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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
Mitch Carson: An how to create your personal Identity - Introduction to Self-Branding
By Mitch Carson - International speaker and seminar promoter
Oct 15, 2015 - 9:32:10 PM
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Summary: Personal branding is the practice of marking yourself and your career as a brand. So, instead of working as an employee for a large company, you create your own company, which becomes synonymous with yourself. You are the company and the company is you. In the following article, you will be given a clear and easy guide about how to get ahead in self-branding.
Self-branding refers to the idea, when someone creates a business, which centers on himself as an individual. For example, you may name your business after yourself, or strongly base the vision of the business around your own image. People often decide to self-brand themselves after deciding that it will be the best way to utilize their skills and abilities.
The most important thing to remember about self-branding is that you need to be both good and confident about what you do. There's no point in trying to self-brand yourself and your business, if deep down inside you don't feel confident enough in you own abilities to be able to pull it off. If you don't quite feel confident enough, a good way to change that would be to work for a larger company in whatever field you want your self-branded business to represent, so that you can get your abilities and experience to where they need to be, then, when you have done this for a while, you will finally be strong enough in your area to become self-employed. Although it may take a while for your skills to get to a suitable level, you should not rush to the decision to become self-branded and should only do it, when you are certain that you can. Good things happen to those, who patiently wait.
Naming your business can always be a difficult decision. Some prefer to put their own name in their own business, to help themselves become synonymous with it and to help people think about the person and his work as being one and the same. While this can have its positive qualities, as it means that people will automatically remember you for your work, meaning that if they need someone in your particular field, you will probably be the first person that they think about and hire; however, it can also come off as being pompous and arrogant, as it could mean that people may think that you deem yourself to be self-important and above others. Ultimately, it will depend on your own personality and your personal tastes, to determine whether or not you believe that it is appropriate to name your company after you.
Others like to try and create imaginative and colorful names, so that people will think of their business as being unique and memorable, but again, it really depends on your own personality.
First impressions are lasting impressions. People will often make judgments based on the first thing that they see. That's why it's vital for your business, whatever it may be, to be visually strong and confident. It is always handy to hire a web designer to help make your website look professional and eye catching. You don't want your site to look amateurish or to resemble a blog, as this may turn people off. Once you create your website, it is important that you update it regularly, so that people know that you are still active. Leaving it dormant for long periods of time could give the impression that you are no longer working as a self-branded individual.
In addition to a strong website, a strong logo is also essential for your brand to be established. The logo is often the first thing that will come into people's minds, when they hear about your brand, the thing that they will always use to represent you and what you do.. That's why you need your logo to be simple, so that people can easily remember it, and also effective, so that it informs people about what you do. Simple and effective. Those two words are essential for your logo. It may be worthwhile to hire a graphic designer to help design a truly effective logo. Once your logo is designed, it will be recommended that you do not change it, as having multiple logos will confuse people and possibly make them think that they represent two different businesses. This is why it is essential to get the right logo. It should be stand at the first line of your tasks. Another hugely important step, which many people forget, is the importance of advertising. You can be the best person in the world at what you do, but if you don't get your name out there and make people aware of yourself, and then what's the point? Nobody will know about you, and you may as well be unemployed. There are numerous ways that you can go about marketing by yourself. One of the most popular ways is to make business cards offering your contact details, your website and logo, and finally, a quick summary of your business. Many printers offer very good deals on business card, such as £75 for 1000 to be printed, so these are definitely worth investing in. Once you have your business cards printed, it will be useful to carry several around with you at all time, as you never know when you may run into a potential employer or business client. Going to networking events is also essential, as here you can meet many other professionals in you field, as it is important to build up a strong connection with people, who you could be working with. At all these events, you should bring a large amount of business cards with you, so that you can distribute them among as many potential clients as possible.
Other ways to market yourself include posters in such places, where people of your field will be, for example, if your business is composing music, it would be a good idea to place posters in places, such as editing facilities and filming storerooms, as this is where filmmakers, who are potentially seeking composers for their projects, are likely to be. More methods include newspaper and magazine adverts in publications that people, who you could potentially be working with are likely to be reading, radio adverts, which will be expensive, but also likely to reach a wide audience, and creating accounts to promote yourself on websites, where you can offer your services. For example, a self-branding cameraman would be interested in creating an account on the film crew website Mandy, where they can describe their skills and expertise, and potentially be hired by producers and directors.
But aside from advertising, people will ultimately recognize your brand for the quality of work that you do. This is why it is essential that you give all your potential to every task that you carry out, so that people can recognize you as an honest, hardworking individual, who they would be happy to work with. And while you may occasionally find it tedious to be stuck in a routine of repeatedly undertaking similar tasks, you need to approach everything with equal importance. If you underperform on even the slightest of things, people could make judgements about you and your business, which could have lasting repercussions. Always approach everything as though it is an adventure waiting to happen.
When becoming self-employed, many people may decide to borrow a Personal Development Loan from the bank. These usually range from around £300-£10,000, although the bank will be unlikely to give a larger sum of money to someone, who is just starting their own business as they will not be sure of the success rate and whether or not they will be able to pay it back. These loans can be used for things, like buying necessary equipment, travel expenses, and anything else that you might need to help your business grow. And while this will be a great way to help your business get off the ground, please remember that as you need to pay the money back, it may be a better idea to take out the money, when you have been self-branding for a while and in a somewhat secure financial position, rather than doing it when you are just starting. This is because the first several months of starting a business are often the hardest, and if you take out a loan at the beginning and you fail to become profitable, you could end up in debt, so this is not a desirable course of action. So again, it would be best to take out a loan, when you have been self-branding for a while and your business is profitable, and not when you are just starting out. Finding yourself unable to pay back a loan would be a horrible way to start your new career.
If you find that running a business on your own is becoming too much for you to handle, it may be worth investing in assistants and helpers to ensure that you do not lose track of things. Although this will be beneficial, as it will certainly help you to remain organized, you may find that they may be uncomfortable working for a company that is so closely associated with someone else, so you may want to talk with them about this before hiring them.
Though this point has already been made, it is worth repeating that the most important elements of self-branding are to be confident in yourself and your abilities. If you truly feel that you have what it takes to work as a self-branded individual, then success is certainly within your reach.
About Mitch Carson
1. Experienced speaker and seminar promoter
who has been on the platform throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia,
United Arab Emirates and New Zealand. Responsible for placing over
1,000,000+ buying units in conference halls in multiple niches and
categories. Turned unprofitable categories and seminar companies into
cash-positive operations.
2. Produced several short-form
infomercials that have aired on Home Shopping Network (HSN), QVC and
international markets grossing over 8 figures in sales over the airways
and through retail channels.
3. Wrote a column in The
Glazer-Kennedy newsletter for three years. A paid subscription
newsletter that is considered the cutting edge publication for the small
business and information publishing markets.
4. Personally read
more than 100 books per year over the last several years. Categories
would include marketing, sales, direct marketing, promotional products,
PR, direct sales, online PR, social media, social media marketing,
direct mail, dimensional mail, 3-D mail, lumpy mail, seminar marketing,
Google adwords, organic search, article marketing, bookmarking, pinging,
podcasting, blogging and video marketing via YouTube and Viddler.
5.
Has been featured in 200+ newspapers worldwide. This includes the
Sydney Morning Herald, Los Angeles Times, Roll Call, and The Wall Street
Jounal.
6. Has hosted a radio show on 97.1 CBS Radio in Los Angeles for over one year.
7. Author of The Silent Salesmen which is published by John Wiley and Sons.
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