How do you make your brand stand out?
What is behind your name?
Branding yourself is one of the hardest things to do.
You can easily pay someone, like me, to promote your product or service. That just takes a few moments of getting to know your immediate wants and needs, setting a budget, and the stroke of your signature on an invoice and check.
Branding yourself is a building block that requires intricate, architectural finesse. It is the most demanding job that requires your lifelong commitment to achieve the pursuit of excellence.
Please do not be surprised to know that it is never too late to recreate your brand.
There are 7 important factors in the calculation of achieving an honorable score.
#1. Choose Your Team Wisely- Surround yourself with the best, the better, and the bosses.
#2. Be A Team Player- True leaders are made from experience, their hard work, and their visions. They are not appointed.
#3. Never Arrive Late To Anything- No exceptions.
#4. Be Absent- Sometimes being absent to achieve a legacy of hard work, honor, and commitment is required. Your brand is closely tied to your legacy. You may not be able to attend every Holiday party, children's recitals, and family vacations. You may even have to miss a funeral. What you must always keep in the forefront of your mind is your end goal. On the road to achieving a brand with a legacy, you must gift yourself your best intentions to be all that you can be.
Once you have done that, your brand will begin to cultivate its own momentum and energy.
#5. Dream- It can promote your brand to heights unknown. Visions will become bigger, wider, and more financially independent. Your dreams will come to fruition. The next thing you know, you will see your name in lights.
#6. Work Your Ass Off- Rest is not for the weary. It is for the weak. Now sleep, that is a true necessity. The early bird gets the worm; but if that bird is tired, remember that the prey is always lurking.
#7. The Truth Shall Set You Free- Though it may sometimes be tempting to take giant steps to market, promote and solidify your emerging brand, perhaps not! Baby steps are not just for babies. They are put in place sometimes to help position you on a rocky path. To protect you from falling down, and not being able to get back up. You may find that the road is less traveled. You may be alone in your pursuit for greatness. There may even be times that the road may seem to end. Do not be discouraged. Slow down, pace yourself and start again.
The 7 steps to achieving the brand of a lifetime are calculated on a scale from 1-7. There is no perfect score, for numbers are simply variables of endless patterns.
I once met a wise man that told me to just watch his feet. The next thing I knew, I saw his name in lights on a scoreboard one Friday night at a Haines City High School football game.
It was hot and humid on the brightly lit field. I began to fan myself aggressively with the football program. All while making obvious mention of how extremely hot it was. The gentleman looked at me and politely said, "I made my name off of this field." He went on to remind me that it was hot, humid, and dark when he played there."
You will never guess what his name was?
Wayne Gandy.
A Haines City High School honor graduate. An Auburn University All American- all while receiving his BS in Finance. A legendary, 1st round NFL player with 200 starting games on record in the NFL, over a 15-year career span. A Sports Color Analyst for ESPN, and now he is affectionately known as The Sports Joc Wayne Gandy.
Hard work does reap rewards.
His brand has become his most successful marketing tool.
Branding yourself first is priceless!
- Angelia Heard
The Marketing and Branding Guru
"If you have seen it done before, I did not do it."