How long does the personal branding process take?
How long does the branding process take in the development of the business or any company and how to achieve it or are there any different ways to achieve the personal branding?
I don't have a marketing or PR background but a company I used to work for introduced a new product line (small business loans) and then hired a sales person dedicated to getting the word out. We had a presence in the market for a specific financial product but not for small business loans; it took about a year of networking, blogging and attending targeted industry conferences for people to begin to think of us with respect to small business lending. Also, you want to make sure you have identified who your target market is and direct all of your attention to that market. As a commercial lender when an applicant business tells me that everyone will buy their produce/service, I know that they have not identified their target market and it will take them must longer to create awareness in the market for their product/service, if at all. You also want to think of who your partners could be to get the word out. Examples of a networking partner for me are financial advisors and insurance agents because my loans often require an assignment of life insurance as collateral. I also recommend you use guerrilla marketing and social media to help you get the word out.
In a single word: forever. Personal branding is an ongoing process. Building a brand can often be the easy part; sustaining that brand is the key. I like to think of a brand as a company's fingerprint: it is the unique set of characteristics, including voice, images, culture, values and mission, that is associated with your company. Changing times will require fluidity with your brand to demonstrate progression. Take the time to clearly identify what your brand represents and ensure that you are projecting those values across platforms.
I don't think that there is really a specific duration for personal branding. It would really depend on how well, how accurately, how effectively,and how quickly you are able to determine and shape or influence how your market perceives you. Although I would think three six months is a good minimum time frame to work on assuming that your branding strategy does work. The first step is getting your public to be familiar with your brand to your public. The second step is gettting your public to be interested in your brand. The third is getting your public to value your brand. How long all this would take, again, depends on how effective your strategy is.
Joe,
You are really asking about the Brand Launching process. and that is about three months. Answering all the questions and preparing the deliverables, and reviewing them, will be a very exciting and revelatory time.
I wish you the very best of luck with your company
Sincerely,
Paul Gourhan
Reputation and brand are interlinked and in my view both require maintenence, so it is an ongoing process.
In my experience, this process is on-going and never quite complete. You do want to have a core framework and unified message fused into all business communications and activity from the get-go. But as circumstances change, staff grows (contracts and grows again!) and the products are used in the marketplace, I think you must be open to finessing elements of your personal brand. Just as you grow and learn from new experiences, your brand will also evolve with the business as it grows.
Mr Joe, Personal Branding is a life long process. When we speak of Personal Branding we are speaking of only one word. It is not that Personal is one word and Branding another. Having said that, it first requires a process of Self Discovery for the Person i.e. Who am I? Only if you know who you are, can you relate with people around you. So a SWOT analysis is required. the person needs to know what are his Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats. The how of it is to first create awareness of this concept, then ask the person to identify his SWOT. Knowing it, is not the end of it. He needs to build his Strengths and connect each Strength with his experience all the time. This means that he continuously needs to be conscious of his strengths because his weakness and other aspects will automatically fade away. He may also need weaknesses, because he is a human being first and not a robot. So through this he develops his own Brand, which is his Identity, his self image, his reputation, and his Character. It also showcases his Attitude. So overall, the person develops his Personal Brand and making it known to others so that they know who he is. Florence MacDonald.
I do not believe life-long brand loyalty exists in business. You must always be in courtship mode when it come to your brand...always seducing customers. On the job market side...the landscape is going to be full of "free agents, so you got to think like one...the cold, often hard truth is that if you are not becoming more and more valuable to your organization by continuously and aggressively upgrading your skills, you are automatically falling behind and widening your financial gap. once you've developed and mastered a skill for your current job, you should always be preparing for your next job. Why?...Because experts say that knowledge doubles every two to three years in almost every occupation. This means that your knowledge must double at the same rate in order for you to just stay in the game. Individuals who are not aggressively and continually upgrading their KSAs are sadly getting left behind, especially in this digital age. If you want to build a strong personal brand and increase your earning potential, commit to lifelong learning.
It depends mostly on What Part of the Customers mind you wish to own...If you read the book Positioning, you will get a good sense of how successful companies brand and achieve their uniqueness...Your branding from my view is your USP Unique Selling Product...with a catchy tag line...
Initially I believe it takes three to five years, but you should also be making constant small adjustments to stay relevant!!
The process takes 6-8 weeks the execution takes a lifetime. You are building your personal brand every day with every encounter. Like your reputation, it can be destroyed with one bad decision so be thoughtful and act wisely. You have a lot at stake.
Good luck,
Paige
I agree with everything most everyone said, but one more bit of advice...whether you know it or not, you already have a brand. You need to find out what that is and ask how it will help or hinder your business before you can improve it. If you have done any business, what your customers would say about you is your brand. If you haven't done business yet, it's what people would say of you.
The process of branding is a never ending task.One has to daily and with patience.One should be clear cut of the goals that are to be attained short term or long term.
Be consistent in your approach and one will make it.
As in any personal transformation work, more will continually be revealed. Like someone below said, it will end when you're no longer alive.
In my business and personal branding work with my clients, I have found that a season — three months — of unmasking and discerning gives a great foundation for implementing the brand in all aspects of your business and marketing. (Which also never ends...as you go, you'll deepen and broaden your ownership of your values, mission, and purpose and keep clarifying your offers to better call into your practice/business the clients you are meant to serve.
I've created a workshop that can get the ball rolling in a month. I've seen it can take anywhere from 1 - 3 months to roll out. However, as Robert says, launching a brand and building a brand are to very different things. Building a branch is a life time experience.
Its totally depends on your home work and planing, so please first you fill following Sagheer business plan :
STEPS:
(0) Market re-search………………………….why?
(1) Market re-search……………………………what?
(2) Market re-search…………………………..How?
(3) Title or name …with respect to name, with respect to business, with respect to location, with respect to era.
(4) Motto…with respect to business.
(5) Dimensions.
(6) Competitor.
(7) Mission Statement.
(8) Vision Statement.
(9) Location……with respect to positive and negative aspects.
(10)Team…………..with portfolio.
(11)Finance……..Fix and Running.
(12)Finance Management……with feasibility report in the form of chart.
(13)Business Formula.
(14)Business Flow…with the help of flow chart.
(15)Mathematical Model of Production…with cost estimation method.
(16)Promotion Strategy ……..with Probability or regression model.
(17)Risk factor…with your weak points (S (strengths) W (weaknesses) O (opportunities) T (threats) Analysis).
(18)Role of Technology.
(19)Growth Graph.
(20)Break Even.
I think personal branding process is too much helpful for any business that's you can easily achieve the targeted goal .
personal branding achievement is no a tough process there are many ways to achieve simply enhance a social engagement to different portals and many other ways you can use..
Dear Joe,
The one word answer to your question is 'Forever...', I guess! At least up to the point where the 'Brand' anticipates to leverage its Brand Equity...! If Creating a Personal Brand is 10% and developing it is 20%, to maintain its positioning for the Brand Life Cycle is 70%...I believe!
If it takes 3 months to create a beginning sales cycle, we'd have to view a sales cycle, that we all know is on a quarter system. Finding the correct market, with your market niche sometimes can take several business or sales cycles. The need or demand for your product or service needs can change, so the question is quite variable. Even a retail item has a shelf life of three years even if it sells well, and then you have to meet a different demand with that product. So the answer in my view is quite variable.
Registration of your mark or brand would be the first step towards branding process of any business after it has been used it in interstate commerce but the brand process per say is a continuous course that will be an integral part of your product's life
Sagheer Ahmed Ahmed ,
Outstanding!
First, it ideally the answer that Joe can best respond: How Long for me!
Second, the outline can be easily transformed into A Project Plan.
Third, for people like me, I can adapt to my Guerrilla marketing tactics.
Thanks so very very much!
Edwin