3 Keys to Creating a Stand Out Personal Brand

Congratulations! You’ve made the ultimate decision to take charge of your brand and become the CEO of your life and career. This is wonderful and amazing and from my personal experience, you’re about to go on the most adventurous journey of your life. It’ll be fun, scary, exciting, and exhilarating all at the same time. I hope you’re ready.

So what do I do now? You ask.

You commit.

You must commit to taking an active rather than passive role in defining yourself, your life and your future. Before you can develop a successful personal brand, you need to decide what you want. You need to ask and answer questions about who you are, where you are now, and what you want to do with your life and career.

Be Different
The first cardinal rule of branding is, “Be Different.” Copying is imitation. When you copy, you aren’t authentic. You aren’t being you and why not? There is only one you in the world and there would never be another you.

As you work to craft a stand out brand, a “WOW” brand, build your professional identity around who you are and what you can be, not on who you were or what you’ve done in the past. You are so much more than your job title or the company you worked for. You need to find out what’s different about you and your abilities and then bank on it for all its worth.

Make Your Brand Stand Out
When clients come to me to help them create a stand out personal brand, the first thing we do is create what’s called a Personal Style Statement. Your Personal Style Statement is a goal-oriented statement of what you desire for your image and how you’d like to be perceived.

Your Personal Style Statement addresses who you are. It expresses your values and the things you really care about. When you hone in on your goals for your image and translate them into one personal statement, it can rescue you, calm you, and offer you clarity when you feel confused about anything from what clothes to purchase to how to handle a rude co-worker because it’s based on your core values.

When you’re standing in front of your closet deciding what to do with the clothes you already have, your Personal Style Statement can guide you. Certain clothes may no longer relate to the image you want, which you would have articulated in your Personal Style Statement. Your Personal Style Statement is your anchor. It’s motivational and supportive, especially when you want your clothes to reflect who you really are.

3 Keys to Creating Your Personal Style Statement

1) Your Passions.

a. Your passions are the foundation to a secure personal brand. Your passions make up the core of who you are. You don’t have to shout your passions out from the rooftop, but it’s important to become aware of them, even the hidden secret ones. You want to think of passions that elicit a strong emotional response. What moves you? What do you love? What gets you going? Some of you may be out of touch with your passions and re-connecting with your passions is the first step. Exploring your passions shift your awareness away from stereotypical and predictable ways of thinking about your image. In my Style Your Star in 90 Days Program, I provide exercises to help us dig deeper and explore your passions in greater detail.

2) Who Do You Admire

a. Next you’ll want to look outside yourself and think of the people whom you most admire. We all have values which we either move towards or away from. In order to identify what your “move towards” values are, take a closer look at who you admire and why. Those you admire can include public figures, both past and present, and both living and dead. It can be someone in your family, a celebrity, or a close friend.

b. Tap into what you admire about these people and list the qualities on the same piece of paper you wrote down your passions.

3) Identify Qualities

a. To now create your Personal Style Statement, you’ll want to look at the work you’ve done so far, your writings about your passions and the qualities of those you admire. Take a look at the works, or a certain group of words, ideas, or anything you’ve repeated over and over again in your notes and highlight it. Pay attention to words you feel a strong emotional connection to and that spark strong feelings.

b. Depending on how many words are on your list, choose two or three words at most to form a sentence. Examples include:

b.i. I present an image that is classic and creative
b.ii. My personal style is one of warmth and confidence
b.iii. I project a substantial and meaningful image.

You can let the words sit for a few days until you feel inspired to create your Personal Style Statement. It should express the message YOU most wish to convey.

In my Style Your Star in 90 Days Program, I walk my clients step by step on how to do this. We draw on the help of several tools like a trusted dictionary to make sure the words you choose are indeed words you can and want to commit to. We work together to make sure your Personal Style Statement is achievable and realistic. Can it work for your career and your clothes? Will it apply to your relationship/date life and your couch? It won’t make sense to commit to a Personal Style Statement that’s either too difficult or expensive to carry out.

Your Personal Style Statement is the first step to creating a stand out personal brand, a signature style that ROCKS! Everyone has a their own particular threads, their own scenery, their own profiles that have great potential in relation to their image. A tapestry exists within each of you and is waiting to be created.