Build Your Brand
Build Your Brand
I use four key tests to determine base characteristics: the Environment Test, the Timeless Test, the Reflective Test, and the Resonance Test.
Sometimes the best way to define something is to clarify what it is not. Your brand does not consist of the part of you that surfaces only in certain circumstances. It is not the “you” that shows up at work but not at home. It is not the “you” that social acquaintances see, but not your family. I call this the Environment Test. Look for the elements of your style and personality that are constant in all circumstances. Are you diligently organized in everything you do at work, home and play? Are you full of caring and empathy in everything you do? What holds true for you consistently across the board? Make a list of your consistent traits that exist in all environments.
When you have a number of traits or attributes that pass the environment test, next look to the dimension of time. Your core brand is timeless. The parts of you that truly and uniquely stand for you have probably been there all your life. As for me, I am passionate, creative, strategic and determined. You can probably find someone who knew me from just about any stage of my life from childhood through present and they’d shake their head and laugh at how well those words fit me. Those traits make up my brand. They pass the test of time.
The next test is the Reflective Test. This test includes the feedback from those around us. Often we think we know what our strongest and most consistent traits are, but we are only seeing our own outward perspective. The true test is to see what bounces back reflectively from our friends, family, and associates. To compile this list we need to ask those around us what they perceive to be our most dominant traits. In this part of the process, don’t be afraid of traits that sound negative at first. In every person their greatest strengths are found right next to their greatest weakness. It all depends on how you apply them. (Check back next month for more on this topic.)
Next is the test of resonation. When you narrow your list of adjectives about yourself down to a small handful of words, the last test is to see how well they resonate with your heart. If a word on your list feels shallow or hollow, it is not part of your core brand. The traits that truly fit you have a weight about them when you think of them. They sit with presence in your chest. These are the words that have energy for you and drive you to action.
This is how you begin to define your brand. As you start this process you will uncover the secrets to what makes you “you”. In marketing terms, this helps define your USP, unique selling point. Understanding this about yourself can be the key to finding the right career, the right clients, the right partners (in business and in your personal life), and to maximizing your life.
Build Your Brand - To learn more about this author, visit Andrea O'Neill's Website.
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So you’ve read my points on the power of a Personal Brand (see "Live It Loud and Clear!" or "Be Your Own Adjective") and you're interested, but you don’t know where to start. That is the topic for this month’s message. To get to the heart of your own personal brand, the essential impression you make on the world, you have to strip away the details and get down to your bare-boned basics, your “constants”.
I use four key tests to determine base characteristics: the Environment Test, the Timeless Test, the Reflective Test, and the Resonance Test.
Sometimes the best way to define something is to clarify what it is not. Your brand does not consist of the part of you that surfaces only in certain circumstances. It is not the “you” that shows up at work but not at home. It is not the “you” that social acquaintances see, but not your family. I call this the Environment Test. Look for the elements of your style and personality that are constant in all circumstances. Are you diligently organized in everything you do at work, home and play? Are you full of caring and empathy in everything you do? What holds true for you consistently across the board? Make a list of your consistent traits that exist in all environments.
When you have a number of traits or attributes that pass the environment test, next look to the dimension of time. Your core brand is timeless. The parts of you that truly and uniquely stand for you have probably been there all your life. As for me, I am passionate, creative, strategic and determined. You can probably find someone who knew me from just about any stage of my life from childhood through present and they’d shake their head and laugh at how well those words fit me. Those traits make up my brand. They pass the test of time.
The next test is the Reflective Test. This test includes the feedback from those around us. Often we think we know what our strongest and most consistent traits are, but we are only seeing our own outward perspective. The true test is to see what bounces back reflectively from our friends, family, and associates. To compile this list we need to ask those around us what they perceive to be our most dominant traits. In this part of the process, don’t be afraid of traits that sound negative at first. In every person their greatest strengths are found right next to their greatest weakness. It all depends on how you apply them. (Check back next month for more on this topic.)
Next is the test of resonation. When you narrow your list of adjectives about yourself down to a small handful of words, the last test is to see how well they resonate with your heart. If a word on your list feels shallow or hollow, it is not part of your core brand. The traits that truly fit you have a weight about them when you think of them. They sit with presence in your chest. These are the words that have energy for you and drive you to action.
This is how you begin to define your brand. As you start this process you will uncover the secrets to what makes you “you”. In marketing terms, this helps define your USP, unique selling point. Understanding this about yourself can be the key to finding the right career, the right clients, the right partners (in business and in your personal life), and to maximizing your life.
Build Your Brand - To learn more about this author, visit Andrea O'Neill's Website.
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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