How to Make Bank By Branding You
Learn 5 Easy Ways to Make Bank by Branding You
Developing a personal brand strategy is essential towards career advancement. It’s not just who you know, it is also who knows you! This is why your personal brand is major towards you getting promoted (aka making bank!).
Even before you walk into the office for an interview, your personal brand proceeds you. You want people to say good things about you don’t you? Of course, you do! Here are several tips towards creating a dynamic personal brand strategy.
Know your target market (companies that would benefit from your talents)
This is a critical step. One of the biggest mistakes that people often make is being everything to everyone. Well, you cannot do this which is why I stress knowing your target market. Once you’ve discovered your competitive advantage, research which industries are best suited for your talent. For instance, if you are a fashion designer, you wouldn’t apply for a construction job. You must know which industries complement your competitive advantage in order to successful craft your strategy.
Know how you want to position your brand
Brand positioning is another critical component. How are you marketing yourself? Are you entry-level, mid-level or senior-level? These are just the basics. We can drill deeper down into a category. For example, at the senior level, are you vying for a director, vice president or chairman position? These three different jobs require three different brand positioning strategies. That’s why you cannot be general here because you will get too many jobs that are not great fits. These generalities also waste a lot of your time sifting through these numerous positions.
Develop your pitch
Whether you like it or not, you are always in the business of selling yourself. Developing your pitch is your way to communicate your personal brand strategy. Your pitch should be in between 15–30 seconds long and include these four factors:
- who you are,
- what you do,
- what you are looking for and
- how you can solve a problem
Own yourself and your content
In the 21st century, owning your name domain is essential towards controlling your personal brand strategy; but, there are so many people who don’t own it. You must have your own platform to control what kind of message you want to transmit. Although social media is free, you don’t want to be at the mercy of Twitter, LinkedIn or any other sites to communicate your message. Go to Name.com, Domain.com or GoDaddy.com to search your name. If it is available, then buy it. Next, buy a self-hosted WordPress site not anything with name.wordpress.com! That’s unprofessional but more importantly, WordPress controls your platform. Go to WordPress.org, BlueHost or HostGator for self-hosting sites. There are many others.
I would also recommend that you start blogging on your site. Part of crafting your personal brand strategy is positioning yourself as an expert. Blogging about your professional expertise is a way to get noticed. Create content that supports your brand positioning. Write articles around your competitive advantage. The majority of my articles center around economics, brand management, change management and project management. For example, I publish my articles on my blog first before posting it on LinkedIn and Medium. There are so many people naively posting on LinkedIn who don’t have their own platforms. You cannot control your message when you don’t own yourself. LinkedIn owns all of your copyrights when you publish there first.
Develop a comprehensive brand marketing strategy
In marketing there are 4 Ps : product, price, place and promotion. Here you will create a comprehensive brand marketing strategy in order to capitalize upon all available opportunities. Once you have completed all of the previous tasks, doing this is fairly easy. Here is my 4Ps:
- Product: you
- Price: current or future salary
- Place: Anywhere or your preferred region
- Promotion:
- In-person
- Online: LinkedIn, social media, blog, website, podcasting
You are the product. The price is your current or future salary. If you are going for a promotion, research salaries through sites like Glassdoor.com, so that you aren’t lowballing yourself. You can also look at professional organizations because they keep salary profiles. For place, you can market yourself in a specific region or be open to relocation. Your strategy will change based on this. With promotion, you can sell yourself online as well as in-person. Always have an in-person component because you need to meet real people because it will be they not the computer algorithm that hires you.
Want to learn more about how make a bankable personal brand? From now until June 15, 2018, I am selling my Amazon bestselling Expand Your Personal Brand book and workbook for 99 cents! I truly am a giver and want you to WIN!
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Originally published at carlarjenkins.com on June 5, 2018.
