When People Think of You What Do They See - CareerMetis.com

When People Think of You What Do They See Source â€" Pexels.comYour personal brand is an expression of the values you possess and want to be known for in your organization.Your personal brand answers the question “Who are you?”.It paints a picture of what you hold close to your heart and cherish and it invites people to see you intimately.evalAn effective brand makes it easy for others to describe you in a single word or phrase. It allows others to see you from their own perspective.For example, words that were used to describe me over my 30+ year career are: marketing guy, customer service fanatic, implementer, utility leader â€" my skills could be put to use in many different functions â€" and “fixer” â€" I was often brought in to an organization to solve their problems and improve their performance.I learned that building a brand is not done through serendipity or a casual approach; it is a carefully thought out disciplined process.Here are the steps to follow to create your own brand that is compelling and releva nt to the organization and will stand the test of time.1. Be an expert on your strategyYour brand must be an expression of what the organization needs to be successful.So develop an intimate understanding of your organization’s strategy and decide which skills and competencies you possess that would contribute to it in a major way.If an effective sales operations is needed to be competitive and drive superlative performance, decide on how you can contribute to this goal; which of your related strengths could be leveraged to contribute to enhanced sales results.2. Decide who you want to serveevalDecide on the individuals in the organization â€" the “foxes” you want to target . Typically these are individuals who are in the power positions who make selection decisions and who could have a major impact on your career.Building an effective brand isn’t necessarily all about what you think are important attributes but rather what others in the organization who are looking for peop le with specific skills and competencies.Pick the top 3 leaders who own the people decisions in the areas you are interested in and build a profile of the individuals they are looking for.3. Dissect your competitionIt is critical to understand the “brand field” you are competing with;other people who covet the same opportunities that you do.evalBuild a profile of your closest 3 competitors and define the elements of their brand they excel in. Look particularly at their brand position and how you can counter it.4. Create your ONLY statementA highly effective brand is not a comparative or superlative statement; words like “better” and “best” are never used because everyone has a different opinion on who might be better and who might be the best at something â€" it’s a matter of judgement.The objective is to make your brand claim indisputable relative to others by removing the judgement factor.“You don’t want merely to be the best of the best, you want to be the ONLY one that does what you do” â€" Jerry Garcia, The Grateful Dead provided the mantra that I believe should guide brand development efforts.The ONLY statement declares your uniqueness relative to others and spells out in detail how you are different from the crowd. It’s an excellent tool to declare your unmatched qualities that can be proven but fact rather than opinion.“I am the only one that has the proven and demonstrated marketing skills to take our company from a monopoly to an intensely competitive environment.” is at place to start.5. Define your brand’s key elementsWhat about your ONLY statement makes it true and not simply wishful thinking?For example, what specific marketing skills do you have that others don’t?For me, it was about creating integrated data and internet packages for high value consumer customers rather than flogging individual products and services at mass markets which was the traditional approach that the organization was used to seeing.evalThis detail provides the proof points behind your brand claim and answers the question “What do you mean by… ?”6. Communicate far and wideDon’t keep your brand to yourself; communicate it to as many internal and external audiences as possible.Some ideas that were effective for me:Offer to do presentations on your chosen brand topic.Get quoted as a subject matter expert in any internal communications media your organization uses.Start a blog and offer content on your brand topics. Use social media to promote it internally and externally. Position yourself as the thought leader on your content. Offer to write (free) articles for media channels that focus on your content.Offer to talk to customers on your brand topic. Help them in any issues they have, and get known on the outside. In my case many of our customers were interested in what we were doing in marketing as we were transforming from a monopoly to a competitive business. I had many speaking engagements to air my brand.Offer yourself to the media on your brand topics. Make it interesting for them. Get them calling you. Your organization’s reputation will over time be influenced by you.You have to commit; you can’t “flirt”.Amazing brands are created by individuals who understand what organizations require in order to be successful and who dedicate themselves to delivering the personal capabilities to help.