The Brand Called "YOU"

The Brand Called "YOU"
"A product is something that is made in a factory; a brand is something that is bought by a customer. A product can be copied by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be quickly outdated; a successful brand is timeless" – Stephen King, WPP Group.
Since pre-industrial times, branding has been used to develop strong, enduring relationship with customers. Today, albeit on a larger, more global scale, branding continues to provide those same benefits. Automobile products from Maruti Udyog Ltd are differentiated from other competing market offerings by its promise of wider reach and trouble-free performance. Mcdonald’s stands for fun and cleanliness. Sahara Parivar is for national cause and patriotism.
But branding is not just confined for corporate groups or products any more. In the new millennium, everything is a brand. Hyderabad is ‘Cyber City’, Mumbai is ‘Corporate Hub of India’, Delhi is ‘India’s Power Centre’ and ‘Operation Desert Strom’ is a branded military operation. Big B, Dhirubhai Ambani, Sonia Gandhi and Sachin Tendulkar. Brand! Brand! Brand! That is right, branding is for people, too.
Personal branding is essential to professional success today. Gone are the days where your value as an employee or vendor was linked to your loyalty and seniority. Today, companies are in a constant state of reorganization in response to the rapidly changing demands of the market. This modifies the way you respond as employees or vendors. On a constant basis, you are working with different project teams, managers and employees. In a sense, you are functioning like your own personal corporations. And that means that you have the need to brand yourself out of the clutter and build demands for your services among the target markets.
‘Personal branding’ vis-à-vis ‘Corporate or Product branding’
• In business, a brand is a perception or emotion maintained by a buyer or a prospective buyer, describing the experience related to doing business with an organization or consuming its products or services.
Your brand in a personal context is a perception or emotion, maintained somebody other than you, describes the total experience of having a relation with you.
• The principles and techniques of brand management only works when the relationship meets the real needs of people with whom those organizations do business: customers, shareholders, employees, other stakeholders and community at large.
The essence of personal branding is a function of the breadth and depth of your relationship in the personal context: You want your family, your friends, your employer and your co-workers to truly understand and fully acknowledge who you are and what you do.
• Brand is not meant to create a unique imagery that does not offer any clear tangible or intangible benefits to its consumer and the firm.
Likewise, 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 and position yourself to guide your career decisions.
Personal branding needs to be carried out through a very well articulated campaign to make it a successful exercise. There are three important steps to successful personal branding.
• Be Distinctive: - To truly understand what it means to be distinctive is to learn that it implies much more than just being different. It results from understanding the needs of others, wanting to meet those needs and aligning your competencies to do so while staying true to your values. Whether you choose to highlight your education, an aspect of your personal trait or a soft skill, depth of your network, or your expertise in a facet of finance, pick something that sets you apart from others and occupy a distinctive slot in the minds of your prospects.
• Be Relevant: - Being distinctive is not the only thing that matters to someone else. What you stand for needs to be relevant. Relevance begins when a person believes that you understand and care about what is important to them. It gains strength every time you demonstrate that what is important to them is important to you. The synergistic effect of being both distinctive and relevant is what ignites the power of a personal brand.
All strong brands evolve with the times to remain relevant to their target audience. This could mean the line extensions (like Maruti offers ‘true value’ exchange offer for your used cars while you are purchasing the new one). It could be modifying the ways you communicate your brand (moving from a printed resume to a resume on CD or ‘your personal website’). It could mean augmenting brand attributes as continue to grow in your career (like increasing the depth of your professional expertise that would result in the ‘value addition’ to your profile).
• Be Consistent: - The third component of building a strong brand is consistency – doing things that are both distinctive and relevant, and doing them again and again. Consistency is the hallmark of all strong brands. As a brand, you only get ‘credit’ (acknowledgement, acceptance or recognition by others) for what you do consistently. Consistent behaviors define your brand more clearly and concisely than most polished and practiced spiel.
Just as with corporate brands, your personal brand is your promise of value. It separates you from your peers, your colleagues, and your competitors. And it allows you to expand your success. Whether you are a senior executive, the president of your own business or an employee of a company of any size, managing your brand is critical to achieving your professional goal. After all, in a world where cities, wars, sportsmen, CEOs, politician and highways are branded, you need to think about yourself in the same terms.