Building your personal brand - lessons we can learn from top influencers

“Who are you and what do you do?” Do you have a concise answer to this question? If no, then he day you will be able to answer this in a crispy way, you will be ensured that you have a tagline for yourself. If you do not find a relevant answer, do not change who you are, but try to know more about who you are?

When it comes to personal branding, you are your own trump card. If you want to be chosen by your potential client, it all depends on you. Your personality should speak who you are. For example, you and Mr. ABC have a good experience in the same kind of industry with the same background, providing almost the same services. But, how can you make sure that the client must prefer you over Mr. ABC? Where is the difference? The difference lies in how you both instantly communicate value to the potential client.

How personal brands communicate differently and how you fascinate the clients is all that will bring you up. Let’s take the example of McDonald’s and Wendy’s story, both fast food burger joints. Wendy’s noticed that McDonald’s always located the best spots for customer convenience. “I’m not in the restaurant business, I’m in the real estate business” – Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s.

So, the point of this example is, does your business make you different? You will most of the times be asked on what is it that you do in your business? And that relates to your personal branding.

Wendy’s and McDonald’s are both known for fast food burgers. But what makes them different from each other:

McDonald’s has a special sauce; Wendy’s have square burgers.

McDonald’s have the golden arches and Wendy’s have the drive through (the very first).

They both have found unique ways to build a brand so that users can identify them in the marketplace and both are known by their differences.

Now, let’s get back to the theme of this post - How do you differentiate yourself from others? How have you built your personal brand?

Before we talk about building your personal brand, let’s start with a simple definition of personal branding.

A personal branding is an ongoing process of how you appear to the world. It is the practice of marketing your own career as a brand. It is the process of knowing yourself before you start building your brand.

Personal branding is becoming a requirement today to create a vision for future. As an entrepreneur, I am always concerned about taking my personal brand to next level. And in this process, I have learned lessons from top influences in the world. These people have set themselves apart and they what it takes to succeed - Personal Branding.

Let’s take a look at these top influencers and the advice they have for personal branding:

Neil Patel - Author, Entrepreneur, Marketer

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Neil Patel has been recognized by the White House as one of the top 100 marketers in the country. Patel is known for his marketing and spending power, but there are other marketing agencies with way more money. So, what keeps Neil Patel different from his competitors? How does he build a highly influential personal brand? - Transparency, an obsession with quality, and his unique case studies on his blogs. His honesty and personal flaws have given him a large audience. He delivers quality content to his readers and never cuts any corners in investing in ebooks and other resources.

Jeff Weiner - CEO of LinkedIn

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As the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner has a constant pull of to-dos. He has successfully built his personal brand, which showcased the progression of his career that he has built today. He is becoming memorable to every individual by staying active on social platforms such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s business model is unique, it holds the idea of individual professionals doing business with their network. Jeff Weiner brought the execution of vision of LinkedIn to new heights. He defined three areas - subscriptions, marketing and advertising that have been helping LinkedIn make money.

Tony Robbins - Entrepreneur, Best-selling Author, Philanthropist and Life coach

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Tony Robbins is a great example of personal branding done right. He has got a kick-ass personal brand. Robbins has created a digital footprint since quite a while to keep us all entertained and inspired. He has become a brand because of his innovation and marketing. Tony Robbins has a strong online presence, which has made people understand him better. He distributed his knowledge by selling out self help seminars. His branding also lies behind his book Unlimited Power that was NY best sellers book. He started doing infomercials and larger seminars and chose to build himself as a brand to touch more lives around the world. And his personal branding strategies continue to grow and give results.

So, what do people know you for? Are you ready to make the difference?

An important building block for a strong personal brand is to make yourself easily available to know things. Your personal brand will be built wisely from a result of thousand of choices. Be the best representation of yourself, connect with your audience and grow a network. 

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