Today, while writing on my new upcoming book Rohkeasti maailmalle I run into a chapter about self-branding. I read from a book The Brand Called You: Make Your Business Stand Out in a Crowded Marketplace by Montoya and Vandhey (1998) that we need to be thinking about three factors in branding ourselves:
- Making people see that you’re different.
- Helping people see you as being “like them”.
- Getting prospects in the door (prospect saturation is high and you want to be personable and a person that people want to do business with.
I am sure that many readers feel that these things are “cheesy” and something that one should not worry about. Guess what, you are wrong. In today’s business environment, there are tens of people chasing the same position, selling the same solution and if you can’t differentiate yourself, you have no chance. You’d better start thinking about your branding sooner than later.
Thank you Petri,
Simple truths and quite understandable. I think that we have been brought up in a way that we believe in our “being special” and quite never slow down to really think:
a) What is our core uniqueness and difference compared to peers.
b) What are the elements out which our differences can be evaluated and analyzed from.
Personally I have felt the need to start building a path towards something like “personal branding”. My expectation is that it will only become reality after some deep-thinking, self-analysis supported by clients, friends, colleagues + a lot of hard work) with real life challenges and measurable success. Let’s see 😀
Thanks for the “food for though”.
Kr,
Markku
Hi Markku,
I very much agree with your statements and what I have found out in the marketplace that the people that have been let go have to really think what they are good at; what they will bring to the game… As a business-owner, you can never stop reinventing yourself as otherwise you will never get new clients.. That is the big difference of being employed vs. own a business.