Personal Brand Building
Following the publication of Be Your Own Brand, Brand Tool Box has developed a number of organizational and personal development tools based on the practical framework of personal brand presented in the book.
For businesses, Brand Tool Box pioneered the concept of the Power of Brand Alignment as a reliable and sustainable framework of internal brand building. In addition, the proprietary model of personal brand has been incorporated into a powerful sales training tool.
For individuals, Brand Tool Box has created a number of different personal development tools, such as The Brand Tool Box® Personal Brand Platform Audio Tool Kit and the Brand Tool Box® Power of Personal Brand Executive Coaching program.
What is it?
Everyone has a brand and anyone can be a strong brand. It doesn’t involve changing your personality and you can be an introvert or an extrovert. The difference between one personal brand and another is that the person with a strong brand utilizes his or her special qualities to make a difference in the lives of others.
Using one’s values and distinctive qualities to make a difference for others is the core ethos of strong, thriving personal brands.
Using marketing techniques to create a high profile for oneself is not the point and won’t make you a stronger brand. When you make a discernible difference in the life of another, you make a lasting impression and your brand receives credit—a deposit in the “trust bank.”
Every meaningful impression adds more “credits” that build toward the establishment of a trusting relationship. Since the ability to build trusting relationships is a key component of professional and personal success, people with strong personal brands are able to achieve more of what they want by being more of who they are.
One cannot underestimate the importance of authenticity, nor can one overestimate the power of alignment in striving to become a stronger brand. The challenge to building a stronger brand is having the courage to be authentic, finding alignment with others, and applying one’s special qualities creatively to make a difference.
Why does it matter?
Individuals and businesses can benefit from having access to a practical framework of personal brand. By embracing a framework of authentic personal brand, as first published in Be Your Own Brand, individuals can become more effective at building stronger and more meaningful relationships. Stronger relationships can be beneficial by increasing one’s success and overall happiness.
The promise of building a strong business brand will inherently fall short of its potential without a framework for making brand applicable on a personal level. Businesses can benefit by integrating a personal brand framework as an internal brand-building tool and aligning the personal brands of salespeople with the goals of the organizational brand strategy.
Building a strong, admired corporate brand begins with an aligned culture. A strong brand inside an organization lays the foundation for a strong brand outside an organization. A practical model of personal brand is the most powerful tool for employees to make a strong connection to the organization’s brand and ultimately the customers it serves. A corporate brand strategy that lacks a framework of personal brand that can be used to create and support customer-centric alignment will under-deliver on its potential.
Neglecting the power of the personal brand of salespeople can be a fundamental flaw in building a stronger brand for a business. The salespeople in many companies operating in B-to-B marketplaces have more impact on the brand of their organization than the marketing department.
In some categories, the link between the salesperson and the client is a stronger “brand” relationship than the company has with the customer. Without a reliable and practical framework to make brand personal, marketers will not be able to deliver the power of brand to their organization’s growth efforts.
The same logic as described about salespeople can be applied, to a larger extent, to principal contributors of professional services firms. To achieve any meaningful and sustainable brand equity, a professional services firm must embrace a practical framework of personal brand as a part of its firm-wide brand-building efforts.
The Ebbinghaus Illustration is a powerful analogy that can demonstrate the ambiguity surrounding the
notion of perceptions, a fundamental concept of personal brand. To many people the center circle on the
left appears much smaller than the center circle on the right, but the circles are exactly the same size.
The illustration is a reminder of how perceptions are shaped in the context of many different influencers.
How do we do it?
The value of our concepts of personal brand, like all content, is leveraged through the applications we have developed for individuals and organizations. We have developed a number of stand-alone applications that individuals to use personal brand as a personal development tool.
Learn more:
Be Your Own Brand
Personal Brand Platform Tool Kit
Personal Brand Management Tool Kit
Personal Brand Platform Audio Tool Kit
For organizations, we have embedded our personal brand concepts in our brand alignment workshops and professional development training workshops.
Learn more:
Corporate Brand Platform
Brand Training
For executive coaches, we have developed a leadership program that is built around the power personal brand alignment.
Learn more:
Executive Coaching Program