The Brand Called You "The Ultimate Brand-Building and Business Development Handbook to Transform Anyone Into an Indispensable Personal Brand" By Peter Montoya Published by Personal Branding Press 2003 ISBN 0967450659 278 pages

What is Personal Branding?
Personal Branding is the process that takes your skills, personality and unique characteristics and packages them into a powerful identity that lifts you above the sea of anonymous faces and competitors. Your personal brand is the powerful and clear idea that comes to mind whenever they think of you. It therefore should be positive and should represent what you stand for – the values, abilities and actions that others associate with you. A Personal Brand is an alter ego designed for the purpose of influencing how others perceive you and turning that perception into opportunity. It does this by telling your audience three things: 1) Who you are; 2) What you do; and, 3) What makes you different or how you create value for your target market.

What a Personal Brand Does?
A Personal Brand is all about influence. It influences how people in your target market perceive you. To be effective, your Personal Brand must evoke three basic perceptions in the minds of your target market:

• You are different. Differentiation, or the ability to be seen as new and original, is the most important aspect of Personal Branding.
• You are superior. Your brand must encourage the belief that you are among the best at what you do in some way – faster, providing better service, having the latest technology, and so on. Being seen as a leader in your field is critical to gaining the confidence of people who don’t know you personally.
• You are authentic. Great Personal Brands are “spin-free zones.” Your brand must be built on the truth of who you are, what your strength is, and what you love about your work – and it must communicate this to your market.

Selling Vs. Branding
You’ve encountered old-fashioned salesmanship at one time or another; it’s unavoidable. Whether it is an irritating telemarketing call or the counteroffer of a car salesman, you know the essential truth of selling: It is adversarial. And it is also hard work. That’s the key. Selling is tough and time-consuming. In sales, you chase a customer who may not want to listen, and you make him listen. It’s the business equivalent of capturing and tagging a wild animal. That said, selling is also apparently essential. But it must come at the right point in the business-development process: after your prospect has seen your messages and absorbed your Personal Brand. Successful business owners know a strong Personal Brand does the heavy lifting that selling used to do, leaving them more time to service existing clients.  

Marketing Vs. Branding
Marketing is a single term for the collective activities companies use to generate business: running ad campaigns, conducting demographic research, buying TV commercial time, etc. In a way, marketing is like farming: You’re planting the seeds of customer awareness, to be cultivated and harvested later by salespeople.

Personal Branding Disciplines
The process of Personal Branding actually encompasses every way in which you interact with your clients. Here’s Personal Branding broken into five disciplines:

• Personal Brand Development

          Creation of tools that contain and communicate your Personal Brand 
      without selling, such as brochures, Web sites and logos

• Personal Marketing
• Print and broadcast advertising
• Direct response, mostly direct mail
• Networking
• Outdoor advertising
• Professional and client referrals
• Sales
• Seminars and client events
• Website development and marketing
• Customer Service
• Customer relationship management software

• Public Relations
• Personal Presentation
• Appearance
• Mannerisms
• Speaking

Why Personal Branding is Stronger than Corporate Branding

• We trust people more than corporations. It is very hard to hide when it’s your name on the door – and we know it
• People have more to lose than corporations. Despite what their marketing says, do you think your local phone company cares about losing your business? Since customers often become personal friends, doing business the right way becomes personal.
• People are more accountable than corporations.
• People care more than corporations.

 Positioning
Positioning means staking out a place for yourself in the minds of your target market, so they identify you with a single powerful idea. People sometimes confuse specialization and positioning. Here are the clear differences:

• You specialize independently from your competition, thinking only of what your target market needs. You position yourself in relation to your competitors, trying to occupy a space they don’t.
• Specialization is about the service or value you offer. Positioning is all about the idea your Personal Brand evokes in people’s minds.
• Specialization is about focusing and making yourself different from competitors. Positioning is about “owning” a segment of the market by having your target market identify you with certain product or service before anyone else.

Personal Brochures
For most people, unless you’re a writer, designer or photographer, creating a Personal Brochure is probably an intimidating prospect. Here are some easy steps to doing your own brochure:

• Pick a single attribute. Your objective in developing a Personal Brochure is to convey your Personal Brand in a way that’s not only emotionally affecting, but also clear.
• Map out your personal story. You are your best product, and the Personal Brochure is about selling you.
• Write your story.
• Knockout cover, appealing layout, great photos
• Choose an unusual brochure format or size
• Invest in High-quality printing

Personal Logo
Your logo is a single graphical symbol that represents your Personal Brand. An effective logo tells prospects almost everything they need to know about you. With time and consistency, your logo and your Personal Brand can become synonymous.

Three Reasons You Should Be Online

• Builds Credibility – Your site is a public relations tool, not a sales tool. Its presence establishes you as a real company.
• Captures Leads – If your site has compelling content, useful features and/or furthers your winning, interesting Personal Brand, it’s the perfect tool for capturing visitor information and turning prospects into leads.
• Maintains Relationships – A web site is a platform for you to stay in constant touch with your clients.

Public Relations
PR is the fine art of generating press coverage for yourself. If you can develop a presence in the press, you can get big very fast. PR is fast becoming the most powerful tool for launching any brand, replacing big-budget advertising.

After graduating from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in political science, Peter Montoya went to work for a nationally recognized sales trainer. During the next five years, he lived in 25 major cities and performed over 2,000 training sessions in every industry. Then he was hired by an advertising agency to offer seminars. These seminars focused on a radical new concept: personal branding. When steadily increasing numbers of service professionals began attending these seminars, Peter realized the entire country was begging for a personal branding revolution. Soon, he left to start his own firm - Peter Montoya Inc..

Peter Montoya Inc. has met every conceivable marketing challenge for an impressive collection of clients - with thousands of clients representing every type of profession. Through public seminars and private presentations, Peter educates tens of thousands of professionals yearly. He delivers more than 100 speeches each year and spends half the year on the road interfacing with clients.

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