The Importance of branding yourself

 

The Importance of branding yourself – No, I’m not talking about hot pokers on the skin! More why it is a very good idea

The importance of branding yourselfto create a brand for yourself in this day and age of slick marketing, overwhelming exposure to advertising and prospect apathy.

Of course, salesmanship and marketing is nothing new. it’s been with us for as long as humans have needed other humans to do something. In order to move anything, a product, a service, an idea, a sale has to be made. This is not necessarily via the cold call or hard-sell, strong-arm tactics we associate with the double-glazing salesman.

No. Sales and marketing happens all the time, all around us and is usually much more subtle. It’s the big bag of corn chips next to the DVDs and fizzy drink in the supermarket, it’s the child suggesting that the chocolate at the counter (at child eye height), might be tasty. It’s the husband or wife seeing the picture of a palm backed, sun-drenched beach in the travel agent window and dropping hints. 

The Importance of branding yourself

I once heard it said that a sale is made whenever two or more people collide and one (and usually both or more people) move in a different direction than the one they were going in before-they do something that they weren’t going to do before the encounter (and that includes the seller).

I think that is a beautifully simple explanation. That is really all sales and marketing is set up to do, isn’t it?

We are all used to big corporate brands and the associated big budget TV, radio and magazine advertising, but why is it becoming so important for individuals who want to impart ideas or move a product or service, to create a brand around themselves these days?

The importance of branding yourself comes down to good old trust and relationship. Decades ago, we weren’t as bombarded with marketing messages. Certainly not in so many ways or via so many mediums as we are today. Decades ago, we may have paid more attention to the door to door salesman or the cold call, simply because it was not happening so often.

These days, we are all so overwhelmed with marketing messages that our attention span to messages is often tiny or we block it out completely, not even knowing it was there. So for the marketer, the challenge now more than ever, is to stand out, to be different and in some way relate to the prospective buyer.

In the emerging world of individuals creating brands on the internet, it’s probably more accurate to say that the prospective buyer needs to relate to the marketer. If people can identify with the writer/blogger/marketer, then the chance of an opt-in or sale are immeasurably increased.

In my case, a couple of months ago, I identified with Stuart Ross almost immediately, when I first watched one of his video clips. He happens to live not far from me, he happens to be a similar age and he happens to have been through many things that I have.

What was happening here is that my mind was saying “I feel like I know this person, I can relate to this person and I like this person”.

That I believe, is extremely powerful. If someone feels like they can identify with you, that they feel they like you, then trust and interest in what you might have to offer will usually follow.

I’ve been looking at the various ways we can build a brand for ourselves and therefore have as many people as possible relate and identify with us on the internet. I’ll be sharing some of these techniques in upcoming posts. In the meantime though, explore for yourself, what has to be the best training program available online. Click here to find out how you can avoid a lot of the usual struggles and fast-track your success, when starting to market online and of course, learn the importance of branding yourself!

I’d love to get your feedback and comments on this and future posts, whether you are an experienced online marketer or just starting out. Please feel free to comment below and under any other blog post.

See you soon!

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