Everyone has a personal brand but most people aren’t aware of this and fail to manage their brand strategically. Proactive individuals take control of their personal brand and the message it sends to others. By creating your own distinctive personal brand you can achieve success in your chosen field whether it’s as a leader, in your career, or in your own business.

Effective personal branding is much more than just marketing and promoting yourself. It’s also more than just your image. It has to start from an authentic core and eminate outwards. Your personal brand should be built on your values, strengths, skills and the benefits you bring to others. If you are not branded in this unique way, if you don’t deliver according to your brand promise, and if you focus mainly on selling and promoting yourself, you will be perceived as egocentric and selfish, and your branding will be purely cosmetic.

At Distinctive Branding, we use a personal branding model which helps you to unlock your potential and build a trusted image of yourself that you can project in everything you do. This approach places more emphasis on understanding yourself and the needs of others, meeting those needs while staying true to your values, improving yourself continuously, and realising growth in life based on this personal branding journey. This should be based on your vision, rather than inventing a brand that you would like to be perceived as and to sell this to others. A quote by Martha Graham in her book dance to the piper powerfully describes the uniqueness within each of us:

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”