Creating a personal brand in today’s world is not fashion any more, it’s actually a necessity. Especially for small business owners who have ambitious plans to grow and get more customers.
So what is Personal Branding? It was first introduced in 1937 in the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, who writes in chapter 6 “It should be encouraging to know that practically all the great fortunes began in the form of compensation for personal services, or from the sale of ideas.“
In a narrow, marketing meaning, personal branding is how you are perceived by other people. Jeff Bezoes CEO Amazon said “It’s what people say about you when you are not in the room”.In a wider meaning as Dr M. Grzesiak writes in his book “Personal branding, how to effectively build an authentic personal brand”, that actually it’s your own perception of yourself – the picture which you create yourself. This picture is based on your own beliefs and thoughts about yourself and signals which other people send to you. How you perceive yourself has a key impact on your behaviour and in consequence on the quality of your life. Because, if you believe you are intelligent, you will behave like an intelligent person. For example, you will be confident to take up new challenges, because you trust in your abilities!
Personal branding gained significance in the time of internet and social media. Years ago, we were building our reputation through networking. It was good to come to a few networking meetings, show up yourself in the best way and meet some new people who could potentially become your customers or bring you customers. Networking is still a good option, although now in COVID-19 time, when I write this article, it’s not…
Internet created a Global Market and that’s why we need to work on our Global Relationships! How to build global relationships? By building our Personal Brand! In the tones of social media business accounts, standing out is the only option to be visible. You need to show your face, show your environment, tell your followers some secrets about you.
The more you engage, the more you are known by your audience and the easier it is to create a relationship. Give your audience the opportunity to get to know you and maybe later like you and trust you. Once they trust you, you will have a better chance that they will buy from you. Seth Godin, an entrepreneur and author of many bestselling books said ,”People only buy from you for two reasons. They know you exist, and they trust you. Awareness and trust, that’s all.”
To summarise, having a personal brand have a lot of benefits. It determines not only how our clients, employees and colleagues perceive us, but also what we do and how much we earn. We also have a higher credit of trust in the eyes of our customer. We don’t have to prove that we have know-how in our area. It builds great comfort for both, the client and us.
