The 6 Non-Negotiables to Personal Branding
Sometimes the biggest secrets are hidden in plain sight.
Jobs will come and go. Positions will come and go. Relationships will come, change over time, and sometimes be gone forever. What will remain constant in this linear progression of living will be you.
You and your company are not the same entity. Similarly, while you may love being a father or a mother — that is not who you ARE. You, are YOU. And this “you” has a strong value system in place that enables “you” to be a great parent.
Will you be the same person five, ten, or twenty years from now?
Safe bet: No.
Life throws hundreds of variables our way every single day. Think of all the variables you’ve caught, moulded, and successfully thrown back? Why do you seem to win in some areas and fail miserably in some others?
What is the key takeaway?
Here’s what’s up: We are successful in areas where we have built a presence and personality that checks all the relevant boxes. What is that presence? It’s your Personal Brand.
Being the best, Product Manager is not your personal brand. Your personal brand is being someone who is fearless, a team player, who grows with their entire team. If this is your personal brand, then no matter the job or position — you will always do well.
So, what I’m trying to say, with this list of seemingly unconnected examples is that humans don’t live in isolation and your personal brand is what will factor in heavily to determine how well you will do at school, work, relationships, life.
If you have a strong personal brand (online or offline) in place, you will find that doors seem to open easier than for others. People seem to be more receptive to your ideas. And while you may not want heads to turn every time you walk into a room — your presence is noted, liked, and respected.
Now, creating a truly awesome personal brand is NOT EASY. It will not happen overnight and the determination it requires while simple, needs to be consistent over time.
At Masterlife, we believe that anything is achievable when people follow the right frameworks, learn from the right people, and develop the right habits.
Our job is to find the right people, frameworks, and examples — and put them all on one platform for easy access. You’re welcome. Ha!
Personal branding is also a skill, and like any skill — it can be acquired and developed. To that end, we created the course Build an Awesome Personal Brand with Celebrity Emcee and Author Sarita Raghuvanshi.
What we believed to be simple dialogue on how to present yourself turned into a massive deep-dive into personas, confidence, styling, grooming, language, and get this — the undertone of your skin.
Sarita blew us away with real-time displays of how we’ve been making decisions in our lives — something as simple as picking out a sweater for the day — and how we’ve been missing the mark — more often than not.
While the course is extremely detailed and happens to be a whole lot of fun, I shall list down some simple daily habits that are of critical importance for anyone looking to build a kickass personal brand.
For a complete look into all the theory, eye-opening revelations, and daily practices — go check out Sarita’s course on the Masterlife app.
WHAT IS A PERSONAL BRAND?
The term “branding” used to be reserved for businesses, but with the advent of social sites and the gig economy, personal branding has become fundamental to our existence.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
- Jeff Bezos, Founder @Amazon
A personal brand is the unique combination of skills and experiences that make you who you are. It is how you present yourself to the world. Smart personal branding will differentiate you from competition and allow you to build trust not only with prospective clients and employers, but also in your social media presence and personal relationships.
Here are some non-negotiables you need to follow to successfully build an awesome personal brand.
#1: VISION 20/20
For a lot of people, building a personal brand is a means to being an “influencer” — online or offline. Or to be someone who is massively popular and is liked. All. The. Time.
What ends up happening with a vague goal like that is that they find themselves being all things to all people. Stop. Breathe.
Take time to determine what your true goals are. Do you want to share knowledge from your own experiences so others view you as an expert? Do you want to demonstrate your worth to potential employers? Are you trying to increase publicity for your start-up?
Understanding the “why” will ensure you keep your messaging and actions on-track.
Also, who do you want to be? Who are you right now? Start bridging that gap.
Educate yourself.
Practice, practice, practice.
Bridge that gap.
#2: KEEP YOUR PROMISES
Under-promising and over-delivering is pretty great. The reverse — not so much.
Far too many people fall into the trap of over-promising and under-delivering. A lot of personal brands crash because people over-estimate their abilities or fail to factor in those variables we talked about earlier.
For example, you might tell your followers that you’ll have a new blog post for them every week. But what happens when you miss a week? Two? As you fail to live up to your promises, you’ll lose the trust of your target audience. As a result, you’ll lose followers and influence, perhaps permanently — thereby undermining your personal brand.
Same goes at work or in your personal relationships. If you promise to deliver by a specific deadline — then you must absolutely make that happen.
What if unforeseeable problems crop up along the way, you might ask? Sure. That’s life.
But then it becomes your responsibility to communicate to all concerned that there would be a delay owing to x, y, z reasons and that the deadline would need to be renegotiated.
Nothing creates a bad reputation more than showing up and informing people about the delay at the last minute.
#3: HOW “USEFUL” ARE YOU?
It’s all about giving.
Yes, this line is from a Disney movie. But it’s so true, isn’t it?
All successful relationships have a decent balance of give and take. So, what is it that you are offering to your audiences, co-workers, friends, and family?
Once you’ve figured that out — put yourself in other people’s shoes and figure out why they should listen to you in the first place.
Think of smart ways (without relying too heavily on self-promotion) you can convey your usefulness to the relevant target audiences.
“The best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of a service.” — Oprah Winfrey
Now, your expertise doesn’t mean that degree in physical chemistry or the doctorate in philosophy. As long as you are 100% genuine, you will have something real to offer. You just need to decide what that is for you.
#4: SELF-PROMOTION IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE
Sure, personal brand-building will require a fair amount of self-promotion. People won’t know what you stand for and what you have to offer unless you communicate it. Sure.
But, if you’re an endless self-promoter, you’ll have a hard time gaining much of an audience. Too much self-promotion, and you’ll be just another voice lost in the advertising mix of millions.
Several of our experts have concluded that it’s best to use 10 percent (or less) of your posts and conversations to self-promote.
With the rest of your time, share knowledge. Or better yet, be a great listener/observer and gain some knowledge yourself.
#5: GIVE INSECURITY THE BOOT
Another thing that I’d like to address is our apprehensions towards sharing knowledge and skills. A lot of us shy away from or actively avoid sharing tips or knowledge that we possess.
Why do we do that?
Because we’re worried the other person might get more marks than us? Or might end up becoming a better writer, singer, performer than us? Get that promotion faster?
And why do we think like that?
It’s because we are insecure.
Insecurity is one of the most vexing and counterproductive emotions that we carry.
It’s 2021. Ain’t nobody got time for insecurity.
Your job is to keep learning news skills and growing mindsets. That’s your actual job. When you share knowledge, you are building a community around yourself. A community of people that supports the growth of all — classic win-win.
Also, let’s say a strong skill of yours is singing. Someone reaches out to you for help with a song. You have some tips on how they can increase their vocal range. Share it.
Helping someone does not make you less than another person in any way.
Will they become a better singer than you? Possibly. So what? You are two different people and the same knowledge residing in two different people will manifest itself differently. Uniquely. So, what are you worrying about?
Stop holding yourself back by stressing over these little (and maybe petty) things. Life is short, and you have much to achieve.
You know “Live and let live”? I say: Grow and let grow. You’ll be a better person in every way for it.
#6: COMFORT IN YOUR OWN SKIN
This. Point #6. Cannot be stressed on enough.
You need to feel good. Physical, emotionally, mentally.
Our course Improve Your Mental Health with Anna Chandy opened our eyes to the different kinds of stresses we’re dealing with daily and may not even know about. I’ve linked it here so you can go through it yourself. Life-changing.
Coming to the physical aspect — whatever your body type, shape, metabolism, skin type, hair type, height — LOVE IT. There’s only one of you, and you deserve all the love you can give yourself.
Is there room for improvement? Sure. Is that what you want? Okay.
There are so many ways you can improve your physical health and fitness. Go online. Look them up.
Or you can check out our app — we have several courses in this department: Get Yoga Fit in 30 Days, Lose 3 Kgs in 30 Days, Build Your Dream Body — to name a few.
You can keep working on your fitness goals but you MUST love yourself in the here and now as well.
For styling and grooming — you don’t need to wear the latest fashion if it feels like too much of a hassle or doesn’t feel right on your body. Wear what works for YOU.
Our Expert Sarita, in her course Build an Awesome Personal Brand uses an entire module to cover skin tones and undertones.
For example — did you know that there are “cold” blacks and “warm” blacks? And only ONE of those blacks will ever look good on you? How to figure out which one works for which skin-type is a revelation in itself.
If styling and grooming is a hassle, learn simple tips and tricks to hack every-day outfits and you’re golden.
Again, look up experts online. Or check out our courses Build an Awesome Personal Brand or Styling & Grooming for Men.
There is content out there. You just need to make sure you consume the right kinds and implement learnings in a way that your new habits stick for life.
For ease of reference, and so you don’t have to go hunting too much, I’m mentioning some other courses that we have that would be relevant to building a public brand.
- Become a Great Public Speaker
- Improve Your Confidence
- Develop a High Performance Mindset
- The Mindset to Build Strong Communities
- Develop Interpersonal Skills Through Magic
- Learn the Art of Storytelling
- Embrace the Power of Authentic Living
- Learn to Connect With Anyone
Remember, you are the most important brand you’ll ever need to know the most about.
Make it outstanding!
Cheers!
