How To Brand Yourself Even If You Think Youre Unbrandable

How to Brand Yourself â€" Even If You Think You’re “Unbrandable” In a survey I did lately for a training on personal branding, I was asked, “How does one do an effective job of personal branding when what you do is a commodity?” I have a feeling there are many of you on the market pondering the same factor: “Personal branding is not for me.” Perhaps we must always take a step back and discuss what personal branding actually is earlier than I we explore why, sure, it may be for everyone. Why Personal Branding Matters Just as companies use methods to brand themselves for varied characteristics and niche markets, you can, too. What you might be recognized for professionally becomes your private brand. Everything â€" from having a positive perspective and greeting your coworkers with a hearty hiya and high-5 every morning to being the go-to person for getting issues carried out under tight deadlines â€" performs a role in building your brand. The best part is, you'll be able to craft the picture you want for yourself. And so long as that image is genuine, it's going to stick. So right here’s your chance to actually think about what you want to be recognized for and use it to make a name for yourself. For example, what would your coworkers say is your most dear talent? Making the most effective pot of coffee within the office? Yikes. Unless you’re a barista, you better begin making your priceless skills extra nicely-identified! How about making clients feel welcomed and nicely taken care of? That ’s a fantastic factor to have as part of your private brand, it’s a trait that’s simply transferable to many job situations and it adds super worth to your organization. Jessie The BBQ Queen Let’s check out a scenario I wish to name “The BBQ Queen” as an example of how a seemingly “unbrandable” employee like a waitress may begin to build her personal model. Jessie works at a neighborhood restaurant in a mid-measurement town. She additionally has a passion for barbecue. Just for enjoyable, she gets a personalized license plate that says “BBQ Queen.” Her associates, family and even some clients at the restaurant begin to touch upon the license plate and ask her what it's she loves about BBQ. Jessie realizes she is aware of fairly a bit about BBQ, and that people are really excited about hearing extra about it. She decides to start out a blog to answer a number of the questions she’s been getting and share her love of BBQ with a bigger audience. She calls it “Jessie The BBQ Queen.” She starts to write down posts about a few of her favourite BBQ eating places she’s visited on her travels and even adds some pictures from these journeys. Soon, she realize s the eating places she’s writing about are linking to her posts and sharing the articles, giving her recognition as “The BBQ Queen.” Eventually, weblog visitors start to ask her questions about recommendations in cities she’s by no means visited, so she decides to go on a BBQ highway journey to go to extra restaurants. Again, she takes photos of her travels and style-testings and units up a Twitter and Facebook web page for her followers to comply with her updates. She begins to do quick video interviews of the BBQ cooks and customers at the restaurants for her weblog posts, and abruptly, her on-line following is growing more than she ever anticipated. She begins doing research on one of the best cuts of meat for BBQ, totally different spices to use and styles of BBQ from across the world. She visits other blogs and websites, asks questions of their writers and shares what she’s studying with her online viewers. She turns into good pals with a BBQ expert in one other stat e and is invited to affix the judging panel of an amatuer BBQ competition with him. She posts pictures of herself as a choose and realizes her credibility in the BBQ world is greater than she thought. She suddenly finds herself among an internal circle of BBQ connoisseurs and decides to start out an e-e-newsletter for the group to stay in contact about totally different occasions and happenings within the BBQ world. Now, Let’s Analyze What Jessie Did Right… 1. She Clearly Identified Her Brand and Gained Recognition for It Since she’s established herself as “Jessie The BBQ Queen,” don’t you think about people are going to imagine she makes great BBQ? Even in the event that they’ve by no means tried her BBQ! She’s created a model the place she’s thought of an skilled, and with that comes credibility. People will imagine she’s a great BBQ cook dinner even when they don't have any direct experience together with her cooking. 2. She Made Herself In-Demand and Indispensable Now, let’s say Jessie wants to start out a BBQ restaurant. Do you suppose persons are going to try her BBQ restaurant over the one throughout the road the place there’s no “BBQ Queen”? Do you assume those BBQ connoisseurs following her on-line would possibly even be tempted to journey hundreds of miles simply to strive her BBQ based mostly on the model she’s created? She might even do online orders for BBQ sauce, BBQ cookbooks or BBQ Queen aprons! She could do guest spots on the native (or national) news for summer time grilling tips. Do you see how her personal model developed right into a enterprise? Now, what if she didn’t want to open a BBQ restaurant and he or she remained a restaurant worker with a passion for BBQ. Does that make her any less credible? No! Wouldn’t you wish to hire an employee who was that enthusiastic about their job? I don’t know many HR directors who are on the lookout for individuals bored with doing the job they’re being interviewed for. Not to say the potential for that BBQ restaurant throughout the street (and even in one other state) to wish to hire The BBQ Queen as an employee. Do you suppose they might have to supply her more pay and benefits than another employee who didn’t have a popularity for being so educated about BBQ? Do you suppose the restaurant she’s already working for would counteroffer to keep her? When You Build Your Brand, You Build Your Value Here are a pair extra examples of how you can model your self in a seemingly “unbrandable” profession: 1. Customer Service Representative in a Retail Furniture Store What if instead of taking the method of “promoting couches,” you took the strategy of “creating a home” on your clients? Ask them questions about their life-style, after which present them how to decide on furniture that may grow with their household, be versatile, and tips on how to mix and match completely different styles. If I felt a customer support rep was truly trying to make my purchasing experience easier by offering me with valuable info, I could be thrilled to advocate him â€" by name â€" to family and friends who additionally wanted furnishings. And if I learned the customer support consultant also had a blog where he shared photographs of inspiring room designs, movies on tips on how to make your personal curtains and advice on the way to lay out an awkward-formed room, I would know that he was actually enthusiastic about his job and would respect his advice. I would go to the store to particularly search him out once I needed to purchase one thing, and that make s him a valuable worker to the shop. 2. Bank Teller What when you learned that a teller at your bank volunteered to show Junior Achievement to local grade-schoolers on monetary literacy? That she wrote guest articles for the native newspaper on debt management and saving for your children’s school fund? Maybe she was even a board treasurer for a non-profit. Do you see how involvement in these activities establishes her as a trusted financial skilled versus “just another bank employee”? Wouldn’t you feel extra comfy getting financial assistance from someone you trusted? Her financial institution has each cause to need to hold her as an worker because they know she adds worth to the customers and makes the financial institution look good. No matter what your present position is, a robust and constructive private brand may help you build your career, put you in demand and make you indispensable. (Click right here to tweet this thought.) Bonus Tip It is much simpler to construct a brand that’s authentic and based around a real passion than to attempt to create a model round somebody or something you are not. How are you able to make your place “brandable”? Share your brainstorming in the comments to assist other readers! Image: Flickr