Personal branding encompasses everything you do. Be it the manner in which you dress or the way you address other people, your each action or inaction can make of mar your personal brand. This necessitates you to be methodical and maverick in your approach while creating a personal brand. The 5 C’s namely, character, commitment, confidence, competence and consistency may prove to the difference between moderate success and an astounding one. To explore how you can benefit from them, read on the article.
Character:
In personal branding, everything begins and ends with you. You are the heart and soul of your brand; hence, your actions will determine the success or failure of the brand you endorse. Your character will play a decisive role in shaping and cultivating your brand image among your audience. As your brand evolves, you can always analyze your character and sort out discrepancies that may creep into your character. This will enable you to grow as an individual as well as a brand. Minus character, the remaining C’s will lose their relevance.
Commitment:
Commitment is the prerequisite of success in all spheres of life and personal branding is no exception either. Commitment is highly infectious and rubs on others quiet easily. Commitment towards a cause inspires others to offer assistance that may prove crucial eventually. This important virtue should reflect in your personal branding endeavors too. When your target audience realizes the level of your commitment, they will develop a sense of liking for you and your brand. Being committed means that you are delivering on your promise while keeping quality of your offerings intact. All the illustrious brands are built on commitment and if you wish to do the same, exhibit commitment in everything you do.
Confidence:
Suppose you are selling something; if you lack confidence in your sellable, you cannot inspire others into buying the product. This implies that confidence is imperative for your personal branding endeavors. Your confidence in your abilities has to reflect in your brand, as it makes it look even more appealing to your audience. There exists a thin line between confidence and arrogance and crossing the line may spell doom for your branding efforts. Remember, arrogance is a sign insecurity and lack of skills. Confidence enables one to stretch his limits and strive for solutions that are otherwise hard to negotiate. It is our confidence that drives us on the way to success.
Competence:
For many, knowing a skill is competency. However, competency is a broad and subjective concept. Competence is invariably the line of distinction between amateurs and professionals. You have to be competent to survive in the competition driven scenario. After all, your target audience will remember you for the competency, which you reveal in your specialized field. Strive to elevate your competency levels through constant knowledge gathering. Failures and the way we overcome them are true measure of our competency. So treat your failures as a learning curve and imbibe the lessons learnt into your brand.
Consistency:
It is a human tendency to trust those who are consistent in their approach, thought process and efforts. History has it; many a great ideas fell flat in lack of consistent efforts. Edison’s consistent efforts resulted into the light bulb even after failing for over thousand times. Emulating the consistency of the genius in your personal branding endeavors will take your brand places. Consistency, in essence, takes incessant effort on your part; and if you fail to do so, your efforts will always remain inadequate. You have to reveal consistently in evolving your brand, making it dynamic and communicating it with your target audience, lacking which your brand will soon fade away in oblivion.