Identify Your Personal Brand

Garr Reynolds, of PresentationZen, writes that a brand is a promise. A good brand is obviously one that keeps its promise. What do you promise? What makes you different? That is the message of a personal brand. Tom Peters recommends keeping it to about 15 words.

Are you more Granola...or Peach Daquiri? Are you more Urban Outfitter, or Neiman Marcus?

Getting clear on your personal brand helps you communicate what you're about more easily and effortlessly; it even begins to be more obvious to those around you.

What's your brand like? What are you good at? What things catch your eye or your attention? What do you like to talk about? How to you like to help people? What do people seek your help for? What do you like to have done? Get out your pen and paper and start writing!

Here's one exercise to help you define your brand.

Finish this sentence 20 or more times: I could....

Another tip is to write out 20 things you enjoy.

My promise is to get my clients more confident in their presenting, and that confidence ripples into every other part of their lives as well.

The Person inside Personal Branding

I have had this concept of personal branding on my mind over the last few days, I want to give some concrete steps to take to help you and me take advantage of this personal marketing possibility. However, I keep asking myself if personal branding is really a humane activity. It's taking a utilitarian perspective to telling your story. And we define ourselves by the stories we tell.

British author E. M. Forster wrote, "we don't know what we think until we hear what we say." I think if he were to express this today, he might put it, "we don't know what we think until we read what we post".

The technology and message explosion, together with our here today, gone tomorrow mobility puts pressure on each of us to tell our stories in a compressed manner. We have a few minutes or less to explain our selves to perspective employers, potential customers, or possible friends.

Seth Godin says a brand is a promise. What do you promise? I think a first stab at personal branding can be less intimidating: what do you like to talk about? What do you like to read about?

Mixonian is focused on living the good life, which does not mean shopping at Neiman Marcus. Mixonian is about close personal relationships, short commutes, homemade food, good music, and interesting books. Mixonian wants to talk about cutting out extraneous activities and expenses that drain us, rather than lead us to the good life.

Brand Yourself?

Yep- that's right, get the fire going so you heat up the branding iron. Ouch!

Well, branding yourself means knowing yourself well enough to express what you're about in a sentence, or two. I'll post more direction on that later today.

Meanwhile, if you have time, visit Garr Reynold's presentationzen.com site for information and links about branding.

It's a way of breaking out of the demographic, even psychographic mold that other forces (think advertisers, employers, school acceptance committees) use to filter their view of you. It's a way of reminding the world that you have a soul; you're a human person, not just a consumer.