This article is the prelude to my Personal Branding in (less) than 5 Minutes series. There is nothing more to add, have fun watching the first episodes.
Finally the time has come. My concept “Personal Branding in (less) than 5 Minutes” can go to the start. Next week the first short videos will be ready for the start. This summer I took a closer look at some approaches to personal branding and discovered some convictions that I personally do not share.
For me, the performance or the offerings of a person are still the most important element of a personal brand. The statement that only the personality counts is a little too short for me. In other words: if you can’t do anything but are a nice guy, you won’t survive as a personal brand in the long run.
Anyone who claims that nowadays you can’t distinguish yourself by your performance or by what you offer hasn’t thought long and hard enough. In my VHB course, I have conducted many interviews with completely different managers, entrepreneurs and artists who convinced me that it is very well possible to stand out from the competition by an extraordinary performance. If you think about your own performance, your skills and competences in a goal-oriented and competitive way, then anything is possible. Take a family doctor as an example. At first glance, a family doctor is like any other, at least as far as professional competence is concerned. A thorough examination alone, where the doctor takes his time, is the exception rather than the rule. But there are only very few family doctors who are able to explain to their patients what they have just diagnosed in a friendly, authoritative manner and not in technical jargon. And if they are also empathetic and gently teach their “customers” certain diagnoses, then you can clearly set yourself apart from other competitors.
What most approaches skilfully leave out is the fact that although anyone can do personal branding, they can’t be successful with it. Why? If you present a comparable service or offer on a website, a LinkedIn or Xing account, and are not prepared to really stand out as a person, you will still be overlooked. In other words: if you are not prepared to stand out clearly and positively from the competition, you can let the whole thing go. Just being conspicuous a little is almost synonymous with not being conspicuous at all. Without a basic knowledge of personality psychology, you won’t get much further with personal branding. A short excursion into classical brand management alone shows its importance in the development of a product and corporate brand. This makes it all the more important to use personality psychology in a personal brand as a tool for convincing external presentation.
Most approaches focus only on the one-time development of a personal brand, not on its continuous improvement. I noticed this myself during the revision of my VHB course. It is designed as a one-time project, which is also in the nature of things. In the course of the last few months I have mainly been concerned with the implementation and further development of a defined personal brand and have discovered that many instruments from my professional past can be used in a targeted manner for my own optimization. In doing so, I have mainly thrown change management methods, such as AIP management, KAIZEN, project management and a few other candidates into my conceptual shaker, thus developing an approach that helps everyone to become better in the long run.
In my concept, I therefore place the performance/offer at the center of a personal brand, spice it up with a good portion of individual and social psychology and marry the result with a permanent improvement approach.
