Branding Yourself
By Carol Siew

Tom Peters said, "Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc.

In addition to branding products, we can brand ourselves; it just like companies branding their products to create some unique associations in the minds of the targeted consumers. Personal branding also involves the creation of strong, unique and favorable associations in the minds of the people around us to give us the extra edge. But how do we brand ourselves? What makes us different from others?

Creating personal brands is very much like creating any brand. We must decide the brand elements, give meaning to them, position them, communicate the meaning and manage it over time. Creating personal brands involves the following steps:

• Determine Who You Are – Your specialty and your values
• Determine What You Do – Your service and value proposition
• Position Yourself – Your Unique Selling Propositions
• Manage Your Brand – Networking and feedback

In order for us to be able to sustain and know what we want to achieve ultimately. There are areas that we need to develop:

Knowledge: It is the result of learning. Knowledge is the internalization of information, data, and experience. In the knowledge economy, we need to have knowledge to sustain for the high demand and competitive environment. Our knowledge is critical for us to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.

Skills: Skills needed to perform jobs where job requirements are defined in terms of expected outcomes. We need to update our skills set constantly in order to perform in the high performance workplace. Expectations are set and we need to perform to deliver results.

Attitude: It is a complex mental state involving beliefs, feelings and values to act in certain ways. Having a good attitude towards learning and performance, it involves self-directed, self-driven and self motivation for one continuously.

Habits: We need to create a good culture within ourselves and repeat the learning cycle consistently; ultimately internalizing it into our mind and heart.

Personal branding requires consistency and much effort to achieve success. The choice is ours.