The Power of Your Personal Brand

When you think of Nike, Google, Disney, Southwest Airlines or Apple, you probably experience an automatic feeling of familiarity, coupled with an innate understanding of what name - and brand - mean to you.  Corporations spend billions of dollars creating brands that resonate with consumers.  Today, brands must excite, engage, inform, and elicit a powerful emotional response.  It is, after all, emotion that triggers purchase decisions.

Creating a brand is much like telling a story.  The brand must effectively convey the mission, vision and values of the company, and it must also convey the kind of experience audiences can expect when interacting with the brand.

Take Disney, for example.  The logo itself is whimsical and conveys a happy, childlike quality. Reinforcing the visual brand is Disney's commitment to creating exceptional guest experiences.  This aspect of the brand is communicated via advertisements, media, Web content and, of course, the company's employees who are also known as "cast members."

As cast members, Disney staffers effectively serve as brand ambassadors, personally extending the brand to everyone with whom they come in contact.  It's one thing to read about a brand and to get a general idea of the brand concept; it's a completely different thing to actually experience the brand up close and personal.

I'm often asked what is the difference between corporate branding and personal branding.  The answer is, really, nothing.  As a professional, entrepreneur, or business owner, your personal brand is what will make you or break you.  People want to do business with other people they know, trust, and relate to.  Therefore, your personal brand must be relatable, but it must also convey the kind of experience people will have when they work with you.

Personal brands are created by individual action.  Since most of us don't have our own personal logos or teams of copy writers crafting our messages, we create our personal brands through the following actions:

1)  The way we speak
2)  The way we dress
3)  The way we handle ourselves
4)  The way we treat others
5)  Through the quality of our work
6)  Through our creativity, imagination and innovation
7)  By the way we use our own unique life experiences to shape and influence the way we approach business

Each of the above points provides ample opportunities for differentiating yourself from the competition - and that is the fundamental purpose of branding, whether you're a dentist, dog groomer or Delta Airlines.

But before you begin creating your memorable personal brand, ask yourself this important question: How do I want to be perceived?  Once you determine exactly how you want your audiences (i.e. your customers, colleagues, peers, employees, competitors, the media, etc.) to perceive you, you can then begin identifying your unique assets, experiences and message points to stimulate the responses you want.

As you begin promoting and marketing your personal brand, don't forget to quantify your efforts.  It's important to monitor and measure your brand response so that you can continue to refine your efforts - and results.

The quality of your brand is directly proportional to your profitability.

~Debra Davenport

Davenport Public Relations
Let us show you a whole new side to PR.
gotbuzz@davenportpr.buzz