Building Your Own Brand Means Dressing the Part
The idea of working for yourself and of building your own brand from scratch does not need to be an intimidating one. In fact, many take this route in order to create a healthier work-life balance that they can control. The major benefit being that you are no longer working excessive hours multiple days a week with job expectations that just keep getting loftier and loftier. Surprisingly, the number of benefits that you’d enjoy while getting to develop and maintain a brand that you can truly call your own are too many to name, but every successful brand must start with a successful and experienced (looking) creator. That means creating the image of success from the beginning. Before you build the brand, you’ve got to dress the part.
Dress to Succeed
That’s where it all begins. You aren’t putting on that three-piece suit just to impress potential clients or business associates, but to feel confident in yourself and in who you are. Self-image, particularly in what you wear, is intrinsically critical for self-confidence. And when you are confident, you own the room.
So, figure out whether a suit or a pair of jeans makes you feel confident, and get started reaping the benefits of building your own brand:
You Keep the Control
Simply put, you don’t have to be told what to do. Of course, you will still want to take certain steps to preserve a positive image of yourself, be your own public relations firm, but not having to do what a supervisor is telling you to with the other option being losing your job is in and of itself enough for many to prefer taking this route.
This also affects other aspects of your work experience as, when you’re building your own brand, it’s all on you. Although that can increase the amount of pressure in a way, it also tends to reduce pressure because it is in your control. If you succeed, it’s on you. If you fail, it’s on you.
You Get Complete Freedom
You can do and say what you want. Of course, you do need to balance that strategy with taking into account any repercussions of what you’re doing and saying, but there is a calmness that comes with you only needing to answer to yourself. In other words, you get to create the exact image that you want to create of yourself when you build your own brand.
You also enjoy the freedom of working on something that is most likely more in tune to your passion than might be possible when your focus is on improving somebody else’s brand. If your brand is completely or mostly online, you can also enjoy the freedom of working anywhere in the world that has an internet connection that you can use.
The Flexibility, People, the Flexibility
By building your own brand, you can create a corporate culture that allows you to focus on what you want to focus on, work-related and otherwise. You can work wherever you want, whether that entails setting up shop in a specific location or bouncing around from place to place working online. And you can schedule your work hours around your other needs. This can be great for parents who can ensure that they have the time available to do things like go on trips to enjoy their children’s extracurricular activities.
This flexibility can also prove to be a boon health-wise as you can ensure that you only work the number of hours that are necessary to get what you want to get done and that also keeps you from being overworked.
You Get to Build Your Own Brand
Building your own brand means that you are the face of your organization. What you say, how you interact with others and the image that you portray publicly and in private dealings all go into forming this brand identity. These are all factors that play pivotal roles in the income potential of your brand.
But the best benefit is that you can stay true to yourself in building your own brand. If something makes you uncomfortable or goes against your values, don’t do it. This isn’t always possible when you’re working for somebody else.
Building your own brand also allows you to more freely utilize your creativity. In other words, your creative juices won’t get stifled as can often happen in other settings.
Build the Perfect Team for You
You can choose exactly who you work with when you’re building your own brand. You aren’t forced to work with co-workers who you just may not mesh with, and you aren’t required to deal with people who are providing services to you who you do not wish to work with.
In building your own brand, the group of people who you work with is representative of yourself, and you’d have complete control over that. You also know your own strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else, and you can ensure that you work with those who best fill in the gaps that you do have in order to create a better overall brand.
Final Thoughts
Although this seems to be the sole focus in the corporate world, income and income potential are not everything. In fact, income is not even all that important to some once their basic needs are met, and creating your own brand allows you to enjoy a significant amount of non-financial capital. Things like enjoying a healthier schedule and having the freedom to regularly and even constantly travel are more important to many than how much money is in their bank account.
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