Personal Branding tips

To those who are not familiar with the term “Personal Branding”.

In the simplest possible terms, Personal Branding is creating a unique identity for yourself.

Every top entrepreneur or business person has their own personal brand, it involves everything, their way of talking, their clothes and even their behavior in public. Whether it’s the Turtleneck of Steve Jobs or the Gray T-shirt of Mark Zukerberg. Clothes are very small part of their personal brand. Personal branding involves a lot of things apart from just clothing.

Your personal brand is very helpful and important in your careers, it tells people how responsible and reliable you are while assigning any important task. If you are wondering about why aren’t you getting that promotion or that dream job you have been hoping for then it might be related to your personal brand. Your reporting manager or your interviewer do not think that you are right fit for the job. So, here are some tips which might help you to improve your personal brand.

1. Decide your brand:

Deciding your personal brand is one of the most crucial step while building a personal brand. It involves identifying and eliminating the flaws of your character and then working on the positives of your character. You can talk to your friends ask then for a feedback. You can find a mentor who can help you. You can try and talk to your superiors and speak about how to improve.

2. Work on the Brand

Once you identify the personal brand that you want to create, next step is simply start working on the brand. You don’t have to start big steps, start small.

For example, you might have missed some past deadlines at your workplace, next time make sure you put thoughts while giving the deadline and sticking to the deadline. It will improve your image in front of your manager and he will be happy to assign some important tasks to you.

Or you might be missing the promotion because you are not much of a talkative person, you are not presenting your views in team meetings. You will get what you want once people notice the potential in you. You might be the best employee at your workplace but make sure that your work gets noticed by your managers.

3. Find your audience

Your audience decides your brand

Audience is bit of a marketing term but personal branding itself is a part of marketing. Your audience could be your co-workers or it could be people on social media. Identify the right audience and right medium to reach out to them.

4. Experiment, Practice and Perfect

Creating a personal brand is not process of a week or two, it a process which follows till the time you want to keep the brand alive and you are not going to hit bull-eye in your first shot. Your brand is developed over time. You will have to be patient for that. You will have to experiment with your personality, you will have to experiment with everything and find a sweet spot where it’s comfortable for you and even right for your personal brand and then keep on improving in the same direction.

For example: Since, we are allowed to wear casuals at work-place, I used to wear shorts to the office. which was terrible for my personal brand, I realized it and started making gradual changes from Casuals, to smart casuals. Instead of shorts, Denims, Trousers. Instead of T-Shirts I started wearing Polo T-shirts, and now full sleeve sweaters.