Now that you know how to brand yourself online, complete your personal branding strategy with another handy list, this time of suggestions for branding yourself offline in the real world.
It’s all about leaving the best impression.
Reminder: general guidelines
- Show your expertise as much as possible.
- Give people every way to find out about your brand-related successes and achievements without you needing to brag about them.
- Make yourself easy to contact for thoughts and questions via telephone, cellphone, even a snail mail address.
- Help other people in your industry such as bloggers, Twitterers, colleagues, advice seekers, etc.
- Give people a reason to talk about you in a positive way that also matches your brand.
- Follow other people in your industry and anyone else who can teach you how to spread your message.
- Create and apply personal design guidelines that will share the values of your brand and are reusable online and offline.
Your appearance
- Dress for success in whatever field you may be in.
- Corresponding hairstyle
- Confident posture
- Firm handshake
- Gestures you use
- Right vocabulary
- What you actually say to people and how you say it (to the point? Or always diplomatically?)
Where to leave your branding in print
- A personal logo or monogram
- Your handwriting style
- Your signature
- Personal stationery
- Your mailing signature i.e. how you end your letters.
- Your resume or CV
- Portfolios
- Diplomas
- Test scores or grades
- Business cards
- Calling or visiting cards
- Thank you cards
- Event-related cards, such as holiday or condolence cards
- Books you write or contribute towards, such as in a foreword.
- Articles and white papers you publish in newspapers, journals, magazines, circulars, etc.
- Press releases
- Printed reports such as about the impact of recent changes in your industry by government or changes that you’d like to see.
- Posters
- Flyers
- Art
Examples of choices that brand you
- The gadgets you carry.
- The car you drive.
- The brands, companies and people you associate with.
- The medals, trophies and awards you’ve won.
- The medals, trophies and awards you’ve given out.
- The people you admire and how you admire them.
- The people you dislike and how you dislike them.
Opportunities to show your brand
- Information interviews at companies you’d like to impress.
- Out-of-the-box guerrilla actions that grab attention.
- Distribute samples of your work.
- Participate in events and activities where you will be introduced publicly.
- Speak at conferences.
- Throw a press conference if you have something newsworthy to share that’s related to your brand.
- Do radio shows, regular or intermittent appearances, such as interviews.
- Get on TV, also for regular or intermittent appearances.
- Give free advice at business expositions and job fairs.
- Circulate an industry-related petition.
- Give seminars or workshops about a topic you know in depth.
- Participate in as many industry-related networking events that you can.
- Organize networking events for your industry.
- Join local, national and international brand-related communities such as business forums and professional groups.
- If there is no such brand-related community, organize one.
- Volunteer for groups where you are likely to attract the most positive attention.
- Give out A personally-branded version of a free tool that your audience will find useful. Think schwag from conferences. Pens are the most typical example, but magnets, flash lights, keychains with your contact information and personal tagline are also common.
- Use sandwich boards in a busy area. They’re so low tech, they always get heads to turn.
Do you have any other real world branding suggestions that have worked for you?
Author:
Jacob Share, a job search expert, is the creator of JobMob, one of the biggest blogs in the world about finding jobs. Follow him on Twitter for job search tips and humor.
Related posts:
- 50+ Tips to Brand Yourself Online Once you’ve designed your personal brand and have a personal...
- Tips to Develop Your Personal Brand from Michael Port, Marketing Guru The first book I read by Michael Port was Book...
- 4 Personal Branding Tips Learned From Corporations Companies have long understood the power of branding. They spend...
Loading ...
Jacob, phenomenal post right here. It’s a good reminder that offline branding is just as important as online branding.
Brilliant post, Jacob! And an excellent reminder that your brand is “sampled” at every interaction.
One that I remind clients of frequently is even in your outgoing voice message. It’s ‘business as usual’ to leave voice mails for each other and consider that a conversation. So, why waste time and have an outgoing voice message so lame as to say “I’m on the other line or away from my desk” leaving the full on impression that you’re just screening your calls and that you’re “average”. Make those outgoing voice messages work for you. Not with outgoing wisdom quotes (please, who has time for those) but with meaningful information like “I’m with clients until 2 p.m. and am respecting their time by not answering the phone. I’ll check messages right at 2 p.m.”. In those short 15 seconds of an outgoing message like this you have spoken VOLUMES about who you are and given more helpful info that will make you memorable.
Maria, great add- your voicemail message. We’ll have to update the list.
Awesome post, Jacob! I hope to use those tips in my business.
Great post Jacob.
Effective use of Promotional Products can help to make a lasting impression. The right product used effectively attacks the senses in many ways the help to make you, your company, your event or your organization memorable to the recipient. At recognition events, using the right products, even the audience receives an impression that is memorable. When the right one is made, a memorable story can then be told . . .
Echoing the bandwagon, Jacob, you’ve summarized a great collection of branding tips. I’d like to take slight issue with two of them, though:
# The people you admire and how you admire them.
The people you dislike and how you dislike them.
Perhaps the word choice should be “why,” and not “how?” The reasoning is branding is as much about intrinsic values as external actions.If you don’t know WHY you admire someone, the action of HOW you show it won’t flow as smoothly.
Ari, 100% agree that the WHY comes before the HOW. Although this article is mostly a list of applicable tips, your point is worth mentioning in the general guidelines up top. Thanks for pointing out the distinction.
This is an excellent post that will go a long way to enahnce personal brand’s rating. Once again, thank you jacob
Jacob, I haven’t told you this before, but I think it’s great your last name, part of your personal brand, is “Share” — it instantly connects me to thinking about you sharing knowledge like this.
“If there is no such brand-related community, organize one.” is incredibly true. There are missing opportunities where you can stand up and be a leader. It can scary, but indelibly rewarding.
Thanks share! Great name, by the way;-)
I meant of course Share with a capital S!
Thanks Share! Great name by the way;-)
[...] online tools, it’s worth making sure that you have a few offline options in your personal branding arsenal. Even something as simple as having the right business card can [...]
[...] Out of total fairness, I have to mention that Dan has a recent post on his blog called 50+ Tips to Brand Yourself Offline by Jacob Share, which I really enjoyed and put to use almost immediately in my own offline [...]