Thoughtful Kick Start Podcast

Personal Branding


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“To Thine Own Self Be True” - William Shakespeare
I’d like share with you a terrific experience I had visiting the CF Martin guitar factory. The company has been producing the finest quality acoustic guitars under the “C.F. Martin” or “Martin Guitars” brand that since 1833. I was extraordinarily impressed by the craftsmanship and quality that I saw behind the scenes at the CF Martin factory, whether the guitar was built with a blend of hand craftsmanship and new technology or if it was a custom guitar made fully by hand. Listen to this podcast for more about my walk around the factory floor.
Everyone in the music business who played guitar has a Martin guitar, from Hank Williams and Johnny Cash through John Lennon, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, Eric Clapton to Ed Sheeran and many more.
Today theme is all about personal branding. While branding is important in business - that is having a consistency of look, communication and experience that reliably represents how a product or service reliably delivers value, the same can be correlated to individuals. Whether you are in a position of leadership or in a roll of business development or simply looking to advance or make a career change your career is really dependent on what people can rely on regarding the value you can produce.
Here are three points to refine your personal brand:
#1. Looks Can Kill: Consider anything visual that represents you from your personal grooming and your sense of style and how your clothing fits to how your look represents what you stand for and how you fit within your community. How things look also includes your resume or email - formats and fonts and layout. Anything that is visual should look consistent and should convey a feeling that represents your value
#2. Consistency of language The words you choose and the energy with which you speak and write also must be consistent with what you stand for and must speak specifically to the market you're speaking to. In an earlier segment of this blog and podcast, we talked about how your passion and talent must meet a market need that will give your career a trajectory and direction. While you're applying your passion and talent to a particular market need, make sure you're using language that matches the vernacular and the sophistication of your market.
#3. Walk Your Talk You must be really conscious of keeping your word to what you said you would do by when you said you would do it and honoring your word any time when you can't follow through. Always make things right with people. You can have the best presentation but if you're not walking the talk you won't have the credibility to build the reputation you want.
There’s lot more to personal branding that we’ve covered here, but this should get you started in the right direction. If you’d like to explore the subject more please contact me - I'd love to discuss it and see what upgrades we can create together.
So how about you?
What enhancements to your personal branding will you make this week?
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Thoughtful Kick Start PodcastBy Jonathan Flaks