Personal Branding – What do you want to achieve?

We’re entering the third and final stage of your Personal Brand‘s foundation, after establishing who you are and how you are perceived: having a clear understanding of your goals.

Allow me to quote Laurence J. Peter, Canadian academic and writer, author of The Peter Principle: Why things always go wrong.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”

Let’s try to end-up where we intend to by answering that simple question: what do you want to achieve?

The answer should be covering three different marketing levels:

1. Your sector
What are your products or services? You know where you excel and where you’re recognized. It’s now time to formalize this into a product/service offer. Once you know what you have to sell, you’ll be able to identify how to market it. Which takes us to our second point…

2. Your market
I will never emphasize enough how important it is to clearly identify the right target audience for your brand. If you feel that “everyone” could use your product/service, then I would highly recommend to rethink your offer. Bigger audience is not necessarily better and will not necessarily conduct to more business/work/dates opportunities. Once you know who your target audience(s) is, you’ll be able to figure out how to talk to it. Which takes us to our third point and down the road to the whole purpose of that series.

3. Your style
In French we say “On n’attire pas les mouches avec du vinaigre” (One doesn’t catch flies with vinegar). Plan your communication to be clear and consistent; and most importantly to reflect your identity and the expectations of your audiences.

At the end of that exercise you should have an idea of what you have to market, to whom and what your personal flavor will be. You are now ready to jump into the creative process and create your brand. Stay tuned for our advice on the best way to do so.