Branding YOU

Branding YOU

We hear the word branding all the time. But how do we actually do this successfully? 

You must set yourself apart and stand out from your competition. You must be the resident expert in your field and show it (or at the very least, make people believe you are). Make people remember you when they meet you and make them want to know who you are when YOU walk into a room. 

During my blog series on branding and marketing, we will discuss networking events, branding your company, marketing materials, websites, social media, online marketing, associations, advertising, and much more. But my first one, this blog, is on marketing YOU. Why? Because first impressions will make or break you, and if you can't sell yourself, you can't sell anything for your business either.

What makes you and/ or what makes your business unique? This is what you will need to use to make people remember you. A first impression lasts a lifetime. You rarely get an opportunity to make up for a bad first impression, especially in the business world. 

Let me give you a couple examples to help you understand what I mean. 

I love to use my old boss as the perfect example of marketing YOU. While no one does everything perfect, she had a brilliant way of branding herself to make a lasting first impression. And I will be honest, part of my own technique, was stolen from her. We will call her Sarah, and she was an attractive, blonde woman in her forties that owned an IT company. Well, we all know that mainly men own IT companies, so that was one feature that set her apart from competition. This could have gone for or against her depending on whether other women and especially men perceived her as being competent in her field. Luckily, she was a sales woman at heart and a good one. And not only that, she knew a great deal about the technology field. In fact, she was my first mentor.

Now, she could have just used being an attractive, blonde woman as her first impression branding technique, but she took it a step farther. And here is where she made leaps and strides above the rest in branding HER. Her company's colors were red and black. She almost always wore a red shirt, but more importantly, she always wore some type of red scarf around her head. EVERYONE knew who she was. 

Both techniques would have still failed miserably if she couldn't talk the talk as I mentioned. Luckily, she could and taught me much of what I know. When you go to a networking event in the town Sarah lives in, people know who she is. If they don't remember her name, they remember she is the pretty and smart blonde women always in red or always wearing a red scarf around her head that is THE nerd; she does computer work. And get this? That is what she wanted! She wanted to stand out in red and be known as THE resident nerd. Why? Because it made you remember her, it made her different from her competition, it made people want to know her, and here is the key; it even made people trust her and her business. 

Here is the best part though. You don't have to be a tall, attractive blonde to make people remember you. There are tons of branding techniques people use. Choosing colors for your business and have shirts made is a great technique. Another idea for an IT company could be to always carry around the latest and greatest tablet or phone or laptop with the latest technology news or information ready to wow people. Someone that owns a marketing company could always dress in the brightest colors and latest fashions to stand out. A person that sells suits or works in retails might always want to have a new, hip tie on. Make yourself a conversation piece. Make people want to know you. If you are a baker, always wear the sweetest smelling perfumes or possibly even bring small samples, taste testers wherever you go. If you own a sports bar, wear a different team's shirt everyday. Well, maybe you shouldn't do this in Tallahassee, only wear Noles shirt. But the point is, let people know you are the guy that always has every sports game on at his bar. 

Do you need help marketing yourself and your business? Feel free to give me a call for consulting services at 239-989-5695.

Don't confuse branding YOU with your business branding strategy. We will talk about this strategy too: price penetration, unique offerings, etc. 

The next blog I do will be about the very next step after branding YOU which is taking a few important steps to make them remember you and create that partnership, that relationship, the referral, and the sale. It is all about follow up. Follow up is one of the keys to success, and this is where so many of us fail. We don't want to take 5 to 10 minutes out of each day to make lasting impressions and lifelong partnerships. But guess what? I can teach you how taking 5 to 10 minutes a day can bring in hundreds of more clients, maybe even thousands, if you do it right. 

Have your business cards ready for our next session. You are going to need them. I will try to do a mini blog in between this one and my next blog on Follow Up: Keys to Success to help you design business cards that people will remember as well. 

So by the time we meet again, I want you to COMMENT BELOW as to how you are branding or are going to brand YOU. What did you decide what your way to set yourself apart from the rest? 
#brandYou #branding #brandyourbusiness #marketingyourself #marketingsuccess

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