1. Communicating you brand vision and values

Building a personal brand is not achieved by telling everyone how wonderful you are. You need to communicate your vision and value regularly in business encounters such as presentations, meetings and social conversation. Here are some key aspects you should consider:

a) Leadership vision

Communicate your vision of good leadership, so that your staff can deliver the performance you want.

• For me, good leadership means …

• This organization’s strategy is to …

• What inspires me is …

• My greatest motivation is …

• The future for me is …

b) Team work

Communicate your vision of good teamwork practice.

• My approach to teamwork is …

• The critical success factor is …

• What I always want to see in teams is …

• Teams need to have …

• For me, a team is not a team unless it has …

c) Skills

Communicate your own skills as well as those you admire in others.

Your skills:

• One thing I do know is how to …

• My core competence is …

• Some people say that my particular attribute is to …

Other’s skills:

• One quality I admire in people is …

• The key attribute for firms is …

• A core skill for us all today is …

d) Results

Communicate an attitude to goals that is personally focused, but also highlights the importance of wider goals.

• My goal is to …

• I guarantee that I will deliver …

• My view of ( customer service) is …

• The secret to getting great results is …

• The team has to reach …

• The organization’s objective is to …

2. Differentiating your brand

Positioning is a critical element of brand identity. Differentiating clearly between what you see as right and what you see as wrong is a simple way of distinguishing your personal brand from competition. The following extracts from presentations are examples of the type of approaches and sentences you could use.

Empowerment, not dictatorship: a message about leadership

“I’m not going to stand here and tell you what to do every time something goes wrong. My leadership philosophy is one of empowerment, and not dictatorship. I work with trust, and I work with you, not instead of you.”

Responsibility, not blame: a message about teamwork

“ I don’t like the current atmosphere in the team. There too much focus on finding the person to blame, rather than taking responsibility for putting things right. Responsibility for me is a value that I expect everyone to live by.”

Analyses before action: a message about results

“ I don’t think we should take a decision without having the data. In my view, you can’t get effective performance without sufficient analysis.”

Exercise 3. Look at your unique values and key attributes and write down your personal brand statement, answering these three questions:

• What value you provide (what problem do you solve) • How you do it uniquely (your USPs) • Whom you do it for (your target audience)

. It can be helpful to use adjectives that describe your personality.

Assertive, competitive, conscientious, cooperative, driven, easygoing, flexible, forceful, imaginative, individualistic, organized, outgoing, patient, resourceful, self-assured, self-disciplined, self-sufficient, solution-oriented, time-driven.