Build Your Personal Brand

 

This article is dedicated to all professionals, who are at different levels of professional career and would want to fancy their chance of moving into some other professional careers or even try being self-employed/join an existing business as partner or be part of a start-up as an entrepreneur.

If you think job was hard, less rewarding, and etc. think again, doing business is even harder. Yes, idea of being your own boss is the ultimate reward every individual seeks to achieve in life. At the same time, being in business means, the ultimate boss is not you but the customer, who is going to take your product or services and in return pay you money for your services. But the thrill you get of conceiving an idea, developing the concept, creating your own product or service is the ultimate joy of any business owner or entrepreneur.

When you start the entrepreneurial or business owner journey, the biggest shock you will face in your life is to get the customers to believe in you, your product and/or services. And this is central theme of this article.

Customers (all of us are customers for someone else), only like to deal with people/organizations/service providers whom they trust. Every single moment in our lives we take decisions about our personal life basis this very important factor called “Trust”. This is the most important emotion which helps in our own lives and businesses. And building this “Trust” about yourself as an individual can take years of dedicated and committed effort. Building trust is a continuous process right from your conduct, behaviour, & walking the talk. This is also a process of building “Perception” about yourself over a period of time. In simple analogy we can say, the amount of “Trust” people have on you is the strength of your “Personal Brand”.

While working as an employee, we tend to forget that the designations are basically for the positions we are holding at the point of time. One fine day, those positions may not be relevant or even exist. Imagine a day in future, when the association with the organization is over. From that day, will your perspective customers “Trust” you as an individual or the ex-employee of the organization in which you served? Answer this question for yourself and that may help you to show the true value of your “Personal Brand”.

Famous futurist Gerd Leonhard says, “Spend some time daily in future, and imagine the future.” This will help you to understand, what could be possible future professional engagement you will have either as job, contract, self-employment, entrepreneurship and so on.

 

Basis your imagined future identity, invest in yourself to upskill, and reskill yourself. Because your future customers will be interested to deal with you only if you have the right kind of knowledge in the field of your new profession or business.

Let me give my personal example.

In mid of 2021, I mustered courage to move away from a well-paid corporate career with a reputed British Multinational in the field of Construction Equipment Machinery. When I decided to move out of the corporate career, I was very clear about one thing, that I need to do something other than the field in which I have spent over 22 years. The reason being, by doing something very different from what I have been doing for over two decades will help me to learn about something which I don’t know anything. Of course, the danger is, you start from zero, which can be scary for many. But as they say, if you have the will, you will find a way. Thankfully, I partnered with a family friend, known to each other for nearly a decade and started my journey of being a business owner in the field of Higher Education Consulting. We could do that because both of us and our families trusted each other and our decision. Once I got into the business, I realized that customers will not trust me as an individual, unless I upskill and reskill myself and build my own personal brand. I invested in training programs, online classes, reading books etc. and created my own brand in the next 10 to 12 months.

While I was still working in the corporates, I always tried to keep my conduct good, trusted my teammates, led from front whenever the team felt my need, gave always my 100% in any activity, most importantly always worked with sincerity and honesty. As normal human being, I must admit, I also had my few weaknesses which in the overall context always were overshadowed by the positive attributes to me as a an individual (my personal Brand). When I started my business journey, most of my early customers were my ex-colleagues (of last 22 years), school and college batch mates, my acquittances, ex-customers, and ex-channel partners. They Trusted me because of what they have experienced about me in the past and what they are seeing me now as a professional in the new business. As I enter into the second year of my business ownership journey, my main challenge is how to scale the business every year and in this, each of my existing customers are my brand ambassadors.

So, start investing in building your own Personal Brand today, keeping in mind of your future identity.

If you wish to understand about your Personal Brand and start working on it with my guidance, reach out to me.

Email: sp.mishra@indiacareercentre.com or call: +91 9963300577