THE BLAZINGLY SIMPLE GUIDE TO PERSONAL BRANDING Cultivated management

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHAT IS A PERSONAL BRAND? 3

HOW TO BUILD A STRONG BRAND 7

BUILDING A PLATFORM ON LINKEDIN 19

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER 24

THANKS 25

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WHAT IS A PERSONAL BRAND?

A personal brand is what others expect from you.

It is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. It is a

reputation. It is what you are known for.

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“It's the story you tell people, so they can tell themselves it” – Seth Godin

YOUR BRAND IS ALWAYS INCOMPLETE What people tell themselves about you is always incomplete. It is wrong. It

will never be complete. Your job is to feed people information, behaviours

and results that create a more complete picture or expectation.

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YOU ALREADY HAVE A BRAND Whether you like it or not you already have a brand.

● The person who gets the job done.

● The person who can be relied on always.

● The person who complains.

● The person who is boring.

● The angry one.

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FOCUS ON CHARACTER Your character is what matters. Your character is you. The real you. Your

behaviours (what you do, what you say, results you get, how you talk to

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people) will always drive your brand, so make sure you focus on the right

behaviours.

Don’t feed people information and marketing that you cannot deliver on.

Don’t try to be someone you are not. You will create a discord in their mind.

They will believe one thing, but see another.

Be genuine.

Character (i.e. YOU and YOUR behaviours) are the only thing you can control.

“If you make the effort to do the best of which you’re capable, trying to

improve the situation that exists for you, I think that’s success and I don’t

think others can judge that, and I think that’s like character and

reputation. Your reputation is what you are perceived to be, and your

character is what you actually are, and I think the character is much

more important than what you are perceived to be.” John Wooden –

Basketball Coach

You cannot control what people think or say about you. But you can influence

it by being true to your character.

START NOW The best time to start working on your personal brand is now. Don’t delay.

WHY? Why do you need to work on your character and associated brand? Because a

strong personal brand exerts influence.

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Do you want influence?

● Do you want a pay rise?

● Do you want a promotion?

● Do you want to change the world?

● Do you want investment or funding or sales?

● Do you want emotional support?

● Do you want to start a movement, cause a social change or do

something you strongly believe in?

● Do you want people to listen to you?

● Do you want to lead people?

● Do you want your kids to follow in your footsteps?

We all want to influence someone, for some reason. Make sure your reasons

are just, moral and positive!

As much as you should commit to your workplace, you also need to look after

yourself. It is your job in life to work out what you want, to obtain it and to

protect yourself in the marketplace.

Always be hirable.

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HOW TO BUILD A STRONG BRAND

Building a strong brand is your job. No one else can do it for you.

It must come from you. It must be authentic. It must reflect your character.

Nobody knows you better than you do.

If you build a brand image and don’t deliver on it, you’ll undermine any trust

people may have in you. That’s not what you want. You must deliver on your

brand.

You want people to trust you, believe in you and listen to you.

Photo by Jake Roxen on Unsplash

BE SPECIFIC Get specific about who you are and what you do.

You should be able to complete this short sentence:

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I am _____________________ and I do ________(THIS)_______

● What do you do?

● What can people rely on you for?

● What are you good at?

It’s a hard step to complete. Really hard. It means getting deep insights into

your own unique abilities and then packaging them up into words and

promises (and then delivering on them).

Don’t lie. Don’t make stuff up. Don’t copy what others do. Create your own.

Try not to be everything to everyone. It’s hard to package that up.

I am X and I do THIS.

Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash

Your personal brand is built around what people expect of you.

What can they expect?

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LONG TERM INFLUENCE COMES FROM OUTPUT, NOT CONFIDENCE Daniel Priestley, in his book Entrepreneur Revolution, stated that influence

comes from output, not confidence. I’ve added the “long term” to it.

Short term influence can be built on nothing but hot air, empty promises and

confidence. People are easily fooled into believing empty promises, especially

when that promise is to solve a pressing problem.

The real test of your personal brand is whether you can consistently and

persistently deliver on the promise. Over the long haul do you deliver?

Or are you full of empty promises and hot air?

Trust me, in every industry people build huge salaries and influential

positions from little more than hot air.

Eventually that influence erodes though. It crumbles when nothing is

delivered. It crumbles as people start to question the results, or lack of them.

It will always come undone.

Photo by Rafał Malinowski on Unsplash

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Don’t do this. Don’t promise what you know you cannot deliver.

Take your time. Don’t rush. Build your character and capabilities and tell

people about them. Trust takes time to build, but seconds to destroy.

If you want influence over a long term then produce results. And make the

promise of those results part of your brand.

BUILD GOOD HABITS Habits are hard to change. They are ingrained and natural. They are what we

do.

Your personal brand (and character) is a sum of your habits. It is nothing

more than what you do every day.

If you want to change your character you must change your habits.

The single best way to break a habit is to replace it with another habit.

Photo by Bogdan Dada on Unsplash

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You don’t get fit telling people you are going to get fit. You get fit by building

a habit of doing some exercise.

You don’t become a writer by telling people you are a writer. You become a

writer by building the habit of writing.

You don’t become a great salesperson by reading books and telling people

how to do sales. You become a great salesperson by selling.

Build strong habits that support what you want to achieve. Build strong

habits that lead you to a stronger personal character.

Work out what you want to achieve and build habits to get there. And show

the world the results.

I cannot stress this enough; you must produce. Long term influence comes

from output. Keep producing.

RESULTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES If you get results you should be treated well by your employer. If you are not

treated well, you have options. You can take your results somewhere else.

If no one respects your results then you’re getting the wrong results. Reset,

gain knowledge about what people want and deliver on that.

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SOLVE INTERESTING PROBLEMS Everyone has problems. Your job is to solve them. Find what you’re good at,

find people with problems you can solve and offer to help solve their

problems. Sounds simple, right?

It’s not. It takes time. It requires studying. It requires the confidence to offer

help. Don’t inflict help. Offer it.

If you want a promotion at work find a manager with difficult problems. And

offer to solve them (assuming you have the skills).

If you want to build a new business find someone with a problem and solve

them for them. And tell others who also have that problem.

BUILD ON YOUR STRENGTHS ● What are you good at?

● What are you not so good at?

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We can’t all be excellent at everything. We are all good at some things.

We have strengths and we have weaknesses.

Amplify your strengths. Find work that resonates with your strengths.

Minimise your weaknesses. Find work that doesn’t expose or rely on your

weaknesses – as you’ll never succeed in that line of work.

Sometimes we need to turn a weakness into a strength. Self-discovery,

learning and pushing comfort zones is how to do that.

Photo by Kaleb Nimz on Unsplash

I had a major weakness throughout my teens and twenties. I couldn’t do

public talks or presentations. I would avoid job interviews that required a

presentation. I would go bright red and shake with fear when I stood up to

present. It was a weakness that was holding me back. To overcome this, I

submitted a talk to a conference!

And I learned and practiced and rehearsed. And it worked. I would take the

chance to speak at any event I could, to get experience and share my

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message. I went from Zero to Keynote in 2 years. From never presenting to

groups of people to presenting to 1000+.

BE USEFUL Sounds boring but the key to a long personal brand is usefulness. If you can

remain useful to people you’ll always have a place.

How many times do you meet people clinging to the past, to old tech, to old

ways that no longer work?

To remain useful means you must change, grow and evolve as the world does

too. Keep up to date. Remain relevant. Study.

ADJUST AS YOU GO Do something that builds your brand every day. And adjust. Adapt and

iterate. Take on board feedback, check your results and change course if

needed. Tiny changes every day are better than entire career course

corrections. Adjust your character and brand as you go.

HAVE FUN If you’re not having fun with it, be done with it.

Life is too short to continue doing something that is not fun. Sure, you’ll have

days where you won’t be happy, or the work will be tedious. This is the

nature of life. But over time you should be having more fun days than bad

days.

Fun and humor and energy will resonate through your brand. As will

boredom, unhappiness and lethargy. Which brand would you rather have?

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BE YOURSELF People resonate with people that sound like them. Don’t try to sound like

everyone. Don’t try to be someone you are not. Your audience exists

somewhere. Be authentic and they will find you and you will find them.

There is nothing wrong with being vulnerable and talking about things that

don’t go well. Being vulnerable is to be human. A personal brand only works

if people feel a human is indeed the brand.

Photo by Chris Benson on Unsplash

FIND THINGS THAT DON’T WORK One way to be useful is to find things that don’t work – and then try fixing

them.

These might be things like:

● Processes that don’t work

● Processes that need improving

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● People who should be talking to each other, but don’t

● Problems that managers and leaders have

● Energy that needs bringing to a project

● And many more

Go forth and find things that don’t work.

MAKE OTHERS SUCCESSFUL Important and influential people help others find success.

What do other people need to be successful? Find out and help them.

The more people you help, the better your reputation and brand. You’ll also

build strong loyalty and a powerful network.

NETWORK Your network is your biggest asset. A strong personal brand travels via a

network. The more plugged in to the network you are, the better chance you

have of influencing to achieve your goals.

Networks exist everywhere.

At work, you should find the integrators. These are the people who bring

people together, flow information with ease and are highly regarded as

people who solve problems. Find these people and connect with them.

Ideally, become an integrator.

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Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash

Moving jobs and careers is easier if integrators and people of influence know

who you are. New job openings, team changes and career growth are helped

by building relationships with those who can help you. Sounds very sneaky

but if you are authentic and you’re doing it for the right reasons then people

will appreciate it.

Outside of work you have networks in your local community, your industry,

your country and your global network. Social Media has helped to make

connections across physically tricky terrain possible.

Go forth and connect with authenticity and appreciation. Your network really

is your biggest asset.

LEARN You will achieve little without a focus on learning new things.

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You cannot become a better person without learning new skills.

Find things you want to learn and learn them.

Find things you need to learn and learn them.

The internet has lowered the barrier of learning. It’s entirely possible to learn

a new trade in a very short space of time with trustworthy resources.

Find learning resources that resonate with you and put what you learn into

practice. Reading a book is great, but not if you don’t put anything you read

into practice.

Knowledge is gained by learning and implementing. Not by paraphrasing

what you read. Paraphrasing what you’ve read, with no knowledge to back it

up, is yet another form of influence from confidence, not from output.

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BUILD A PLATFORM ON LINKEDIN

The above is useful advice for building a strong brand. Word of mouth is the

fastest route for success but it also pays to build a solid public platform.

A personal brand must be public for your influence to spread outside of your

organisation with ease.

The following is how to use LinkedIn to drive influence.

Photo by alan gore on Unsplash

LINKEDIN I strongly believe in LinkedIn as a great place to gain influence. In the

business world, it is your business card, CV and social platform all rolled into

one.

It takes a lot of work to build influence on LinkedIn, but a strong LinkedIn

profile means you’ll show up in searches for keywords relating to your

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industry and you’ll have credibility as a professional. The platform is well

populated by buyers, execs, hiring managers, recruiters and potential

customers.

Don’t oversell on it though. Consider it like a megaphone for your personal

brand, but be cautious about how frequently you shout.

UPLOAD A PHOTO Get a decent headshot taken.

Try to be smiling in the photo – a smile says “welcome”.

Don’t look down at the camera either as this often looks aggressive.

Nice, simple, smiling photo. Get a good one and upload it to your profile.

COMPLETE YOUR BIOGRAPHY Add your current and past job descriptions. Make sure the job titles are

complete and include keywords. These will show up in searches and you

want people to click on you. A keyword is nothing more than a word people

will use to search. Think about what searches you want to appear in and add

those keywords to your bio.

Add a description about yourself.

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Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

Add awards and other achievements

The more you achieve in life, the more complete this section will become.

If you have written any books then include those too.

Add your educational achievements also.

UPLOAD CONTENT If you do presentations then add your slides to LinkedIn too. LinkedIn bought

SlideShare some time ago and have integrated it well into the platform.

CONNECT WITH PEOPLE Start building connections. Connect with your work colleagues. Connect with

people you meet at events. Connect with people you previously worked with.

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SHARE UPDATES Share useful information with your audience. Share links, articles and your

own thoughts on the platform. People will appreciate good articles and

powerful insights from you.

CREATE CONTENT Create new and useful content in the form of your own articles! It can be

daunting writing on the platform but it really does work.

Blogging and writing articles is hard. Not something for this guide.

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Don’t try and do all of this at once. It’s too much and it will burn you out.

Take small steps towards getting it all together. Build small habits that help

to grow your personal brand.

For example, why not spend 10 minutes every lunch break updating your

LinkedIn profile? Or connect with a new person every week on LinkedIn? Or

every day build a strong network at work?

Habits are the key to success.

Just list out everything you need to do to grow your brand, everything you

want to learn and everyone who can help you. Start working the list in

whatever way works for you.

The key is to learn. To get better. To iterate. To keep pushing boundaries.

Build your character through constantly producing good work. Your personal

brand will come from this true character.

But remember, your personal brand will always be wrong. How wrong, is

something can influence.

Go forth and produce.

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THANKS

Thank you for reading this far ☺

I do hope this mini guide has been helpful for you. I do try.

You can find out more about Cultivated Management and subscribe to the

weekly newsletter at www.cultivatedmanagement.com

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