I have been working for some time to develop myself into a ‘brand’.\u00a0 Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t aspire to be Coke.\u00a0 I don’t think I’ll ever be Oprah.\u00a0 And I don’t think my name will ever be on the same level as Disney.\u00a0\u00a0 But a brand isn’t a bottle of carbonated beverage, a TV show, or a Mouse.\u00a0 A Brand is a promise and an expectation.\u00a0 I know what I am getting when I grab a Coke even before I open the bottle.\u00a0 And I know that when you say Disney, you are talking about an experience, not a roller coaster.<\/p>\n
In my small world I am slowly turning myself into my own brand that people seek out.\u00a0 It didn’t happen overnight, and I learned what I know from alot of people who have been down this road before and who are much smarter than me.\u00a0 And if I can do it, you can to.<\/p>\n
Developing yourself into a personal brand is about providing that promise and expectation because your followers know what you are all about and know what to expect when they get ‘you’.\u00a0 I am not nearly where I want to be, but I work every day to get there.\u00a0 So here is my list of 5 easy things you can do, starting today….<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 Be authentic. <\/strong><\/p>\n Nobody likes a fake.\u00a0 You know what I am talking about… the person who seems ‘put on’?\u00a0 And when it comes to interacting on the internet, it is even harder to make sure that others actually get what you are trying to say and there is not confusion or misunderstanding.\u00a0 So if you want to set yourself apart, work hard on being authentic.\u00a0 Show people who you really are, be honest, open, and do what your mom taught you… play nice!\u00a0 Talk about your personal life and share what is happening to you.\u00a0 If you pull back the curtain, even just a little bit, to show people the personal side of you, then they will feel like they are doing business with someone they know.<\/p>\n Another aspect of being authentic is setting yourself apart by being unique.\u00a0 Find your niche and make sure that you do it better than anybody else.\u00a0 If you do something better than anybody else, you are on the fast track to becoming a household name, or dare I say it, a brand!<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Start participating in social media… now.<\/strong><\/p>\n It’s no secret that everyone is bonkers over social media right now.\u00a0 And everyone is trying to figure out where they ‘fit’ in this Web 2.0 world.\u00a0 If you want people to find you… if you want people to interact with you… if you want to be heard… you need to be where everyone is… and that is online.\u00a0 So open a Twitter account, or two.\u00a0 Open a Facebook account and start having fun.\u00a0 Create a Youtube channel and start posting videos.\u00a0 And start a blog and start talking about what you think.\u00a0 Use your own name in everything you do.\u00a0 Post a good picture of yourself.\u00a0 And just like I mentioned in #1 above, talk about personal things as well.\u00a0 I tell my clients all the time… people want to do business with people, not business<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Give people an insight into who you are, and they are more likely to do business with you.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Share what you know with others.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is something else that you should have learned as a kid… share.\u00a0 Give more to others than what is given to you.\u00a0 You can probably name off some people right now that you know who you could say something about them like… ‘they would give you the shirt off their back’.\u00a0 You know the kind of person I am talking about.\u00a0 Well, it’s simple… be that person.\u00a0 Just like nobody likes a fake, nobody likes a taker.\u00a0 If you hear about something really cool that others could benefit from, tell everyone about it.\u00a0 Create posts on your blog, send out Tweets, and share links in Facebook that point people to valuable things.\u00a0 Give more to “the community” than you take.\u00a0 It may be an age-old cliche, but it is still true… people don’t care how much you know, till they know how much you care.\u00a0 Share what you know, and others will seek you out.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Be the expert.<\/strong><\/p>\n You are probably pretty good at something.\u00a0 I don’t know what that is, but you do.\u00a0 This may be the best thing you can do to turn yourself into a brand.\u00a0 If you know more about something than anyone else, then you have something of value.\u00a0 And if you couple this with the other things I am talking about here, you’ll have something that people want.\u00a0 Become an expert at what you do.\u00a0 Provide something they can’t get anywhere else.\u00a0 And don’t forget to stay on top of the things that you do.\u00a0 Read constantly about your profession.\u00a0 Know about the trends, the new ideas, and the people and companies that are at the forefront of what you do.\u00a0 I have said it before many times, and I still rely on these daily… use Google Reader<\/a> and Google Alerts<\/a> to keep on top of what is happening in your profession.\u00a0 Don’t work yourself to death… use tools to help you save time, and spend more of that time interacting with people.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0 Talk about others more than yourself.<\/strong><\/p>\n Lastly, this may be the hardest thing to do.\u00a0 I have come to believe that everyone, on some level, is vain.\u00a0 We love to talk about ourselves… what we think, what we know, and how we feel.\u00a0 So the hardest thing to do is talk about others.\u00a0 But if you want to be a brand, you have to put others before yourself.\u00a0\u00a0 You have to talk about others more than you talk about yourself.\u00a0 If you do that, then others will see what is going on and they’ll say things about you like… “that guy is a really nice guy.\u00a0 He cares more about other people than himself.”\u00a0 Don’t be a taker.\u00a0 Be a giver.<\/p>\n Let me close with a couple of great examples of what I am talking about.<\/p>\n I have lost track of the number of times that I have purchased something and been disappointed in some way.\u00a0 It didn’t work like they said it would.\u00a0 It was cheap and broke right after I got it.\u00a0 Etc.\u00a0 You know what I am talking about.\u00a0 The bottom line is that I have been disappointed more times than I have been really pleased.\u00a0 So when my Bluetooth headset broke, I was expecting to get the run-around when I called their 800 number.\u00a0 I expected to fill out paperwork, pay for this or that, and jump through a few more hoops just to fix my problem.\u00a0 So I called them, a real person answered the phone, and without any explanation from me they simply asked me what my address was so they could mail me another one.\u00a0 Excuse me?\u00a0 What was that?\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 No hassle.\u00a0 No fuss.\u00a0 No problem.\u00a0\u00a0 A brand is a promise, not a product.\u00a0 And their actions told me that they care about me more than their products.\u00a0 I can proudly tell you that since then I have bought 2 more of their products and I am now a loyal fan.<\/p>\n My final example is a person who is now a good friend of mine.\u00a0 He sat in the front row at one of my speaking engagements.\u00a0 He laughed.\u00a0 He participated.\u00a0 And he showed interest in what I was doing.\u00a0 After I finished, he got up to speak after me because he was the keynote speaker.\u00a0 And he was so good, he blew the doors off the place.\u00a0 After the conference was over he came up to me and asked me to call him.\u00a0 A few days later I did.\u00a0 He said that he wanted to help me, and began to tell me ways in which I could work with him and how he could show me how to grow my business and grow my influence.\u00a0 He couldn’t see the puzzled look on my face, but it was there.\u00a0 What did he want from me?\u00a0 Surely he wanted something?\u00a0 I have become so jaded that I was aghast.\u00a0 So I asked him.\u00a0 He didn’t want anything.\u00a0 So I asked him why he was doing this.\u00a0 And he said that someone did it for him many years ago and he was simply returning the favor because he wanted to see me succeed.\u00a0 And all he asked was that years from now I do the same thing for someone else.<\/p>\n He is the embodiment of all those things I am talking about above. That’s a brand.\u00a0 That’s a promise. I am sold on his brand, and I have seen first hand that it works.\u00a0 So what are you waiting for?\u00a0 Go do it.<\/p>\n