Personal Branding, Your Value Proposition and Success

Positive personal impact is one of the keys to success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success.  If you want to create positive personal impact, you need to do three things.  1) Develop and nurture your unique personal brand.  2) Be impeccable in your presentation of self – in person and on line.  3) Know and follow the basic rules of etiquette.

I was teaching a class on personal and professional success the other day.  We spent a lot of time on personal branding.  I made the point that personal branding is pretty simple in concept.  First, figure out how you want others to think of you.  Be very clear.  Second, constantly and consistently do the things necessary to get them people to think of you in that way.  Some of the people in the class were struggling with figuring out how they want others to think of them.  It’s not as simple or easy as it first appears.

I am a member of the National Speakers Association.  There is an interesting article by Robert Bradford on marketing yourself as a speaker in the April 2009 issue of “Speaker” magazine.   He suggests that there are two important tools for speaker marketing: providing direct value and demonstrating your unique value.

If you’re struggling to determine how you want others to think of you, take a lesson from Mr. Bradford.  Ask and answer these questions? What direct value do I provide?   What is unique about the way I provide this value?

A little too abstract?  OK.  I’ll use myself as an example.  I am a success coach and motivational speaker.  I provide direct value by helping people learn the skills they need to become a personal and professional success.  I do this by using my common sense and showing others how to apply their common sense.  In this case, my direct value equals skills for personal and professional success and my unique value equals common sense. 

My Common Sense Guy brand is designed to get people to think of me as someone who can show them how to succeed (direct value) through applied common sense (unique value).

You don’t have to be in business for yourself to use this formula.  It will work for you no matter what size organization you work for.  To determine how you want the people who work with you and the people who run your company or organization to think of you, ask and answer these two questions…

• What direct value do I provide? 
• What is my unique value proposition, how am I truly different?

One you answer these two questions, you will have the beginnings of a very clear personal brand.  Once you have developed a clear brand, you’ll need to constantly and consistently act in a manner that is consistent with it.

The common sense point here is simple.  Successful people create positive personal impact.  A clear, well defined, unique personal brand is one of the first steps in creating positive personal impact.  You can develop your unique personal brand by asking and answering two questions.  “What direct value do I provide?”  “What is my unique value proposition, how I am truly different in providing value?”  The answers to these two questions will provide you with the basis for your personal brand.  Then it’s up to you to constantly and consistently do the things that reinforce your brand.

That’s my take on personal branding and your value proposition?  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts on these ideas?  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

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Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing with us. Theses two questions are very difficult to answer. But, they’re not impossible to answer, right? haha

    I speak about Personal branding too.
    Visit me 😉
    http://qualeasuaideia.com

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