Vikram is a star maker. He creates a star leader in a person so that they can develop a powerful executive presence, stand out, and build market dominance. He started his journey in 2003 and since then he has spent 20 years decoding the behaviour of star leaders on how they connect, collaborate, and compete with ease. At Coach Vikram, we help leaders with clarity to solve critical problems, drive business value, and succeed in a competitive business environment. Coach Vikram has previously worked with Aditya Birla Group, Asian Paints, Avendus, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company, Bank Of America, BCG, Capgemini, Concept Medical, Continental, DBS, DE Shaw, Eaton, Fresenius-Kabi Oncology, Google, Gyanodaya- Aditya Birla Global Center for Leadership, HDFC Life, J.P.Morgan, KPMG, Mahindra, Marico Innovation Foundation, McKinsey, Lightspeed India Partners, MegaDelta Capital, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, More Retail, Nomura, PwC, Rheo TV, SBI Card, TEDx, True North, UTI AMC, VISA, Young Presidents’ Organization, ZS Associates.
Have you ever asked yourself, why do you know so much about, say, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, or Elon Musk? Even though you have never actually met them or spoken to them, you might know more about them than you know about some of your distant relatives! But, that’s the thing – though there might not have been any direct communication, they sure have spoken to you. They speak to you every day as they make their presence felt through their personal brand.
In today’s technological era, having a strong personal brand lies at the very heart of how a business grows as well as a leader grows. Either by design or by default, everyone has a personal brand. Being skilled and talented helps you with the business, but it is your presence through your personal brand that makes the process easy and fun. Making deliberate choices will bring you great returns in the form of being perceived as credible and powerful
Consider the fast-food giant McDonald’s as an example. They have a cool logo, a multitude of outlets, a variety of products, and more— this business brand for some leaders, would have been enough to build a brand. But not for Chris Kempczinski, the president and CEO of the company. He uses social media to create his unique personal brand. The result? People know him as a visionary, passionate entrepreneur, and trusted leader. He is an example of how a business owner should invest both in their personal brand as well as their business brand because it will always help to grow and expand their business in the long run.
Let’s take a look at 3 solid reasons why you as an entrepreneur need to build a formidable personal brand
Your brand is your introduction to the world as an expert
Most entrepreneurs consider branding to be required only for their business. So, they invest in making a logo, choosing the right colors, fonts, packaging etc. Business brand building helps your product or service differentiate from other products and services. Personal branding on the other hand helps people connect with who you are as a person, entrepreneur, and a leader and why you do what you do.
When you invest in mindfully building your brand, Your story is the one that you tell the world. Yes, you can start with your qualifications, and experience. However, if you want to stand out as a brand, make the time to think about who you are and what you truly care about. The idea is not to make up a story, it is in fact to share as much of your true and authentic self as you are willing to share with the world.
Building your brand helps you connect with the right people
When you start building a personal brand, you gain clarity about how you want to introduce yourself to the world. You also decide who are the people whom you want to share your ideas with, who can be part of your dream team, which groups you want to influence and be influenced by. Your brand—essentially, your identity — is what attracts the clients you want and the kind of teams you want to work with.
Consider where you can engage with your stakeholders. Making a profile on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube creates space for you to make yourself visible and share your story. Once you choose a platform you can reach a bigger yet relevant audience. Attracting users on social media is challenging. However, your chances of gaining more exposure dramatically increase when you develop a clear message and present it to the appropriate audience regularly.
Brand building helps you to stand out from the crowd as exclusive
One way to stand out from the crowd and build your own identity is to reflect on what matters to you. Within and beyond the digital realm, your personal brand influences your business brand and that gets people to see the value in your product or service and trust you enough to buy it from you. People are attracted to leaders who maintain open channels of contact.
Once you draft your message with clarity, you can establish your credibility not only as an expert but as someone interesting and exclusive from the others. This gives people even more of a reason to bring more opportunities to you and want to collaborate with you. Employees, investors, and clients are increasingly interested in getting to know who is behind the product and service before making business decisions.
Being excellent at what you do does not mean people know you for what you do. Thus, to build credibility, investing in your visibility is important. People will form an opinion about you whether you work on building your personal brand or not, you might as well help people make decisions mindfully by becoming intentional about your personal brand.
Immediately Applicable Steps
- Daily, like a star leader, invest 10 minutes on LinkedIn to purposefully design your digital footprint. Create consistent material daily using either blogs, short posts, polls, comments, etc.. Remember, the success of your brand hinges on your capacity for consistency.
- Make a list of people who wish to influence the most and connect with them at least once a month to widen your network.. When meeting new individuals, strive to provide them with something worthwhile or intriguing.
- Invest in grooming to signal to your stakeholders and yourself that you’re in total control of your brand.
Summary
When you search for ‘Steve Jobs’ on Google, you are presented with the entrepreneur’s personal brand first and then his businesses. And, without a doubt, his branding did put Apple on the map and in a league of its own!
What is your story? Who are the right people for you? What makes you stand out?
There has never been a better time to answer those questions. And once you do that, take the leap to let the world in on those answers. In a world that encourages entrepreneurship, your personal brand will help you establish yourself as an expert, connect with your stakeholders, and then exclusively stand out from the crowd. This helps your presence to be perceived as credible and powerful