When you Google (Personal Branding),  you will receive About 37,100,000 results on the topic in about 2.4 seconds. As an entrepreneur, service professional, executive leader or college student looking to define yourself in a world of 6,973,738,433 people, it can be a daunting task to take on by yourself.

Personal branding is not just important when looking for a new job. It is also a crucial activity for service professionals, entrepreneurs, sales professionals, executive leaders, and anyone who wants to stand out in a crowd.

While this may sound like simple advice, the best place to start is with yourself and those closest to you- your friends, family, employees, and closest business colleagues. Then, many clients have found it helpful to have an unbiased, third party help help to give an outside perspective on how to develop, communicate and evolve your personal brand.

Think about it. According to Wikipedia, It takes just one-tenth of a second for us to judge someone and make our first impression. [7]

Isn’t it worth investing in yourself to develop and influence that first impression? Your personal brand and how you display that brand to the world will play a vital role in how people important to your network, career, family and life will perceive you.

So, You’re Onboard with Personal Branding. How do you Get Started?

Step 1: Understand Who You Are (And who you want to be).

Take an hour today to sit down and think about yourself. This may come very natural to some and seem incredible daunting and foreign to others. I believe it is a crucial exercise for all of us, whether we are running our own businesses, running our households or going to school. It is important to know who you are.

There are a ton of good personal branding questions on the web. I created the ones below because I want you to really think about yourself objectively and consider the types of people you are looking to attract with your personal brand.

1. Who do I want to be? Why? (Be as specific as possible, write down everything that immediately comes to mind- you can sort through and refine later)
2. What am I interested in? (Include anything you spend time thinking about, Googling, Doing and Wishing you were doing)
3. What three words do I want people to use when describing me?
4. Who do I want to attract to my personal brand? What types of people?
5. What are my hard core beliefs and values?
6. What company or personal brands do I most Identify with?
7. What colors, shapes, animals or other visual objects do I identify with?
8. If I could be anyone in the world today, who would I choose to be? Why?
9. If I had $10M to spend in any way I chose, how would I spend it?
10. What do I want my kids, family and friends to say about me when I am gone?

Next, if you are a visual person, you can create a personal branding mind map that will force you to focus, narrow your vision of your self and will help in creating your personal branding statement. (See my personal brand mind map example above). You can create this on paper yourself with just a marker and a piece of paper.

Once you have answered the questions and created your mind map, take some time to put together a Personal Branding Statement, which enables you to consolidate and focus on the message you want to send to the world. You will want to be creative and focused so that you are sure to set yourself apart and give a clear vision of what makes you unique. (See examples in HOOK’s TOP 5 Personal Branding Resources Below).

Step 2: Understand Your Current Brand

Now that you have thought about yourself and who you want to be, it’s time to find out what do other’s think about you. Really? This can be the tricky part. Don’t ever forget that your current brand is your reputation. It is what other’s think and feel when they interact with you. It is also what you say and is said and shared online about you through social media, news articles, your personal biography or profile, and how you look in person.

First start by Googling yourself. What do you find online? Are the results hurting or reinforcing the brand you want to portray? If they are hurting, there may be a bit of work to do. You can find more ways to help with repairing a negative personal brand here: 5 Tools to Repair a ‘Derailed’ Personal Brand | Peter Sterlacci.

Perhaps there are none. This is a great opportunity to begin defining your online personal brand.

Another great way to find out is to set up a free survey through SurveyMonkey.com or any other free survey site out there and send to at least 25 people in your network.

Since you want to get as many responses as possible, I would recommend a short survey, limited to no more than 5 questions.

Some questions might include:

1. If you were to describe me in 3 words, which would you choose? (allow for them to fill in the blanks and add a section for comments).
   • When you first met me, was your overall impression (choose 1):
   • Very Positive
   • Somewhat Positive
   • Neutral
   • Somewhat Negative
   • Very Negative
2. What are my 3 Greatest Strengths?
3. What, if any, celebrity or famous person reminds you of me?
4. If you were to give me one piece of advice on improving my personal brand, what would it be?

Step 3: Promote Your Brand

So, now that you have determined your personal brand, how you want to be perceived, and how others currently perceive you, how do you communicate this to the world?

In addition to aligning your actions and words to support the brand statement you want to make, I also suggest building a personal branding package. I have helped clients create these packages which help them to visually develop and promote their own personal brands.

Elements included in a personal branding package can include:

• Personal Brand Logo
• Personal Branding Statement/Mission Statement/30 Second Elevator Pitch
• Personal Tagline
• Personal Branded Website & Email Address
• Personal Branded Business Card & Stationery
• Email Signature
• Social Media Pages: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
• Portfolio of Work (If applicable)
• Resume, Cover Letters, Biography, Video Resume
• Podcasts
• Personal Branded Wardrobe

Of course, as with every area of marketing and branding, there is a lot more involved in developing an authentic and recognizable brand that we couldn’t fit into our first blog post on the subject. To avoid reinventing the wheel and to give you some great resources, I have included links to some additional essential reading on the personal branding.

To learn more about what to do (and what not to do) visit these  5 Personal Branding Resources:

• The Brand Called You | Fast Company
• Personal Branding: Is It Right For You?
• Dan Schawbel: 3 Common Branding Mistakes of the Digital Age
• 7 Examples Of Kick-Ass Personal Branding
• Personal Brand Statement Examples

Call to action: I want to hear from you. What is your personal branding statement or tagline?

If you would like help with creating, developing and communicating your personal brand to the world, please contact us for a free consultation today.