What is Your Personal Brand?
In many respects, personal effectiveness is part of the High Growth Enterprise Coach’s own personal brand. High Growth Enterprise Coaches are leaders: they are exemplars; they should practice what they preach.
Time to Reflect
What is your personal brand?
What do you represent and stand for?
Developing Your Personal Brand
Many High Growth Enterprise Coaches work independently and therefore they are their own brand. A brand can be considered as the personality that identifies a product, service or company which is codified through a name, a symbol or design such as a logo. Brands are also associated with thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on, that become linked to the brand. There is an experiential aspect to brands.
The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The brand experience is a brand’s action perceived by a person. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people, consisting of all the information and expectations associated with the product or service providing them.
Branding is the process designed to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management.
In the case of most High Growth Enterprise Coaches and small coaching and consulting practices, the coach or consultant is an integral part of the brand. The extent to which a High Growth Enterprise Coach projects their brand, performs as per the brand’s values and behaves in ways consistent with that brand is a reflection of the coach’s personal effectiveness. High Growth Enterprise Coaches need to live and breathe their brand 24/7, in every interaction and communication with clients, network contacts, potential clients and other suppliers.
High Growth Enterprise Coaches can codify their brand in the form of business cards, promotional materials, web sites, social networking sites, sales proposals, their code of ethics and contracting documentation. By far the most important aspect of a High Growth Enterprise Coach’s brand is the result of clients and other people’s experience of interacting with the coach. The extent to which a client’s experience matches the projected coach’s brand is in part a reflection of the coach’s personal effectiveness.
Consistency is the key to effective branding and especially personal branding.
This means:
- Having a clear, unambiguous vision of what you are trying to achieve
- Having a clear, realistic plan to achieve your objectives
- Implementing plans to achieve objectives
- Developing the knowledge, skills and competences to be able to achieve objectives
- Communicating with other people ensuring a shared understanding
- Negotiating with other people to agree plans and objectives
- Honouring commitments and promises made to others
- Informing other people of progress and delays in honouring promises and commitments
- Balancing your time and resources to achieve planned outcomes and objectives
- Taking time to plan and reflect upon your own performance
- Identifying and implementing improvements to the way you work and operate
- Taking into account the needs of others when making decisions
- Taking ownership and responsibility for making things happen
- Behaving in a way that is true to your own values and beliefs
- Taking ownership for mistakes and errors
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