Whether you are in business or simply living your personal life, it is your personal brand that delivers a message about you within fractions of a second when you encounter others.
You will be perceived as good, bad or something in between but for sure, an opinion about you will be formulated.
The goal of course, is to have a personal brand that brings forth a positive emotional response from others about your values and qualities, telling them exactly what you stand for or represent.
In the world of blogging and internet marketing our personal brands can be gold. If we build a positive, trustworthy brand we will build a solid and successful business.
Below are some of my thoughts on how to accomplish this and position ourselves for success.
Target a specific group or audience
One of the critical mistakes made by new bloggers and marketers is that of focusing too broadly. I too fell victim to this when I first began.
Targeting a specific group or audience is the most effective means of building our personal brands and communities. Focusing narrow and deep on our topics is a proven technique that has led to many stories of success.
In many ways, we have to become specialist and match our brand to our audience and potential customer base. This is the model used by successful large corporation and small businesses alike, and with good reason, it works.
We should always seek out ways to narrow our market, topic or niche. It sounds counter-intuitive because we feel that we are cutting off possible exposure to a wider and perhaps more lucrative customer base, but in the end, the resulting customers will be highly targeted to just what we have to offer. This approach eliminates much of the convincing associated with the promotion of products and services.
As an example, trying to cover the entire automobile industry is too broad; there are just far too many varieties of automobiles and customer types. Covering Corvettes only attracts those who have an interest in that particular model, so our customer base is already sorted out for us.
There are huge numbers of people that are absolutely in love with this model automobile and if you can capture just a small percentage of them as loyal customers, success may be well in hand.
What makes you special?
Answering this question allows us to position ourselves in the market as unique. It’s the development of your unique selling proposition (USP) that provides the hook needed to capture a segment of the targeted customer base. This can sometimes be difficult to define and may require an in-depth look at our overall qualities and characteristics.
Making a listing of our skills, attributes and characteristics will help us see the things that are unique, something we generally do not think about. We have to somehow determine this, as it is what people will look for, a reason to look to you as one of the leaders in your niche.
We have to take all of the things we listed about ourselves and somehow combine this into a one-of-a-kind personal brand.
Returning to the Corvette example above, it may not be good enough that you happen to own one, but the fact that you have owned one for 20 years, been a member of one of the top Corvette clubs in the nation, and actually worked the assembly line where they were built, positions you as unique.
Finding the best benefit to offer
You have made your listing of skills, attributes and characteristics and now it is time to identify the best benefit you have to offer. Once you’ve found this benefit you have found the item to best build your brand around.
In some instances this may be difficult and could require a little time, but do not allow this to paralyze your thoughts regarding your overall vision for your business. Keep working your list until this is clear.
Create a catchy tagline
Finally, we need to come up with a catchy tagline that conveys our best benefit to the base of potential customers. I have examined the taglines of quite a few businesses and corporations and found one commonality among them all. They are phrases that sound exactly like people talk, no Harvard style professor-speak, just common everyday language. It makes sense, we want to appeal to the everyday person and give them something that easily gets the message across and is easy to remember.
I will use the automotive example just once more here. “A guy who knows Corvettes” sounds better than “A highly trained and educated Corvette Gentleman”. The latter is too stiff and fails to connect.
Pep Boys Auto, a large automotive repair business in the U S uses the tagline “Does Everything. For Less”, a short and snappy phrase that says it all.
Conclusion
Many people start out in business with all of the elements of their brand in place, while many others find that this is something that will have to be developed after the launch of the business.
If you have a great idea for a business, you are likely to get the doors open quickly, only to find out that some things have been overlooked and adjustments will have to be made. It okay, identify the oversights and adjust accordingly. The important thing is to recognize the issues and take action.
Your personal brand, which often leads to a corporate brand, is a very powerful asset and should not be underestimated. Done properly, this branding process will make all of the difference in the level of success we obtain.
You can learn a lot from corporations and other successful individuals about your personal brand and how to go about creating and marketing it.
How about you, have you finalized your brand?
Did you start out with the brand you have today or were there adjustments that were undertaken?
Let’s hear from you below.
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32 Responses to Finding Your Personal Brand
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" @sbc111 That's quite a thrill ride. Great that you have that skill. " — JimiJones
Finding Your Personal Brand | Jimi Jones Dot Com…
Whether you are in business or simply living your personal life, it is your personal brand that delivers a message about you within fractions of a second…
Interesting, because I think you and I have positioned our brands quite closely – we’re both errrrm…………. older than the average blogger, and have lots of experience in real world business.
Hopefully, we’ll benefit from the natural authority and gravitas that give us.
.-= Mike CJ´s last blog ..Adopting Core Principles to Move a Business Forward =-.
Interesting, because I think you and I have positioned our brands quite closely – we’re both errrrm…………. older than the average blogger, and have lots of experience in real world business.
Hopefully, we’ll benefit from the natural authority and gravitas that give us.
.-= Mike CJ´s last blog ..Adopting Core Principles to Move a Business Forward =-.
I run my site as a resource for others so I think I have been successful in branding myself as knowledgeable, helpful and with a liberal dash of humour. I’d hate to think, however, that Brand Tea is written in stone and is capable of moving with the times and adapting as necessary. The ability to react to market forces, re-positioning as necessary is important.
.-= Kevin Tea´s last blog ..Tungle Still Better Than Google’s New Calendar Scheduling Service =-.
I agree, having the ability to recognize when to make adjustments and be willing to do so is huge. You’re right, the internet changes and we have to govern accordingly.
You have a great brand going, Kevin. Whenever Cloud Computing comes up, you are the first to come to mind.
I run my site as a resource for others so I think I have been successful in branding myself as knowledgeable, helpful and with a liberal dash of humour. I’d hate to think, however, that Brand Tea is written in stone and is capable of moving with the times and adapting as necessary. The ability to react to market forces, re-positioning as necessary is important.
.-= Kevin Tea´s last blog ..Tungle Still Better Than Google’s New Calendar Scheduling Service =-.
I agree, having the ability to recognize when to make adjustments and be willing to do so is huge. You’re right, the internet changes and we have to govern accordingly.
You have a great brand going, Kevin. Whenever Cloud Computing comes up, you are the first to come to mind.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by JimiJones: Finding Your Personal Brand http://bit.ly/aXOflW...
I used to brand everything to do with IT with my name, but there came a point where I wanted to split the work we were doing online (blogging, forum, podcasting) from our off-line consultancy work.
So whilst my business website still uses my name, our online world was re-launched as “computius – der Computerversteher” (ie. someone who understands computers).
We carried this split into the off-line world by having different calling cards for different occasions, even different branding on our cars – my name on the one that goes to clients, computius on the one we go on holiday in.
There is some cross-over, in which our IT clients read the blog, or a blog reader will hire us.
But one of the big advantages of the computius brand is being able to expand and allow other writers onto the site who are then identified with the brand as well, rather than just with my name or business.
.-= Graham´s last blog ..computius.net – Folge 36 =-.
This was a great move for your business, Graham. Otherwise there would have been a limiting element to your approach.
Makes for a fantastic case study.
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..Finding Your Personal Brand =-.
I used to brand everything to do with IT with my name, but there came a point where I wanted to split the work we were doing online (blogging, forum, podcasting) from our off-line consultancy work.
So whilst my business website still uses my name, our online world was re-launched as “computius – der Computerversteher” (ie. someone who understands computers).
We carried this split into the off-line world by having different calling cards for different occasions, even different branding on our cars – my name on the one that goes to clients, computius on the one we go on holiday in.
There is some cross-over, in which our IT clients read the blog, or a blog reader will hire us.
But one of the big advantages of the computius brand is being able to expand and allow other writers onto the site who are then identified with the brand as well, rather than just with my name or business.
.-= Graham´s last blog ..computius.net – Folge 36 =-.
This was a great move for your business, Graham. Otherwise there would have been a limiting element to your approach.
Makes for a fantastic case study.
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..Finding Your Personal Brand =-.
Hi Jimi,
Great post.
At one point a few months ago I was struggling for words to describe my personal brand so decided to ask for a bunch of recommendations on Linked In (you can check them out here: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/adrianswinscoe) from clients, colleagues (old and new) and contacts……what came back was a great way of defining my brand in the eyes of people that I work with.
Adrian
.-= Adrian Swinscoe´s last blog ..Teams and birds: lessons from nature =-.
Oops this is a better link: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/adrianswinscoe
.-= Adrian Swinscoe´s last blog ..Teams and birds: lessons from nature =-.
Hi Adrian.
Great move asking your connections to help with your branding. Who would know better how you are viewed?
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..Finding Your Personal Brand =-.
Hi Jimi,
Great post.
At one point a few months ago I was struggling for words to describe my personal brand so decided to ask for a bunch of recommendations on Linked In (you can check them out here: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/adrianswinscoe) from clients, colleagues (old and new) and contacts……what came back was a great way of defining my brand in the eyes of people that I work with.
Adrian
.-= Adrian Swinscoe´s last blog ..Teams and birds: lessons from nature =-.
Oops this is a better link: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/adrianswinscoe
.-= Adrian Swinscoe´s last blog ..Teams and birds: lessons from nature =-.
Hi Adrian.
Great move asking your connections to help with your branding. Who would know better how you are viewed?
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..Finding Your Personal Brand =-.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mike CJ, Robert Bravery, Kevin Tea, Chris Hinton, Jimi Jones and others. Jimi Jones said: Finding Your Personal Brand http://bit.ly/aXOflW [...]
Hi Jimi,
I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things. It was nice to see this post to help bring things back into focus. Thanks!
.-= Ileane´s last blog ..Blogging Legacy – Have You Considered Yours? =-.
Hi Ileane.
It’s good to see you back, you were missed.
Hi Jimi,
I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things. It was nice to see this post to help bring things back into focus. Thanks!
.-= Ileane´s last blog ..Blogging Legacy – Have You Considered Yours? =-.
Hi Ileane.
It’s good to see you back, you were missed.
I’ve been working on building the blog engage brand for two years now. While at the same time I’m also building my own personal brand. It’s hard to separate the two but so far I have managed fine. I still find people join blog engage due to my personal branding of my own image as opposed to what blog engage stands for but I’m okay with this.
Being a graduate of Business Marketing I know exactly what it takes but knowing something and then applying it correctly can be harder then one thinks.
Jimi this article is filled with great content and anyone wanting to brand a product, service or even their selves should most definitely read this.
Thanks for the insight!
Brian
.-= bbrian017´s last blog ..I’m working on my e-book everyone =-.
Hi Brian.
I recall saying to you once that you ARE Blogengage. How true, your brand as owner and a representative of the forum has in many ways attached to the site itself, while BE also has it’s own brand. Very unique situation, a double brand which serves both you and the site well. So too is the reverse, as a company brand casts a favorable light on the owner or CEO.
This is what you get for all of your hard work, serves you right. LOL
Keep up the great work, man.
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..The Crossroads of Life Bring Opportunities =-.
I’ve been working on building the blog engage brand for two years now. While at the same time I’m also building my own personal brand. It’s hard to separate the two but so far I have managed fine. I still find people join blog engage due to my personal branding of my own image as opposed to what blog engage stands for but I’m okay with this.
Being a graduate of Business Marketing I know exactly what it takes but knowing something and then applying it correctly can be harder then one thinks.
Jimi this article is filled with great content and anyone wanting to brand a product, service or even their selves should most definitely read this.
Thanks for the insight!
Brian
.-= bbrian017´s last blog ..I’m working on my e-book everyone =-.
Hi Brian.
I recall saying to you once that you ARE Blogengage. How true, your brand as owner and a representative of the forum has in many ways attached to the site itself, while BE also has it’s own brand. Very unique situation, a double brand which serves both you and the site well. So too is the reverse, as a company brand casts a favorable light on the owner or CEO.
This is what you get for all of your hard work, serves you right. LOL
Keep up the great work, man.
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..The Crossroads of Life Bring Opportunities =-.
Awesome info, I actually just put up a guest post on my blog about personal branding
very important stuff!
Thanks, Ben.
I will swing by and check out your post.
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..The Crossroads of Life Bring Opportunities =-.
Awesome info, I actually just put up a guest post on my blog about personal branding
very important stuff!
Thanks, Ben.
I will swing by and check out your post.
.-= Jimi Jones´s last blog ..The Crossroads of Life Bring Opportunities =-.
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