How often do you follow through on your commitments? If your answer isn’t “all the time”, you need to evaluate your lifestyle and make modifications so you never back out on an agreement.

Trust is a touchstone of success. First of all, you must have self-trust. You must believe in yourself and your talents and abilities and know that you can use them to make great things happen. If you are not confident in yourself, no one else will be, either. When you are self-assertive and proactive, you naturally attract people to you and engage them in your process of goal attainment.

Secondly, and just as importantly, you must have the trust of others. Your word must be as good as gold. If people don’t trust you, they won’t hire you, promote you, buy your products, or use your services. In fact, they won’t want anything to do with you. On the other hand, if your customers and colleagues know they can always count on you, no matter what, their relationships with you will be mutually beneficial, will last, and will strengthen over time.

The way to earn trust is to honor your commitments. Making sure you always follow through on what you promise is a two-fold process:

1. Only make promises you can keep. Never assure a client you can return a project by Friday when you know you won’t be able to deliver until Monday. Saying no—or saying “not now, but later”—is far better than saying yes and falling through. Get to know your working habits, and allow yourself extra time for every project, in case you get caught up in unforeseen snags.

2. Keep your promises. Once you have agreed to do something, do it. If you have to work a few extra hours to complete the assignment, do it. It’s much easier to make up sleep than to rebuild damaged trust. I’m not advocating overworking yourself. On the contrary, you should avoid committing yourself to impossible deadlines and always leave plenty of time to complete your work. However, if you do find yourself in a situation in which you might have to let the customer down, I strongly encourage you to do everything possible to avoid that.

If you absolutely cannot deliver as promised, be open with the customer. Ask her if she can give you an extension. You don’t need to give her all the details of your stressful week, and you certainly shouldn’t make up false excuses. You can simply tell her you haven’t managed to complete the assignment yet and request a little more time. While this solution is not ideal, it is honest and open, and much better than simply running past the deadline with no explanation.

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You goal in personal branding is to get your target market to see you as the preferred choice. You can do this by telling the world what you do differently from everyone else and why that difference is better.  Sounds simple, right?  You tell everyone why you are different and then you get them to see that difference as being better than what your competition has to offer.  Making the promise –articulating the difference – is only half of the bargain.  You must deliver on that promise – each and every time.  Don’t write checks you can’t cash. 

There are five things to remember as you begin the process of developing your personal brand.  They are:

1. You are what you are.  Popeye would be proud.  Any time you represent yourself to be something that you are not; you run the risk of losing a customer forever.  I can guarantee that you have some great qualities that can position you as different and valuable. You must be honest with your customers – and with yourself.
2. Consistency is critical.  People must be able to count on you.  This is true no matter what your business or your relationship with other people in life. If you want to impress your boss don’t complete an assignment early one time. Complete your assignments early every time.  The boss will know that you are the person to go to if she must have the critical project completed on time.
3. There are no “do-overs”.  First impressions are critical.  You can’t take back something you said to a customer.  Everything is on the record.  You should be yourself, but always remember that your reputation takes a lifetime to build and just a few minutes to destroy.  Follow the golden rule in every interaction; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.  No one every truly wins an argument with a customer.
4. Clarity is a gift. Too many people use complex language to appear intelligent.  This just ends up confusing people.  Often it can make the speaker seem pompous and condescending.  Keep every interaction and every point of contact clear and simple. Be transparent.  Communicate simply and directly.
5. Show don’t Tell.  If you explain something to a person, they may get it intellectually.  If you tell them a story, show a picture or do a demonstration, they will make an emotional connection to the event, to the experience and ultimately to you.  The more senses (see, hear, smell, taste and touch) you can involve, the stronger your impression will be.

All components of your personal brand strategy should comply with these five rules.  This will help you stay on track as you develop a powerful personal brand.

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A brand is the perception of a product or service in the mind of the consumer. Believe it or not, we all have our own personal brands. Each of our “target audiences” has a perception of us. Sometimes this perception is exactly what we want it to be and sometimes, it is dramatically different.

Companies take great care, and spend millions upon millions of dollars, to influence the perception of their target audience. They conduct sophisticated research studies and test and retest all forms of marketing communications. They craft exactly the right message and precisely select the correct medium to reach a specific audience in the appropriate way.

Does all of this care and dedication make a difference? Absolutely.

We often subscribe to the point of view the marketing professionals want us to believe. In many cases we have no choice. We are bombarded by all types of marketing communications about a product or service. Television commercials, billboards, direct mail brochures, radio ads, magazine and newspaper ads, product placement, celebrity endorsements and sports sponsorships assault us almost every moment of every day. Aggressive public relations professionals are pitching stories right now that will shape tomorrows news. Buzz marketing companies are working over your friends and relatives to get them to recommend their products and service to you. It is no wonder that most kids can name 20 different types of candy but they can’t name five Presidents of the United States. The candy gets better press.

So what does all of this have to do with you and your mission to develop a career of continuous improvement? Well, it has everything to do with it. You need to start managing yourself and your career as a brand. You need to begin to take into consideration the perception of your target audience. You need to make certain that your target audience sees you exactly the way you want them to.

When you look in the mirror you need to like who you are. Most other people are not fortunate enough to benefit from your “inner beauty and greatness”. They make decisions based upon what they see, hear and feel when they interact with you. You deserve to be positioned in the best light.

Mastering how to do this is the difficult part.

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Your personal brand is the way others – your colleagues, your supervisors, and your customers – perceive you. Creating a personal branding message and marketing it is the mechanism by which you manage yourself and your career. Branding is not about you; it’s entirely about your customers. The experience they have when they interact with you – whether via email, the telephone, or in person – forms an impression and creates an expectation in their mind. You want that interaction to be a positive one that leads to future interactions and referrals.

Your goal in personal branding is to get your target market to see you as the preferred choice. As you devise a specific strategy for creating a personal brand, you should differentiate yourself from your competition; position your focused message to your target customers; develop consistent, focused marketing efforts; project credibility; strike an emotional chord; and create strong loyalty.

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