Personal Brand – Why You Need One To Stand Out and Thrive

Webster defines a personal brand as “a public image, reputation, or identity conceived of as something to be marketed or promoted”.

From your perspective which brand do you think should be most important for an individual?

In a world full of Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Google pushing out millions of dollars worth of advertisements. Which brand would never have to advertise to you?

If you have not realized it already that brand is ‘You’. If you were sitting next to me right now there is a likelihood that you would have said, ‘Jijo, what nonsense, I am not a brand, I am just <your name>’

And that my friend is where we are mistaken, there is no bigger brand than your brand. All your life you are trying to promote yourself, presenting your best in front of strangers so they like you. When you create a profile on Linkedin, or Tinder, or create a social profile, you are promoting a brand. The only problem is you are creating your brand by using another brand. Giving them the power to present you to an audience that their algorithm thinks is interested in you. It’s time to change that. It’s time to take the control back.

What Is A Personal Brand?

A brand is a product that has a proposition to offer others something that they need. YouTube makes it easy to search for everything, and Tinder makes it easy to find dates. Similarly, you would have to identify what is it that your ‘Personal Brand’ has to offer.

You have always had a role to play in your circle. You could be someone who is relied on to give sound relationship or business advice. Someone who knows all the best deals when shopping, or simply someone good at researching something. Identify these skills. But, just identifying your skill is not sufficient, nurture it, and upskill yourself. In today’s connected world, no information is hidden. Read from the plethora of books, blogs, videos, and tutorials available to enhance your knowledge. Make yourself the best in the skill of your choice. Once satisfied, go out there and promote it.

Create A Personal Brand

Branding simply means knowing who you are and presenting yourself to the world as you are. I think that a meaningful life is one where you have identified what makes you unique. You should use that uniqueness in service of others. There is no feeling in the world better than the sense of accomplishment in helping out another person. Find something that you would love to do even for free. These are things that would never burn you out. Once identified, do what all brands do, market yourself.

Increase Your Brand Value

In the age of the internet, the most important thing you should do is own your brand. I got jijogeorge.com registered on 1st October 2018. I am glad it was available since Jijo George is an extremely common name in South India. Once registered I have been renewing it for about $15 per year since. I think you should too before it is too late. You are safe if you have a very unique name.

Having a .com under your name, or a brand you want to create is the important step in marketing yourself. Ensuring the domain is under your name would ensure smooth sailing when you start marketing your personal brand. Once that is done create an ecosystem around your brand name, one that you control. Owning your name on a social media platform is not enough. Since the Facebook of today could end up being the MySpace of yesterday. Having a domain name gives you long-term authority. You can route your digital presence from this authoritative domain. Linking it to your Facebook Page, Medium Page, or any other social media page.

Monetise Your Brand

Now comes the most important part, monetization. Create a service offering based on your USP identified in the previous steps. This may be the toughest part and largely depends on how strong a presence you created in the previous step. If during your brand building, you were able to create genuine trust among followers, then this would be easier.

A personal brand associates with the real you. The world is no longer impressed by just flashy cars and million-dollar mansions.

With the internet and social media, the world has become flat. Your life is no longer private, the day you become a brand.

A brand not built on trust will fall sooner than later. The moment your followers figure out the persona you created was fake you would lose all credibility. The most important part of monetizing your brand is being truthful. You should have proven your worth in the eyes of your followers, before offering something more at a premium.

Even then ensure you continue to deliver to the ones who cannot afford to. The ones who were with you when no one else was.

Build Bigger

Although not at full potential, the previous step should be enough to sustain a living. You do not need millions of followers to earn a decent living. But in case you do want more, then create systems. In the process of building a brand, you also need to build systems and relations. These systems and relations help to scale your brand without diluting its value. At this point, it would no longer be about how much you are bringing in. It would be how much you are giving back. Now your aim should be to assist others in building other brands and helping the others with the above steps.

Conclusion

It’s high time we take control of our brand from the hands of others. The big corporates have been using our brand value to fill their coffers. I think it is about time to get a slice of the pie.

I am on a similar journey. My my USP is researching things, being a great listener, and realizing the true potential of an individual. This helps me set up a system to help them recognize their brand value. Being new to this game, every day I am taking steps to learn more. I hope to create a brand that everyone can trust to build someone up. I am confident I will get there, it is just a matter of time. To follow my journey follow me here. You can also join my journey by subscribing to my Free Brand Realization Program.

Let me know if you think I am biting off more than I can chew. I think it is still too early to tell. I would love for all of you to join me on this journey. This way a few years down the line we can come back and discuss how this is where we started.