall opposite you, it’s probably a good idea to get a personal branding specialist who knows how to write a perfect resume for you.
But what if you don’t want a J.O.B?
What if you have had a wardrobe makeover?
What if you are selling a service and just find it too hard to explain why someone should choose you, instead of all the other realtors, financial advisors, accountants, business coaches and personal trainers out there?
That’s where the 3rd P of Personal Branding can help.
Profile.
The word basically means an outline of something. Something recognisable, like a silhouette of a bunny made from your fingers. Simple to form yet quite quickly identified and clearly understood.
Profile is the one thing that will make you stand out from the competition.
It’s the one thing that will get you more referrals and more income than any other aspect of Personal branding.
It’s the most important aspect of becoming a recognised expert in your field.
Because the human brain really does want everything simple.
It wants to know exactly who and what it’s dealing with.
There’s a part of the brain that is responsible for memory and emotion, the amygdala and i’t wants to ensure we don;t make poor decisions that could harm us. Until it is satisfied it knows who you are and what you stand for, it will be firing off warning signals to your prospective client.
If you can’t clearly define who you are and what you do to help people, exactly who you help and why you care so much about doing so, you might as well be wearing your birthday suit.
There are some simple steps to help get through the amygdalae defences and profile your personal brand so you become well known, well paid and wanted as the professional service provider of choice.
I call it a core message, it can be used on everything you use to promote yourself. And it uses a process I call the BEST formula to give your prospects brain precisely the information it needs, in the right order for it to recognise and understand your profile.
Here’s the formula, learn it and try it out the next time you are networking…
B – Be clear about what you do. No fluff or verbal gymnastics. Use common words and titles.
E – Exactly who you help, specifically your target audience and what they want.
S – Solve their problem – this sentence usually starts with to or by…
T – Tell them why, give them a reason to connect with you and develop trust. Be real.
Additional to this you can add a final line:
And the BEST part is… this should be the thing you want them to remember and recall about you the most. It could be your tagline, or your favourite quote about the benefit of working with you.
The human cerebrum is being hit with thousands of messages a day, it’s estimated we see over 5000 brand messages alone each day, that’s 4 every minute.
Personal Branding is probably the easiest way to cut through that clutter, making sure your ideal prospect’s brain realises “hey, they’re talking about me”, stopping the interference and chatter to focus on what you are saying.
Because there’s only one topic they are really interested in tuning in to. And that’s anything that has to do with them.
Build your personal brand profile and you’ll start to become naturally attractive to exactly the right type of potential clients.
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