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Building on brand promise
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Personal branding is about understanding your unique combination of rational and emotional attributes - your strengths, skills, values and passions and using these to guide your way successfully through your professional and private life.
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WHO ARE you? The usual and immediate response that comes to mind is, "I am an engineer, doctor, businessman, teacher, son, daughter, father, mother, brother, sister or just a housewife," followed by, "I am from such and such a place, I studied this or that." This information is what is normally used to introduce ourself or someone else. The preceding list gives the structure and category within which you function. To know who you are, you need to know your values, what you stand for and how you live your life or what is your "Personal Identity."
To confine yourself to your "category" is the same as looking at the Mercedes Benz as a mere car, and that it comes from Germany. You know your mind is conjuring up various other images and thoughts, way beyond the utilitarian image of a "car." There is a promise for exclusivity, safety, styling, and the allure of luxury interiors. Harley Davidson is not just a motorcycle; it is a lifestyle and Nokia - a mobile phone with cutting-edge technology and individual design. This, in short is what companies call "Product branding."
Branding is about giving an image, an identity, the intangible experience and benefits. Don't stop your thoughts only with products, extend it to yourself too! So what is your image (your values) and what is your identity (that makes you different from any other person on earth) and why do you need it?
Personal branding is essential for professional success today. Gone are the days where your value as an employee was linked to your loyalty, seniority or technical knowledge. Today, companies are in a constant state of reorganisation in response to the rapidly changing demands of the global market.
This has altered the way you function as an employee. On a constant basis, you are working with different teams, managers, and employees, depending on the project at hand. And that means that you have the same need to differentiate yourself from the crowd of equally well educated people and build demand for your services among your target markets (external and internal).
Personal branding is not about building a special image for the outside world; it is about understanding your unique combination of rational and emotional attributes - your strengths, skills, values and passions and using these attributes to differentiate yourself and guide your way successfully through just not your professional life alone but it is also essential for the standing in your family, community and the society you are living in.
Your brand or identity is critical to achieving your goals and letting the world know what you are standing for. When you have built and nurtured a winning brand, you'll reap many benefits, such as: getting a defined core personality, focusing your personal energy, being clear and defined, enhancing your charisma, increasing your confidence, increasing your visibility and presence, differentiating yourself from your peers and being respected.
In short, "Personal Branding" helps you to define and refine your personality with a distinct image and identity. Your behaviour, manners, how you dress and speak are all emanating from the self-awareness of various attributes of your identity, differentiating you from others.
Now, that is a powerful impression to make and this time around it is just not the first impression but a lasting one too!
CHITRA DANGER
(The writer is the director of ProEt Centre for International Protocol and Etiquette. Ph: 23372004/ 55503605; e-mail: proetique@yahoo.co.in)
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