THE BRANDING DILEMMA

“PERSONAL BRANDING
is an essential career and reputation management marketing tool that creates a successful, credible identity so that others who view your brand know what your value proposition and ROI is and seek you out—to help you achieve career success and personal life satisfaction.”

– EVELYN SALVADOR

Your Branding Strategist & Marketer

Business & Personal Branding Defined

Vision + Creativity

= Success

“BUSINESS BRANDING
is the intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it’s advertised…Successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer.”

– DAVID OGILVY

“The Father of Advertising” 

WITH BRANDING YOU CAN ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS:

Career and Life Satisfaction

…Working to live, not living to work.

…Doing what you are passionate about.

…Loving what you do so you don’t have to “go to work.”

…Living comfortably even in a tough economy.

…The ability to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

…Success. However you define it.

Creating Your Brand and Positive Online Identity is Key to Your Success.

Keys to Your Success:
A Compelling Brand and
a Positive Online Identity

Before I explain all about branding, let me tell you why I am telling you this and why it’s so important to your success.

Like Business Branding, Personal Branding is essential to achieve (career) success and (personal) growth; but because it is a relatively new concept, people cannot easily associate or identify with it and therefore have difficulty applying it to themselves in order to develop their own unique Personal Brand…the brand called “you.” [And this is so essential in today’s world of work for your future success.]

This is true for two reasons. One because it is difficult for people to relate to themselves as a product (let alone that each of us has features and benefits), and two because they are not used to comparing themselves to others insofar as what they do better than the next person [it is always easier for another person to do this for you (a close friend or relative or a professional skilled in personal branding)] and, as a result, people tend to underestimate their assets and values. Without a value proposition, we cannot properly brand ourselves.

WHY PERSONAL BRANDING IS SO IMPORTANT 

Having a Personal Brand will help you sell yourself to prospective employers and can increase your salary potential. If one underestimates his values, he cannot build his brand because it is based on a value proposition of what you have to offer an employer. He must first know his assets and how they benefit prospective employers. [I will help you do that in Defining Your Brand.]

Once all of your abilities (skills, attributes…whatever they are) are identified and defined, then you can progress to building your brand (starting off with determining all of the benefits related to those assets). But before we do that, we must first genuinely understand the concept of Personal Branding. 

Because this is so essential to all career-minded people today (especially in such a tough economy), I’ve dedicated this page to explaining how branding came about and evolved, so that you can see the purpose it has in your life.

THE HISTORY OF BRANDING

Dating back to 2700 BC (and 1541 to the New World), branding in its original term refers to a “permanent ownership mark” that distinguished one animal from another for purposes of identification by way of a hot iron or freeze branding. It was used as a deterrent to theft and to find lost or stolen animals.

Over the years, these distinguishable icons / symbols became a “readable language” to identify specific livestock brands. A good brand was/is one that is distinctive, simple, and readily recognized.

THE BRANDING CONNECTION

The connection between branding by way of those distinguishable icons and today’s definition of branding has a common thread…to create a brand that can be easily identified and recognized by others. Similarly, Business and Personal Branding do the same thing. Only one attracts consumers, the other prospective employers.

While many understand business branding, the concept of branding insofar as how it applies to themselves as individuals is more difficult because it is harder for us as individuals to ascertain what makes us unique from other like-minded people. That’s where the help of a Personal Branding Strategist and Marketer is essential.

THE BENEFITS OF IDENTIFYING YOUR BRAND

Whether you consciously manage it or not, you already have a brand…you are your own brand…your authentic, unique self. By defining and developing it in writing, presenting it online, and managing it, you convey your brand (your perceived value) to others…the benefits and value proposition you offer. A well-defined brand is sought after and brings opportunities your way.

Developing a strategy that uniquely positions you differently from your competition helps to establish you as an expert and thereby increases your notoriety and builds a solid reputation in your field.

To successfully brand yourself, you must first establish and define what your personal brand identity is, determine the benefits of your assets (features) that help you solve problems within your field, then focus that message on what you stand for (your benefits and value proposition), and repetitively get the word out to others.

      READ HOW TO DEFINE YOUR BRAND

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