While today’s guest, Susan Chritton is very well versed in many areas,  the focus on today’s show will be on her expertise in branding. Listen in as Susan talks to Meg about why branding is really so important.

Today, Susan talks about going to the core of who you are with your brand and looking at how you really want to be seen. She also talks about how you can really take responsibility for the way in which you’re influencing people. Listen in to find out more about branding and getting people to really see the best of you.

Some of the main points are:

* Why branding is really so important in today’s times.

* That part of branding is owning the congruency of who you really are.

* Staying congruent with your branding as you move from one part of your life into another. I.e. re-branding yourself.

* Going more to the core characteristics of yourself, when creating or re-creating your brand, rather than going with your job title.

* The three parts to the REACH methodology that Susan works with: 1) Looking at and discovering who you are (Where Susan spends about 60% of her time with her clients), 2) Looking at how you’re going to communicate who you are and also who your target audience is – and also who your competitors are, 3) Communication– writing a bio or a resume, and also social media.

* Being strategic and using the right words to communicate yourself clearly and really align with who you are, as a person.

* Looking at the clothes you wear, colors you use, your website and even your email signature, for congruency.

* That Susan’s clients really enjoy her directness.

* How Susan managed to get clear about who her target audience really is.

* The REACH process- How it can really help people and what it’s about. The 360 Reach looks at you as a person and really gives people a lot of direction.

* The Exude Phase and the Express Phase of the REACH Process.

* Some advice for networking really effectively.

* A hard part of networking and branding is looking at ‘what makes us the same?’

* Trying things out to see how comfortable you are with saying it a certain way.

* That working on your brand brings out your honesty about who you really are.

* That branding is about really being authentic and owning who you are.- Really not an easy process.

* Susan wrote Personal Branding For Dummies– she talks about how she managed to wrap her mind around that project and how she used Mind Maps to do it. And that she was only given six months to complete the whole project!