Yourself as a brand!

In the last few weeks I have been in different sessions sharing vast knowledge in ICT, and to be specific in web technologies whereby training a group of youth on how to design and develop websites. I’m a person who loves all aspect of technology and how it impacts’ positively on people’s lives. I have a keen eye when it comes to programming and design, and I can’t let any learning opportunity pass by.

There’s this lesson which I have been putting a lot of emphasis when it comes to visual communication design, it goes by the name branding. Today I want to share with you different facets of the term branding and how it’s directly or indirectly linked to you.

First and foremost let us look at what is a brand in general terms. “A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business. A brand can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, color combination or slogan. The word brand began simply as a way to tell one person's cattle from another by means of a hot iron stamp. A legally protected brand name is called a trademark. The word brand has continued to evolve to encompass identity - it affects the personality of a product, company or service”. Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand

Then how does the term brand relate to you? Do you know you are a brand in the market called life? And do you realize that you are a unique brand in the market that is called the world. Everybody is a brand and whatever we do, say, wear, drink, dream, achieve etc. are the ingredients that make us good brands or bad ones.

To develop a good personal brand in the two market s (life and the world) you ought to learn a few values of life, below is a sample of a personal brand which if all are combined makes our names for example Joseph or Mary.

• Integrity.
• Honesty.
• Discipline.
• Team player.
• Hardworking.
• Talk less do more.
• Mentor etc.

Come to think about it, do you know why other people succeed or fail in life? There might be other reasons but one of them comes from the history of the types of brand (life values) inculcated in us from childhood. Many of us carry brands that are either easy to sell or hard to even introduce in the markets.

What I mean here, being a brand of life our behaviors influences how other people sees us as either good brands or bad ones (what we called the public image). Everyone has a chance to change or choose, that is if we realize what is made of our brands and try to market it to even greater scales to be called a leader of the entire world. We can choose to live on the positive side of making our brands outstanding by adding virtues that can get us promotions or other opportunities.

The word brand in this article is being used hypothetically for you the reader to see yourself as either a product which if introduced to the market (look at your personal qualities as a brand) can influences, inspire and motivate many people through good virtues.

I’m using the term brand in reference to support my ideas of how youth needs to identify themselves with positive ventures that would lead to them succeeding in life because a good name is made out of your public image (reference: My late mum) that is how people, community, world etc. sees you and what impact or relations do you have with them.

This shouldn’t be confused by anything like trying to discriminate or segregate a particular group of people, but it is used in reference to self awareness and understanding the potentials that you have to improve your chances of succeeding in this competitive world of lots of skills and talents .

Look at yourself inwardly and see yourself as a brand that is ready to impact positively in the markets (life and world) by influencing positive change by understanding your strengths and areas of improvements to make a better person in life. What you need to know our personal brands aren’t static they are dynamic, as time goes by we learn new things in life from the way we see things , act or react to situation etc, and that’s why you need to always put your best foot forward to stay on course and present the best of your brand.