Brand You! How to market yourself

Marketing yourself  can be a daunting chore which you do for various good reasions, of which the most common ones probably are:  your are looking for a job, you are looking for business or you are looking for a business partner. You are applying for work, offering yourself, your work and your services. You hope to be hired as a valuable and unique professional.

Before rushing through the list of hottest tips of how to market yourself, you can save yourself a lot of effort and frustration if you take your time to think about who that that person is you want to present on the market. How to describe yourself?

What is your brand?

Many successful products and services are branded. Brand convey feelings, values, life style, quality and price. Of course you don’t want to be regarded or treated as a product or a brand. However, we do tend to categorize people just as we categorize products and brands. As such a brand as a useful metaphor which can help us put you in the right category and recognize what makes you unique. Show a brand which we like and which we can remember.

So, what does your brand look like? The answer is not so difficult if you follow the brand metaphor. A brand has purpose and stands for certain values.  What is your purpose? What are your values? What are you up to? Think about your attitude towards work, projects, people, co-workers, bosses, customers, clients. What are they to you? What can you give to them? What is the purpose of your actions, of your work, your business, your relationships? Do you have a life mission? What is important for you when doing a job? What do you want to achieve? Which achievements are the most valuable ones to you and why? How can you achieve them? Which assets (competencies, expertise, skills, talents, resources etc.) can help you? Take a piece of paper and write down answers to these questions as they come into your head. Yes, please do it, I am not offering you a free lunch, you do need to work for it.

If you are done, look at what you have written. If you became carried away and wrote too much, take a text marker and mark the essentials. If you could not come up with anything useful, try to think back into the past, imagine a time where you felt positive, successful, attractive. How would you have answered the questions above back then? Or, if the past does not work for you either, try the future: who would you like to be?

Now it is time to translate all the qualities, values and competencies you found into your communication. Remember the Austrian psychologist Paul Watzlawick who said: “You cannot not communicate”. So, think how everything you usually do can reflect the brand You.

1. Your appearance
   Appearance often is the first impression, and it is a strong means of communication. Considering how quickly we judge others according to their appearance, make sure this matches your brand.  It is this first impression that makes me decide whether I will make an effort to talk to you or not. Do you want to be professional or approachable, casual or formal, assertive or soft? Clothes, colors and make up can change your style completely. While black and blue convey professionalism and task orientation, warm light colors, like a light brown or beige signal openness and trust.
   
   For some of us it is not easy to find the right style. To get inspired check out the links to the right.  A beauty consultant or course may be a good investment in order to get an overview of different clothing styles and find the colors that go best with your type and preference.
2. Talking and listening
   Make the way you talk and listen to others match your brand. Practice a short introduction of yourself, in order to be prepared for the question “ Hi, I’m Phil, and what do you do?”   What would you like others to know about yourself? Would you show your expertise? Would you listen to the other person? How much would you smile?  How would you help others? Which are the topics?
    
   Which are the polite rituals to remember? Politeness and respect are full of magic words that can open doors. And respect is not only words but also silence and space to think and listen. Don’t forget to thank others for their time, sometimes it is appropriate and helps to remember you positively if you do this in writing.
   
   While most of this sounds pretty obvious and natural, sometimes it is not easy if enter new environments and networks, if you find yourself in the middle of a job interview or asked to introduce yourself to a wider audience. Nervousness is normal there, and mental preparation helps. It just helps if you know what you wanted to say. A more structured way to practice speaking in public is Toastmasters, they have clubs all over the world providing a safe space to speak, give and receive feedback. It is also the place to practice your “elevator speech”, the short introduction of who you are and what you are doing .
   
   Whenever it possible and safe, ask for a feedback rather than starting to interpret every reaction yourself. Interviews – formal or informal -  as well as public talks are chances to ask for feedback.
3. Places to go, things to get involved in and people to meet
   Which people would you like to meet? Which people can help you achieve your goals? Whom can you help to achieve their goals? Where can you meet these people? Which people would you like to work with and make business with? What are they doing, where are they going? Choose the right networks, which may be professional, or involved with sports, art, community, church, school or other activities. Show brand You, but don’t show off. Get involved in communities and networks, show how you can help and contribute. You can valuable contributions by listening to others, offering information and advice, by giving a speech or taking over another task. Even pouring out coffee on a charity event may offer interesting conversations and contacts. Getting involved in the board can also be a very powerful marketing tool. Choose the volunteer commitments that best match brand You: your preferences and your strengths.
4. Online presence
   The same is true for your online presence: your website, your blogs, your profiles, your comments.  Where will you meet the people you want to meet? How will you attract the people, who are looking for brand You, to your website? How will you address them with your blogs?
   
   A word of caution: Nowadays it is normal professional practice to check out candidates and business contacts in the web, and an unfavorable online appearance can have unpleasant effects. Design your website in line with brand You, or get some help designing it. Which is the right virtual network for you? With a LinkedIn network you are in the professional camp. Facebook may show a very personal side of you. Make sure your blogs, wallpaper, guestbook, chats and other comments support rather than contradict brand You. If you feel like chatting off your soul with something you would not like a potential employer to see, choose an alias name in these chats. 
5. Application, proposals, advertisements
   The application comes at the end of the list. There is a good reason for it: once you have discovered your brand, know who you are and who you want to be, what your purpose is, what makes you unique and differentiates you from the other candidates and competitors, then it is much easier to find the right jobs to apply for, the companies or customers to approach, the right people to give your resume to. It will also be easier to write your resume, cover letters, proposals and marketing blurbs, if you know what you want to say about yourself.
   
   Another aspect is, of course, not to restrict yourself to talking and writing about yourself but to address your potential employers or business partners. Analyze and research what they are looking for, in their advertisements, on their websites, in their conversations. Make sure you address their keywords and concerns. Offer them your competencies to help them solve their problems and answer their questions. If brand You cannot do this, then that may not be your job.

What if the translation of brand You seems not to work for you, if you feel blocked or unnatural in your conversation, uncomfortable in your clothes, don’t enjoy meeting the people you feel you have to meet? You feel you need to squeeze into your brand to make it fit you? It doesn’t feel like you anymore? Then you are likely not to have designed brand “You” but instead brand “someone else”. This brings up the question: Do you want to be your imperfect but unique “You” or a perfect but indiscernible copy of “someone else”?  Being yourself is the hard way to go and means learning from mistakes and going back to the drawing board several times. Copies may deliver quick benefits, but they won’t work in the long run.

So, make sure brand You is really you, and if you are not sure about it, go back to the questions in the beginning and look for YOU.

Brand You is not a one-off shot but a lifelong project, and of course your brand may need to adapt to new situations, as does every brand, while still retaining its value and uniqueness. Furthermore effective communication needs practice, too. Again, it is not enough to communicate once, communication rather is a process that never stops.