“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” – Steve Forbes
Pause a while as you read this. Do you believe you are unique and specially made by God? Do you believe that your individuality is next to none? You must wake up daily and profess that you are special. This is a good way to introduce the topic on personal branding.
You can’t be everywhere!
The old saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none”, comes to mind when I talk about specialisation in personal branding. You can’t be everywhere and many things to everyone! I see specialisation as deciding what you want to do and focusing on it.
A typical football team is a good example of specialisation. Each player focuses on a task. Players play as midfielders, strikers, defenders, or goalkeepers. Everyone pays attention to his role to get the desired result. You can’t be a striker and the goalkeeper at the same time.
Specialisation is the way to go when you are setting out in personal branding. You need to start from somewhere and let people know where you are. Unless you are discussing diversification, it is ideal you stick to doing one thing at a time. Let your brand be known for one thing, especially at the beginning stage.
Where do you want to specialise? What do you know how to do? What do you want to be known for? You must take a decision on where you want to begin in your branding journey.
You must be intentional
I started my personal brand 12 years ago, as a sales author, sales training consultant and speaker, who wanted to position as the champion in the art of selling. I was intentional and consistent in pushing out the message of sales to my audience.
Presently, I have written eight significant books. Of these, three are sales books: “The Selling Champion”, “The Art of Selling”, and “The 25 Unbreakable Laws of Sales” – which is the most endorsed and most voluminous sales book by a Nigerian.
I write daily (Daily Motivation) on our online platforms. I have written over 3000 non-academic articles. I took sales talk show to radio, when I started The Selling Champion radio programme, on Radio One, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria. I wrote sales articles on popular magazines online and offline. I started annual sales masterclass for professionals and entrepreneurs. I started Nigeria Sales Conference, the biggest sales conference in Nigeria – that is hosted annually and admission is free!
I am a regular guest on popular TV and radio stations – where I talk about sales and books. I have been hosted on several occasions at orientation camps of National Youth Service Corps where I mentor corps members. I mentor thousands of salesmen and professionals on our professionals’ online platforms. I have trained several sales professionals during in-house training events for their companies. This makes me popular in the midst of the professionals.
I did the work aspect of personal branding because I believe it is the way to go. What are you doing to inscribe your name on the minds of your target audience? You must be intentional. You must do the work – whether you are a personal brand, product brand, service brand, or corporate brand.
Personal branding requires real work and you must be ready to define your path and go all out to achieve your goals.
Brand awareness is about consistency
Personal branding is a process that is unceasing. You must continue to invest the right efforts without giving up. Ensuring brand awareness is a function of being consistent in doing the right things. If you are strategic in your personal branding efforts, you will see the great results. Let’s look at the stages of brand awareness:
The brand recognition stage: This is the first time people see an ad material. They may or may not pay attention to it. But if the communication is consistent, your audience will begin to remember it.
The brand recall stage: Here you remember a company by seeing their branding elements. When you see the “Just Do It” tagline, the brand that will come to your mind is NIKE. It took a lot of consistent efforts to get to this level.
Top of mind awareness stage: Here, the brand is established in the minds of the target audience. The brand becomes talk of the town in the industry! This is where you should be.
Brand preference stage: This is where you move from just being famous to engraving your name in their minds. In positioning, I usually ask the question, how do you change the thought of the little child that the letter ‘‘A’’ is for ant, and not for apple? As we know, over time, teachers have consistently used apple as a word example for letter ‘‘A”. This is a good example of where consistency reinforces brand preference.
You must invest the right efforts within the right audience. You must be strategic, knowing what to do at all times.
Our Annual Masterclass. Register and attend our Annual Masterclass, South East Edition, tagged, The Path To Sales Excellence. Date: Saturday, 3rd August, 2024. Venue: Toscana Hotels, Independence Layout, Enugu. Fee: N65,000. Time:10am -3pm. South West Edition holds at Dover Hotels, 14 Aromire, Street, off Allen Junction, Ikeja – Lagos. Watch this space for details. For enquiries or payment details for South East Edition, please call, 07060559429, 08186086133. www.thesellingchampionconsulting.com.
