If you
cannot sell yourself, why should anyone believe you can sell anything else?
This assignment will require the development of a Personal Brand and a Personal
Brand Portfolio. Everyone is in some fashion selling something. Everyone is
selling an idea or a service or a product that is either their own or something
provided by an employer. The perception of their brand will impact their sales
effectiveness. An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your value
proposition and your brand positioning will be conducted. The analysis should
result in the creation and display of your brand portfolio on the Internet.
Be sure to create a Table of Contents for the
following:
Specifically,
each student is to do the following:
1. Conduct
your own secondary research on the topic of Personal Branding and provide no
more than a one page summary of your research on this topic. I provide you with
some material below but do not limit your investigation of this important topic
to what I am providing to you. This is an emerging topic in the Marketing
profession. It is a cutting-edge topic. You will want to immerse yourself on
this topic so that you too will be on the cutting edge. Do not limit your
secondary research to the materials I am noting below. Go beyond those
materials. This should be about one page in length.
To get you
started, here is what Dr. Hubert Rampersad, an author on the topic, has said
about Personal Branding:
"In
life, as in business, branding is more effective, powerful, and sustainable
than marketing and sales and an effective way to eliminate your competitors.
It’s about influencing others, by creating a brand identity that associates
certain perceptions and feelings with that identity. Branding isn’t just for
companies anymore. There is a new trend called Personal Branding. Successful
Personal Branding entails managing the perceptions effectively and controlling
and influencing how others perceive you and think of you. Having a strong
Personal Brand seems to be a very important asset in today’s online, virtual,
and individual age. It is becoming increasingly essential and is the key to
personal success. It is the positioning strategy behind the world's most
successful people, like Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Donald Trump,
Richard Branson and Bill Gates. It’s therefore important to be your own brand
and to become the CEO of your life. Everyone has a Personal Brand but most
people are not aware of this and do not manage this strategically,
consistently, and effectively. You should take control of your brand and the
message it sends and affect how others perceive you. This will help you to
actively grow and distinguish yourself as an exceptional professional."
Review the
discussion related to the development of a Personal Brand in my book: The
Secret to Getting a Job After College: Marketing Tactics that Turn Degrees into
Dollars. In addition, examine material from Dan Schawbel's websites (he has
many sites). He is one of the most prolific authors on the subject:
An additional
link you will find of interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_branding
2. Develop
key Personal Branding documents (all in word, not in PowerPoint) that help you
develop and describe your Personal Brand.
AT A
MINIMUM:
1.
Create a Vision Statement for
yourself based
on the best practices for developing Vision Statements (you will find these on
the Internet and some of this material is in the book).
2.
After I read your vision statement,
I had better have a very clear and precise understanding of how you see
yourself in the
future and what you think you will want to do in the future. If I do not have that understanding, 10
points out of the 20 points will be deducted.
3.
Create a Skills/Interests grid as
described in my book.
The jobs do not have to be at other companies but can be jobs at your existing
employer if you are currently employed. Note, you must array the jobs so that
there is a clear difference in where each job falls within the four quadrants.
No two jobs can be the same or tied. You need to make a hard decision as to
where the jobs fall within the quadrants so that two jobs do not occupy the
same point within the quadrant. People who have done this exercise find it best
to do this in landscape rather than portrait within word. If you wish, in order
to fit the jobs into the quadrants, you can abbreviate the job titles and below
or on a second page, list the abbreviations along with the full title of the
job. These should be jobs that people who major in what you are majoring in
often aspire to obtain. Limit the jobs to jobs in what you think will be your
chosen profession. Remember, however, while the range of jobs in your chosen
profession is quite broad, not all will be of interest to you and you will not
be skilled to excel in every job in your chosen profession. That is why you are
to place these jobs in the grid on a range from 1 to 10 with regard to your
interest and your skills. See the book
for a more detailed discussion.
4.
Create a Positioning Statement (a version of this often becomes
a summary statement at the top of your resume).
In effect, you should have a statement that indicates who you are and
why you are better than others on some skill or attribute or task or discipline
and you should include the reason why one should believe this statement. It can
begin “one of the few” or “the only” or “a unique combination of” to be sure
that people see you as better than many (not necessarily all) others.
5.
Create a 15 second Elevator
Speech and
include this as a typed speech. You can learn more about how to create an
elevator speech in the book or on the Internet. The elevator speech should be
consistent with your positioning statement and your Vision Statement.
6.
Create a 30 second Elevator
Speech and
include this as a typed speech. You can learn more about how to create an
elevator speech in the book or on the Internet. The elevator speech should be
consistent with your positioning statement and your Vision Statement.
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