PERSONAL BRANDING. A BRAND NEW YOU
1 Before you read the article, take a few minutes to think and say what the word `brand' means. Give examples of your own.
2 Read the first part of the article.
PART I
I Companies invest an enormous amount of time to develop, promote and sustain their corporate brands. Think of Coca-Cola, Apple, BMW or McDonalds. Branding is a powerful way to shape customer perceptions of products or services and to influence their buying behaviour. So, if branding works for companies, why can't it work for you as an individual? Personal branding uses key corporate principles and practices to enable individuals to manage their image in the workplace. Before you read on, take a few minutes to think about the following questions. Then compare your answers to the comments in the article.
Why do you need a personal brand?
What steps should you follow to create such a brand?
What channels can you use to communicate your personal brand?
What role does culture play in personal branding?
II On the history of branding
The origin of the term "personal branding" is often traced back to a 1997 article, "The Brand Called You", by Tom Peters, one of the world's leading business experts box, He said that everyone has a personal brand, whether they like it or not. Peters defined brand primarily as what other people think about us -- the ideas and associations we stimulate in their minds by the way we look, sound and behave.
Some aspects of our brand will be positive, others negative. Yet most of the time, we don't think about managing how people experience us. Peters believed it was time for individuals to take control of their personal brand in the workplace and to market themselves more consciously.
Peters argued that flatter corporate structures were making career development more problematic. Automatic promotions up the organizational ladder were be coming a thing of the past. Instead, individuals needed to promote themselves by defining and communicating their unique selling proposition (USP).
Some benefits of personal branding
· Greater visibility and opportunities for promotion
· Better working partnerships inside your company
· Higher salary
· The ability to attract and retain more customers
· Greater self-confidence
· Clearer focus on what really matters for you at work
III Creating a personal brand
It will be easier to create an effective personal brand if you follow these three key steps:
a) Define your personal brand vision. When was the last time you thought about what you want to achieve at work over the next three, five or ten years? Ask yourself questions both about specific career objectives (What do I want to become? How much do I want to earn?) and about general professional objectives (What kind of leader do I want be? What kind of team do I want to work in?). This process enables you to devote the appropriate amount of energy to the right areas and also plan to reach meaningful career goals.
b) Define your personal brand. The second step is to define a unique and impressive professional brand. Start by creating a short statement of who you are: the values you represent, your key qualities, and what makes you unique. Tom Peters suggests that your uniqueness include not only general personality descriptions, but also four key aspects of working life: your vision and style as a leader; what makes you special as a team member; your technical expertise: and your ability to help deliver results. Think about your own uniqueness by answering the following questions. You will find some useful examples of language to answer these questions, see the survival guide section.
Leadership vision
· What inspires and motivates you?
· How do you inspire and motivate others?
· Where are you taking people?
Team focus
· What do you see as your greatest strength in team?
· What do your colleagues admire most about you?
· What's special about working with you in a team?
Technical ability
· Where are you excellent?
· What are you known for doing better than others?
· What is your particular genius?
Pragmatic results
· What have you achieved that you are most proud of?
· What will you deliver to your management?
· What unique benefits do you offer the customer?
c) Promote your personal brand. No matter how good a brand is, it will be of little value if it isn't promoted well. That is why companies spend millions on advertising to increase the visibility of their brands. The same is true of personal branding. It is essential to move on from creating the brand to making sure it is experienced by key stakeholders -- that is, the people with whom you work and who have direct or indirect influence over your career development.
3 Read the first part of the text quickly once more and find the words and phrases that match the definitions below:
a) excellent knowledge or skill in your professional subject
b) the feature of being very special, unusual
c) the relationships between people in business, organization
d) something important in your job that you hope to achieve
e) the process of creating your special image
f) the state of being more popular
g) the main personal characteristics
(personal branding, greater visibility, working partnerships, meaning career goals,
key qualities, uniqueness, technical expertise)
4 Read the second paragraph, discuss the importance of the enlisted benefits. Which one is the most important in your opinion? Write the list of the benefits of personal branding in the order of importance from your point of view.
5 Read the third paragraph and
a) name the three key steps in creating a personal brand (don't look into the text)
b) answer the questions from part 1 in close pairs, then in open pairs
c) speak about your uniqueness using four key aspects of working life from part “d”. You will find some useful examples of language to answer the questions in the survival guide section.
d) speak about the importance to promote your personal brand, use no more than 3 sentences.
6 Write down 10 words and expressions from the first part of the text, which you think are the most suitable to speak about personal branding.
! Home assignment:
1-write down your personal brand vision, using no more than three sentences,(see the survival guide section)
2-wrte down your own personal brand statement, using no more than three sentences, use a list of useful personality adjectives from the survival guide section.
7 Read the second part of the article
PART II
IY Communicating your brand
There are various channels you can use to promote your unique personal brand in the workplace.
a) The work channel. Effective personal brand promotion is more than telling everyone how wonderful you are. The best way to showcase your talent to others is to find opportunities to work with them. Look for new projects where you could play a role. Volunteer informal support and advice to those who might benefit from your experience. Don't expect opportunities to fall into your lap; you need to look actively. And don't get impatient if benefits don't appear immediately. Allow your reputation to grow slowly but surely. As a way of getting started, commit yourself to one extra task for the coming four weeks that will enhance your reputation with a significant decision maker.
b) The people channel. One of the best forms of marketing is personal recommendation or "word of mouth". It is essential to cultivate a strong network of carefully selected people who like and respect you. Such people can act as multipliers for your brand in conversations with other decision makers. Some people like to join professional networking sites: others increase the number of strategic lunches they take part in. Whatever method you use, it is important always to think about whether you are spending the right amount of time with the right people talking about the right things. Your aim is to ensure that your "stakeholder network" understands your values and talks about you in the right way.
c) The emotional channel. Corporate brands use emotions to connect strongly to customer desires, such as the wish to be successful or attractive. Your personal brand also needs to manage emotions. In their book Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate, Fisher and Shapiro identify four areas of emotion that need to be managed in business contexts. Think about these four areas for your personal brand:
Appreciation. People feel good when they see that they are liked. When people meet you, do they feel liked and appreciated by you?
Affiliation. We usually have more positive feelings towards people with whom we have something in common. When people meet you, how clearly do you communicate that you are similar?
Autonomy. We need to feel a sense of control over our own destiny. Do people feel empowered and autonomous when they are with you, or do you threaten their independence and expertise?
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