Personal branding will change your career.

It's funny how most advertisers can promote a brand but they can't take care of their promotion. Well and if I tell you that you are a brand? I am talking about personal branding. YOU.

Personal branding is nothing more than just the idea people you know have of you.

I'm going to give you some tips that can change your professional life.

Step #1

Write down your 5 strengths. (Skills & talents)

Step #2

What are the reasons for wanting to promote yourself?

What really excites you there? Write 5 of the primary ones.

Step #3

Write the one thing you would like to achieve?

Have a realistic goal.

Step #4

Write the self-promotional activities that will lead you to success.

Write it step-by-step. (I will help you on this further on)

Step #5

Just do it

PROMOTION MEDIAS/WAYS

# Online:

Youtube / vimeo / twitter / start a well- maintained blog / facebook / slideshare / monthly email update (keep your mails short and catchy) / personal website / online portfolio /

# Offline:

- Speak publicly (workshops, seminars)

- Start having "breakfast" with whomever you can. Can be a long lost colleague or an old client. You'll be surprised what potential opportunities and realizations can arise.

WHAT AND HOW TO SAY IT

Professionalism is about much more than manners. It is about the expectations you set, the standards you maintain, and how make decisions and manage conflicts. Online or offline it's your "tone-of-voice", your "personality" and your "look and feel" that will mark you. Most of the day2day situations you only have one opportunity to get it right sometimes is even just some minutes to get it or loose it.

Let’s start with a simple situation. You are about to interview for a gig, meet a new potential client, or tell someone about your project. Do you have a clear objective of what you want? Sounds simple: You want the work. You want the business. You want someone to be engaged by your work. While these are all noble objectives to have in mind, they are unlikely to help you during the meeting. After some consideration, you may realize that the most important outcome from the meeting is to be remembered. Or maybe you need to address some obvious risks that may concern people? Perhaps you have a few strengths or claims of credibility that you need to get across?

Presenting yourself professionally requires a communications strategy!

Be Notable! Identify the components that differentiate you. How do you stand out amidst the other options? Incorporate the elements that make you unique in your story. Whether it is your introduction or the pitch for your project, make yourself memorable.

Identify your relevant strengths, especially the ones that come from labor-intensive experiences (as these are the most credible). So many artists will pitch a project and fail to even mention their years of apprenticeship with another well-known artist. Put your strengths out there, and share the story behind them.

Do a candid assessment of the risks someone might find in working with you (especially those that are obvious). Then identify the strengths and differentiating characteristics that best minimize the risk. For example: If you’re new on the scene (risk: unprofessional, unreliable), you’ll want to highlight the past projects you’ve been involved with (albeit unrelated) that demonstrate your dependability.

Once you identify the components of your communications strategy, your job is to emphasize them. Every introduction and pitch that you make is an opportunity to put your "communications strategy" to work.

The Presentation Secrets Of Steve Jobs

"A person can have the greatest idea in the world.

But if that person can't convince enough other people,

it doesn't matter" - Gregory Berns

Let's take as example the best of the bests. Steve Jobs.

For him a presentation is composed by 3 parts:

1# Create the story

2# Deliver the experience

3# Refine and rehearse

Take a look at this (not so beautiful ) presentation but full of valuable information.

Where ideas come from?

It’s incredible how many people came to me asking:

“How do you do to have ideas?”

I used to tell them:

“It’s like a small voice that come from no where and whispers in my ear”

In reality I had no idea from where it came from until I start noticing that ideas had a pattern. Every time a campaign came out on TV, outdoors on the street, a conversation we had some days ago or even a joke told during lunchtime were inevitably going to be used in a advertising campaign. Well I tell you no more, just look at the movie I posted and we will continue the conversation.

At this point what I want to tell you is:

“An idea is the combination of old and new elements engraved in your brain”

I am sure at this moment you understand the process. So on this case you can do something about your levels of creativity just by surrounding your self with interesting people, interesting places, interesting TV shows, interesting books, interesting movies, interesting music. In other words: the better your surroundings the better you will be.

Just to make you think:

Have you ever seen a very rich person passing his/hers days surrounded by pour people?

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But let us get practical here.

How can we use/control all this subliminal messages and transform them in an outstanding creative work? There's a technique composed by 5 steps that I want to propose you.

#1 Gather as much raw information as possible.

#2 Chew it over and get your first ideas out of your system

#3 Stop thinking about the subject and let your subconscious go to work.

#4 Be ready for the ideas to flow at any time.

#5 Shape and develop the idea for practical usefulness.

If you are going to use this technique do not stop on the second step (where most creative people stop because "there’s no time to chew what so ever". If you have that problem I propose you to jump between briefs in give time

One last tip:
A creative idea to be impact-full must be “single-minded” & “unexpected”