Welcome to my latest eNews and a warm welcome to all new subscribers including the lovely women at AMP who attended my presentation on personal branding.

Personal branding is not only your personality, presence and personal style but it is also how you promote yourself. Corporate executives may need to increase communication and promote themselves to clients, in-house personnel and industry peers. Small to big businesses would promote to this audience but also have a much wider target. Learn more in my feature article, part two of Your Brand Communication Plan.

So far in your Brand Plan we have covered. B for brand situation, R for research and A for audience. This month we look at N D P. Didn’t see last month’s newsletter? Take a look here.

Keep shining!

How to Communicate Your Brand to Stand out from the Crowd (Part two)

N is for niche.  What is your market niche or point of difference? How do you stand apart from the rest? A focused brand concentrates on owning one thing in the mind. Volvo is safety. Sure there are lots of other safe cars, but Volvo owns that space. An example of a strong personal brand is Robert Kiyosaki – he is money. Another great personal brand example is the “name tag guy”, Scott Ginsberg who has made a name for himself by wearing a name tag 24/7.

So you need to differentiate yourself from the others. If you are not different or unique and don’t stand out, the only point of difference will be the price and often customers will go for the cheapest price. It does take a while to really work out what your uniqueness is but you do need to be unique, can you identify that?

A short exercise you can do is to ask someone who doesn’t know you or what you do to explain everything they can about you or your business simply by looking at your business card. What do you stand for? Is the personality of your brand coming through? Are you communicating a clear brand?

Desired outcomes. What are your communication objectives?  We all know about goal setting and it’s the same with our brand communication plan.  If we articulate what we’re after then we are more likely to achieve it. But we need to be smart about it. That is specific, measurable, realistic, achievable and timely. Write a thorough statement of what you really want to achieve with as much detail as possible. So it could be: to achieve 50% extra sales by December 30: to achieve 3 print articles in local media by February 2010: to hold a factory tour or open day on November 20 attracting 50 potential customers. A personal objective might be to become regional manager by March 2010 with an increased salary of x dollars.

These are very detailed statements and they have a timeframe around them. The more specific you can be then at the end of your communication campaign you can evaluate and see if you really did achieve what it was that you set out to do.    

P is for Your PR and the tools to use to reach your target. This is the ‘how to do it’ part. Here you detail exactly how you are going to reach your target public with your message to achieve that desired outcome you’ve already set – those smart goals. So what tools are you going to use?

There are hundreds of ways of communicating with your target public. Publicity and sending out a media release is one. Also sponsorships, having open days, or special events; community meetings, shopping centre displays, launches, letter box drops with brochures, networking or volunteering at your company, to name a few. As an example if it is an open day at your factory to achieve 50 new customers, what tools would we use? Perhaps an invitation hand delivered with some sort of gimmick, perhaps some publicity in the local paper, setting up a creative media photo opportunity or sending out a newsletter to current customers. For your desired outcome, list 4 or 5 communication tools or strategies to help reach your objective.

I would love to hear your comments. Visit my blog here.

Shine Communications assists you by providing guidance, education and training to you or your team. We teach valuable impression management skills for career and business growth. Our workshops and keynote topics include:

Personal Branding

Your style was warm, engaging and credible and you delivered excellently to our brief of raising awareness of the importance of image and personal brand in today’s workplace. Participant feedback was very positive with comments like, "Great. Left me wanting more, “a great reminder on how to stand out and show your brand.” Was great to get feedback on how my peers see me.”  R. Walker, Cerebos

Professional Image

Thank you so much for your fabulous presentation last week. I've had really good feedback from many people who attended, and your presentation style really shows your level of expertise. You are certainly dynamic and know how to hold an audience's interest!  G. Ingham, AMP

Business Etiquette

I would recommend this workshop to all business’s wishing to build team focus and present their best to all customers.
F. Cottrell, BusinessCraft

Public Relations Strategies

Great to learn the basics of “Priming the Press” in getting your message out there effortlessly and effectively.
C. Carter, PRIA

Media Skills

The day was a great success and perfectly pitched to the needs of our organisation. You were able to assess exactly where we were in regard to our attitudes and dealings with the media and then crafted an excellent training programme to help us get to where we need to be.  M. Tyne, AMI Montessori

Contact us to find out how you can shine for success.  Call  1300 855 102   

Visit this link to learn more about our complete range of professional development programs.

I commented recently in the media on the best jewellery executive women should wear. Take a look. 

I will be presenting a public workshop on November 25 at AIM Qld. Further details to come but keep an eye on their website