Учебное пособие: English in business

Keeny, Howard Raiffa, Aid M.Hayashi, Harvard Business School Press, ISBN 978-57851-557-

Unit 4

PERSONAL BRANDING. A BRAND NEW YOU

1 Before you read the article, take a few minutes to think and say what the word ‘brand’ means. Give examples of your own.

2 Read the first part of the article.

PART I

I Companies invest an enormous amount of time to develop, promote and sustain their corporate brands. Think of Coca-Cola, Apple, BMW or McDonalds. Branding is a powerful way to shape customer perceptions of products or services and to influence their buying behaviour. So, if branding works for companies, why can't it work for you as an individual? Personal branding uses key corporate principles and practices to enable individuals to manage their image in the workplace. Before you read on, take a few minutes to think about the following questions. Then compare your answers to the comments in the article.

■Why do you need a personal brand ?

■What steps should you follow to create such a brand?

■What channels can you use to communicate your personal brand?

■What role does culture play in personal branding?

■Why do you need a personal brand?

II On the history of branding

The origin of the term "personal branding" is often traced back to a 1997 article, "The Brand Called You", by Tom Peters, one of the world's leading business experts box, He said that everyone has a personal brand, whether they like it or not. Peters defined brand primarily as what other people think about us — the ideas and associations we stimulate in their minds by the way we look, sound and behave.

Some aspects of our brand will be positive, others negative. Yet most of the time, we don't think about managing how people experience us. Peters believed it was time for individuals to take control of their personal brand in the workplace and to market themselves more consciously.

Peters argued that flatter corporate structures were making career development more problematic. Automatic promotions up the organizational ladder were be coming a thing of the past. Instead, individuals needed to promote themselves by defining and communicating their unique selling proposition (USP) .

Some benefits of personal branding

· Greater visibility and opportunities for promotion

· Better working partnerships inside your company

· Higher salary

· The ability to attract and retain more customers

· Greater self-confidence

· Clearer focus on what really matters for you at work

III Creating a personal brand

It will be easier to create an effective personal brand if you follow these three key steps:

a) Define your personal brand vision. When was the last time you thought about what you want to achieve at work over the next three, five or ten years? Ask yourself questions both about specific career objectives (What do I want to become? How much do I want to earn?) and about general professional objectives (What kind of leader do I want be? What kind of team do I want to work in?). This process enables you to devote the appropriate amount of energy to the right areas and also plan to reach meaningful career goals.

b) Define your personal brand. The second step is to define a unique and impressive professional brand. Start by creating a short statement of who you are: the values you represent, your key qualities, and what makes you unique. Tom Peters suggests that your uniqueness include not only general personality descriptions, but also four key aspects of working life: your vision and style as a leader; what makes you special as a team member; your technical expertise : and your ability to help deliver results. Think about your own uniqueness by answering the following questions. You will find some useful examples of language to answer these questions, see the survival guide section.

Leadership vision

· What inspires and motivates you?