Identifying Brand ‘You’ As with many other worthy undertakings, the first steps in developing a personal brand are the most difficult, and where many people decide that it’s too much for them. This is not because it’s tedious or cumbersome or at all skill-intensive, but rather because it involves looking at yourself and your attributes in a brutally honest way. It takes guts to unflinchingly take stock of the details of your life, personality and achievements. This, of course, may not be much of a chore for the rare few that have a natural selfconfidence and can joyously look in the mirror, like what they see, and decide to improve it further. For the rest of us, however, it can be a very eye-opening and sometimes soulsearching activity, which forces us to take stock of our weaknesses even while celebrating our strengths, which can be a real blow to the ego. But enough talk about it; just do it. Make two columns on a sheet of paper, and in the first column list ten things that you think people really like about you. Anything is game, from your winning smile to your cunning jokes to your honest demeanor. It can be about you as a person (you always know the latest sports scores) or it can be about you as a businessperson (you always send personalized thank-you notes along with your invoices). Be honest with yourself; at this point we are looking at what is currently there, not where we want things to be. Ask friends, family or clients if you don’t know, as most will be happy to help and will be able to offer a less-biased opinion on the subject. In the second column, write down ten things that you think you could improve upon. Again, this list can consist of things about you personally (you have a bad habit of telling jokes that make people uncomfortable) or professionally (you’re always at least a few minutes late to meetings). With this one it will be very important to ask others, and to unflinchingly accept their answers. Part of self-improvement is being able to accept criticism constructively, so tell them about what you’re working on, tell them to be honest, and then write down what needs some work. Take a look at the sheet of paper with the two lists; this is the foundation of your personal brand right now, at this moment. As with any brand, there are good things (the Toyota Prius is good for the environment!) and there are bad things (people who drive the Toyota Prius can be very smug!). The trick to developing and strengthening this foundation is to emphasize certain aspects from the first column, while decreasing or completely eliminating lines from the second column.
page 22 • Developing Your Personal Brand