ZefZan.com blog

7/23/2014

Creating Your Personal Brand!

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Discussions Include:

Personal branding
Discovering the image of your personal brand
How to overcome perceptions
Creating external value through appearances
Creating a personalized pitch
Difficulties in creating a personal brand
Tips to help create a successful personal brand

The Hangout:

In this week's episode, Creative Chat Café host, Zef Zan, sits down with cohost Lirone Glikman of www.LironeGlikman.com and guest Eric Lopkin of www.ModernObserver.com to discuss "Creating Your Personal Brand!"

The Conversation:

Your Hosts:

ZEF: As a marketer, I often find myself asking the same questions: "Do I fascinate others?" "What is it about me that attracts the attention of others and makes me memorable?" It is in my professional opinion that the answers to these questions go back to who I am as a person and since I am a business owner/marketer, what is my personal brand? When I think of personal branding, I think "What type of impression am I creating and leaving behind?" "How does the world see me?" "Am I valuable to others?" When I speak of creating a personal brand, it is not about changing who you are, but creating more value to who you already are. How does a person start creating a personal brand?

LIRONE: We all have an existing personal brand which is based on what we constantly communicate: what we say, our character, what we love, how we communicate, the topics we find interesting, and more. Also, we all have something to "sell," whether its an idea, a product, or a point of view. Our personal brand and image can contribute to that. In order to find your brand, ask yourself questions:

What would you like others to think about you?
Understand what is your core:

What do you value?
What is your vision?
What is inspiring to you?
Why do you do what you do? What motivates you?
What are your main unique skills and gifts?
What are you good at and comes easily for you?
What do you like to do?
What are your hobbies?
What are you working on?

3. Ask 3 close friends:

What are your 3 main traits?
What is special and unique about you, in their opinion?

Based on all of the answers, highlight the main 3-4 traits, values, or messages that repeat and that you would like to be more related to. Now, start communicating them more often in the words you use and the posts you share.

ZEF: What is the biggest difficulty people face in creating their brand?

ERIC: The biggest difficulty is the fact that you don't have total control over your brand. Your brand is created less by what you say and do, and more by what people see and hear. Their perception becomes your reality.

Meet Zef Here!

LIRONE GLIKMAN
www.LironeGlikman.com

"Lirone Glikman is an energetic business networking coach, blogger and international speaker. She shares her networking knowledge and philosophy in order to help others take control of their lives, reach their goals, succeed, and most importantly, enjoy doing it! She is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and works with audience worldwide."

ERIC LOPKIN
www.ModernObserver.com

"Eric Lopkin is founder of the Modern Observer Professional Services Group, a diversely skilled team of coaches and consultants for various specialties of business, from marketing and communications to economics and management. Eric has developed core principles based on tried and true management techniques, that are combined with technology to create a system that can be applied for success, no matter what size of business it is being applied."

Join us on our Google + community page for more information and advice about this week's topic!

Tips:

Update your brand from time to time. We constantly grow and our goals and mission may change from time to time.
Be genuine. You can never create a successful personal brand if you are trying to create a persona.
Your brand has to be who you really are.
Pay attention to how others perceive you. What you may think of as professional, they may think of as snobby.

Lirone's advice for a creating a well-developed branded pitch:

A pitch is your way of introducing yourself to others. Once they understand the core of what you are, it will provide both of you with a foundation to ask more questions about each others' work. When creating your pitch, you must be sure to:

Keep it short and simple
Make it interesting
Make it structured

There is a formula for a good pitch:

Your full name and what you do (your name and occupation)
Who do you do it for? (your target audience)
The main solution you provide (How does your product/work make someone else's life better? What is the change you provide?)

Here are two tips for an interesting, well-developed pitch:

Start off with a question that is related to what you do and that the answer is YES! A YES will psychologically promise a positive foundation for the talk.

On the third part of the pitch formula, your main solution, provide a real answer but with a twist. Don't say it all so that people will be interested in hearing more.

ZEF'S TIPS FOR DISPLAYING YOUR BRAND:

How are you relatable to what you do?

How are you relatable to others?

I choose appearance as my tip to share with you what I learned from my Image Consultant:

She said "how you look" can often be related to how you truly feel inside
It represents both who you and your brand are
If you want to attract "like-minded" people, then it starts with you!

You have to "wear" the part so that you become relatable!

It's the Law of Attraction!

I am certainly not emphasizing on buying expensive clothes when I say "dress the part;"
it simply means the brand that you have created for yourself, is it relatable to others? If not, you will not build relationships that you want and definitely not close deals!

For more advice on professional, branded appearances, please see before and after images used during the show, referenced below:

Women's Appearance:

Men's Appearance: