Build Your Personal Brand In 8 Easy Steps - Module 1

Take some time to really explore what your purpose is in developing your personal brand. You may think of this as your goals or the outcomes you are looking for. Be very specific and practical – once you have explored this, answer the following questions in a notebook:

My purpose in building my personal brand is to:

The outcomes I am looking for are:

By when?

How will you know you have got there? What will have changed from a practical perspective?

Watch Dan Pink's video on what truly motivates you and make some notes on how this applies to you in your day to day working life?  Click on this link to watch now.

This video from Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library) - Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media is a brilliant illustration of a personal brand in passion and action.

Observe and write down what you are doing when you are experiencing passion in your day-to-day life over a period of time.  The easiest way is to review your day and work out when you experienced a place of true flow.  Do the same for the dull moments and you will begin to get a real sense of what you are truly passionate about.

Once you have a clear idea, take the passion test.  Write down your top ten and then distil it down to four or five.  This is all about being in action of something: when my life is ideal I am playing, speaking, creating, driving, producing, managing, leading, writing, thinking, building…

Have a look at the Target Markets Example of how to go about your analysis of your target markets / audience in the Supplementary Material.  This example was created by a Private Banker.  Now create your own spreadsheet or mindmap based on your current stakeholders.  Once you have segmented your current stakeholders and thought about what each person, group or entity wants from someone like you, ask yourself what you could be delivering or how you could be adding value in a way that makes you stand out.  This is a vital element of building your brand.  The key here is to ask yourself what your target markets/ audience ie your Stakeholders want from someone like you?  If there were five of you in a room, what would each person / entity go for - what would sway them?  

This is all about putting yourself in your stakeholders shoes.  It will give you invaluable insight into what others need and want.  And keep this up to date, if your situation changes, do the analysis again.

The Ladder of Cause and Effect is the most wonderfully powerful model - take a look at where you are not taking responsibility in your life - you will be able to recognise this as you will either be in expectation, complaint, feeling frustrated, being aggressive or in resignation.

You might want to write down all of the areas in your life where this is happening, make a decision about what you want, take responsibility and then ask for what you want in the most appropriate way.

We will refer back to the Ladder of Cause and Effect many times throughout The Wild Card so you might want to make yourself really familiar with this now.  And use it to your benefit wherever you need to.

Shifting from the 'story' to the facts of a situation helps you to gain clarity and to make the right choices for yourself.  It also means that you are able to take responsibility for what you want and to be in action of this.  Use the Ladder of Cause and Effect to your benefit here.

Observe yourself and get really conscious about how often you are able to forget the story and to make decisions from a neutral place and answer the following:

We can't be all things to all people!  What is your specialisation and what differentiates you from others in your field?  What is your area of expertise?  Take some time to really explore this for yourself and to understand what your specialisation is and whether there is a market for it?

It’s time to find out how you are actually perceived.  Draft an email and top and tail it as you would usually do.  The message should include something along these lines:

I am working on my personal and professional development and would really appreciate your feedback on how you perceive me in the context of our working relationship.  Specifically, I would like your view on my top three positive qualities, and also those you believe need development.  Please be as constructive and honest as possible.  Timing wise, I would appreciate your feedback within the next week.

Now hit the ‘send’ button.

You are going to need to send this mail to loads of people to get a real idea of how you are perceived.  Ideally you are looking for at least twenty responses to have a clear idea of what’s going on.  Send it to anyone you have had a working relationship with.  This includes past and present colleagues, clients, suppliers, lecturers, contacts, stakeholders et al.

When you receive the feedback, use a spreadsheet to organise this invaluable information.  You will find there are themes - collate these so that you can identify your top three areas of strength and the top three areas you need to improve.

This is without doubt the most powerful exercise you will do in building your personal brand.  You will learn what it is that others find compelling about you, which is the foundation in building your brand.  You will also know that this is authentic.  You should expect a full response within a week to ten days of your email.

So now you have a better understanding of what change is all about, have a think about where you are stuck?  Can you apply a twenty percent change to this area?  Think of this as placing one foot in front of the other, rather than taking a giant leap, which may seem impossible to do.

Once you have worked out what you need to change, use the Ladder of Cause and Effect and take full responsibility for it and go into action of what you want. One small step at a time.

You might want to list all of the areas that need a shift and the actions you can take to move forward.  When you have taken action, think about the next step and keep a note of what happens.