BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND 2

At the end of the day brands are about performance and results. If your Sony DVD player doesn’t perform you most likely won’t patronize them again. Customers patronize brands because they perceive that, the brand can satisfy their needs and wants, better than competing products.

As a personal brand you must note that you have Internal as well as External customers. Your internal customers are your boss, supervisor or people that depend on your report and work to effectively do theirs. While your external customers are those that exchange money for the value you provide.

To deliver world-class competence within the context of your position and organization you must know your key result area. Your key result area asks you a question; WHAT ARE YOU PAID TO DO IN YOUR ORGANIZATION? Understanding the depth of that question and doing it will make you OUTSTANDING. Being effective in administration when you’re employed to market products and services means you will soon be relieved of your job because you are not performing in your area of employment.

For example if sales or selling is your key result area then personal branding demands that you develop this skill intensely; which will require that you read about the subject matter, ask questions, study predecessors, burn the midnight oil and in the morning act on the information you have received to grow the competent brand called you.

LIST 3 SKILLS THAT CAN MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL IN YOUR POSITION
1. _________________________________

2. _________________________________

3. _________________________________
NAME 2 HIGH FLYING PEOPLE IN YOUR GROUP, UNIT OR TEAM
1. ________________________________

2. ________________________________

WHAT 2 SKILLS DO YOU THINK MADE THEM SUCCESSFUL?
1. ________________________________

2. ______________________________

Now, if you answer the above questions correctly you’ll have an idea of what will enable you produce more results. Identifying your key result area is the first step, because it gives you an idea of the skill-set you’ll need to develop or acquire for you to be effective on your job. One thing about successful brands is that, they are very good at what they do. Building your brand will require that you invest time into developing the skill-set needed for success on your job. Developing these skills will require;

TIME: The difference between an average person and a professional who knows how to do something well is that professional spends time developing their craft. Robin sharma said, "DAILY RIPPLES OF SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE ADD UP OVER TIME TO TIDAL WAVES OF OUTRAGEOUS SUCCESS." Investing into competence development is what will make you standout. If you want to be competent at something and you don’t create time to develop yourself, it becomes apparent fact that you’re not really committed to that thing, you’re only interested. Committed people find a way; interested people find a way out.

INVESTMENT: The average person does just enough to get by; a committed person goes the extra mile. You’ve got to invest time, money and any resource available to you, to get to where you want to be. For every world player you see, what you don’t see is tons of sacrificial investment. Where you spend your money tells a lot about where your heart is.

DISCIPLINE: Discipline is also required to develop competence; a wise man once said discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tones. Discipline is the hallmark of greatness; discipline sometimes could mean switching off your television or avoiding idle gist that doesn’t add value to you so you can focus on developing the brand called YOU.

If you spend 1 hour a day reading and developing your competence in lets say marketing and sales, in one week you would have done 7 hours of personal development besides that which your organization does for you. In one month you would have put in 28 hours into your personal development and that will put miles ahead of other marketers in your department and industry.

But this will require commitment on your part. John Assaraf speaking along these lines, said: “if you are interested you will do what is convenient, if you are committed you will do whatever it takes.”

BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND 1

Marty Neumeier said, "A brand is a persons gut feeling about a product, service or company. " He went futher to say that brands are defined by people and not companies or markets. If you consistently tell a story about how you want to be percieved, for example apple wants to be percieved as an innovative company that makes great products, And enough people get it then you have a brand. So, today the word apple = innovation and great products in the 'MIND' of consumers thats their brand.

Personal branding is about extracting some of the principles that successful organisational brands like: Apple, Microsoft, MTN, Nokia, Blackberry etc have used to make themselves successful then applying them to individuals to make them successful in their careers, life, and business lives.

You cannot control what people think about you, but you can influence the way your income-audience, namely your boss, customers, and family, perceive you because if the perception they have of you is right, it will lead to: promotion, prosperity, increased responsibility, visibility, and success.

Your brand is your distinction or difference from the crowd. And your distinction is the value or solution you bring into the lives of people and organisations that engage your skills.

Personal branding is about your promise of VALUE or BENEFIT to your income-audience. How will you use your skill to help your organisation make more money or save more money.

lets talk more about this tomorrow good night.

COZA ABUJA

I had a great time speaking at the commonwealth of zion assembly in Abuja, one of the fastest growing churches in the city. The audience participation was wow! My books were sold out i'll leave you with the words of Norman Cousins "the greatest tragedy in life is not death. But the things and dreams we allow to die within us while we are alive."

Don't die with your candle still on, make sure the dreams in your soul are delivered to your generation and beyond before to exit this dimension of existence.

BELIEFS

Our beliefs are very powerful. By power I mean that our beliefs can cause changes in our lives. In mark 9:23, Jesus Christ said, “ if you can believe all things are possible to him to him who believes.” There are two things I learnt from that statement; the first one is that what is possible for you in your life is not a function of: your pedigree, gender, nationality, educational background or all the other mental barriers that we use to stop ourselves, but your capacity to simply believe.
A lot of dreams have been discarded on the pavement of time, a lot of books have been left unwritten, a lot of businesses have to left un-built because the dream custodians have refused to believe. It is not that the dream can’t be manifested, but the dream-host were too scared to dare. So they died with their music still in them, while the rest of their tribe are physically alive but their dreams are dead.
Norman cousins put sagely when he said, “the greatest tragedy in life is not death, the greatest tragedy is what we allow to die within us while we are alive.”
The second thing I learnt from the words, “if you can believe all things are possible to him who believes.” Is that, it is a law. One thing about a true law is that it is not bias, in fact I noticed that the symbol of justice in Nigeria is the image of a human being that is blind folded, which is indicative of the fact that the image does not look at faces.
PLACEBO EFFECT: something prescribed for a patient that contains no medicine, but is given for the positive psychological effect it may have because the patient believes that he or she is receiving treatment. How it works is that, they take a sick patient, let’s say a cancer patient and they inform the patient that, that the drug that they are about to give them can wipe out their disease, meanwhile the drug has no medicinal content, the patient believes and a lot of times they get healed.
When they believe their brains release chemicals that enhance healing in the body. That is how powerful our beliefs are, the body even responds to your belief and heals itself.A lot of the beliefs that most people have about what’s not possible in their lives go unquestioned for decades and these beliefs mutate or metastasizes from parent to children.