“Personal branding ensures your walk is louder than your talk.” Rachel Quilty, ‘the Authority’ on Personal Branding and author of ‘Brand Yourself’.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room”
~ Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon
The above quotes are self explanatory. The power of personal branding is reflecting in these quotes and the experts who quoted them have well-tested the influence of the personal branding. Therefore if you are not showing your skills, expertise, intelligence and other hidden attributes just because you think they are not special, you are loosing on personal front. Without knowing your talent and caliber, people will not be able to recognize you and will not be interested in hiring you or doing business with you.
Let’s have a brief on the power of personal branding through the following points:
- The ‘Effect’ of personal branding: Obviously the personal branding is an effective process for both you and the people associated with you. The effect of personal branding varies from person to person. Philip Kotler, the renowned professor of International Marketing in the Northwestern University at the Kellogg School of Management said “If you are not a brand, you are a commodity”. It means, personal branding has the power to affect an individual as well as a group. Your personal brand also affects your individuality that infests confidence in you that leads to better performance from your side and the end result is your success in the chosen field.
- The ‘Reach’ of personal branding: By now it must be clear to you that Personal branding is quite powerful to even change the mindset of people, but it is even more commanding when we talk about its reach. There is no limit to the scope of personal branding. A person can spread its brand to either a limited group of people or to the whole world as per his requirement and preference. If you are a starter and trying to establish yourself in this competitive world, its obvious that you wish to initially influence and attract a small group of clients, but if you already own an established business, you can make efforts to spread your brand all over the world with the help of personal branding strategies. Social media and other tools of recent technology are boon in this regard to widen your brand to a large number of customers in a second.
- The ‘impact’ of personal branding: Once you are popular as a brand among your customers or group of associates, you can see immediate changes in their behavior. Everyone wants to be associated with you and your brand. This can be best explained with the example of the advertisements of the products we watch in television or elsewhere. We generally buy the products that are best advertised with catchy taglines and elaborated promises. We buy the soap, creams and other things just by seeing the brand. Another example is the brand ‘Mc Donalds’. This fast food chain is one of the most famous eating joints across the world and it’s a brand in itself. Eating at Mc Donalds is a status symbol rather than eating at any local fast food joint. So this is the ‘Power’ and ‘impact’ of personal branding.
- ‘Outcome’ of personal branding: The outcome of personal branding is indeed beneficial for individuals. The self-help techniques allow the individuals to mark their presence or the career as a brand. The conclusion of this process gives positive results to the people who are otherwise not getting adequate success in their careers. After becoming a brand, a person gets the unlimited opportunities to expand his or her professional career as well as the personal caliber.
The saying “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” by George Bernhard Shaw, Author is quite effective and gives a proper definition of personal branding and its power.