This document provides a guide to personal branding in 3 sections - What, Why, and How. It defines a personal brand as a promise that communicates your identity, values, personality and expertise. Developing a strong personal brand is important in today's changing career landscape as it allows you to stand out from competitors and control how others perceive you. To brand yourself, you must figure out your core identity, what your goals and dreams are, then develop a story and strategies to authentically and compellingly communicate your brand to others.

1. The Little
BrandMe
Guide

2. WHAT WHY HOW
What is a personal brand?
Why should I brand myself?
How can I brand myself?

3. The basic idea of this little guidebook is that a
personal brand is an important asset in
establishing trust, creating value and
directing your life towards your dreams.
This guide will go through the three most
important questions in personal branding:
what, why and how.
What a personal brand is, why it is important
and how a personal brand can be built.

4. What is a
personalbrand?

5. PROMISE
A promiseof what you have to offer.
A promiseof what extra you have to
give.
Apromiseof what makes you the best in
what you do.
A promise of what you are.

6. SOUL
Your brand is your identity – what you
are. It is your values, your
personality, your expertise, and the
qualities that make you unique among
your competitors. It is the beauty of your
soul with the ambition of your heart.

7. FACE
Your brand is your identity
communicated outwards. Your brand is
your reputation – the image being
created in your constituencies minds’
when they hear your name.

8. Your brand should show the best
of you... and only you. Your unique
brand should be sincere, because
it is a promise you have to keep.

9. Why should I brand
myself?

10. In the modern society life has
traditionally followed a pattern clearly
divided into sequential parts: childhood
and play, youth and
studying, adulthood and working, and
pension, but working life is no longer
what it used to be. It is not necessarily a
base for long-term employments and
secured monthly income, but it is
evolving into a postmodern global
networking system.

11. Career is not a ladder anymore, it is a
checkerboard or even a maze. A career is
a portfolio of projects that bring you new
skills, expertise, develop your
capabilities, grow your colleague set, and
force you to constantly reinvent yourself as
a brand. Your career is a life-long path of
professional learning and development of
your professional identity. Personal
branding is not about changing yourself
totally, it is about making more of what you
already are.

12. In this centuryany one of us could do
nearly anything. “What you do might not
be unique. What is unique about you is
who you are.” Developing a strong
personal brand can be the key to rising
above the competition. Through
thorough branding it is possible to build
a public persona that stands for
something powerful, clear and
compelling in the minds of one’s
constituencies.

13. People are judgedon the perceptions
others have about them. Personal
branding is all about perception – how
others perceive you – and personal
branding is about taking control over
the things that affect how you are
perceived.

14. People want to do businesswith people
they feel comfortable with. Even though
employers might rationalize their
decisions by the merits on the
applicants’ CV’s, in the end the
decisions are made on emotional
factors. Employers want to employ
people who they can connect with and
who feel right. A strong and consistent
personal brand can enable connecting
and create the right kind of feeling.

15. We all have a personal brand
already, but it has been created
unintentionally by accident. The key is to
take conscious control over how your
public perception is being crafted by
every single action you do.

16. How can I brand
myself?

17. To build a personal brand you have to
figure out:
What you are.
Why you keep on going.
How you can achieve your dreams.

19. Whatyouare.
What you are is your soul, your identity, the
core of your brand.
It is the untouchable core of you, the base
you can rely on. It is the rock you can build
your success on.
You have it, there it already is. But what you
need to do is to get to know it better. Get
to know yourself better.

20. Ask yourself:
What am I?
What am I like?
What are my values?
What is the best about me?
How am I different from everyone else?

21. Whyyoukeep on going.
Why do you keep on going? Why are
you? Why do you get up in the morning?
It is your dreams. Your ambition. It is what
you fight for. It is what makes you thrive.
It is your mission, it is your goal.

22. Ask yourself:
What is my mission?
What do I fight for?
What do I want to achieve?
Where do I want to be?
What do I want to be?

23. How you can achieve
your dreams.
Now that you have made yourself clear what
you want – choose your weapons. Choose
wisely the ways you will tell your story.
Powerful brands tend to have capturing myths
behind them. Through stories, symbols and
rituals they hold a place in people’s minds. To
establish a brand you must tell a story.
Give your soul a handsome face. Tell; why you
are different, what makes you special. You have
to tell what you promise. What makes you the
best. Be honest. Be faithful to your style.

24. Ask yourself:
What is my story?
How does it go? Is it entertaining? Is it serious?
How should I tell it to keep my listeners
intrigued?
Where should I tell it? In my blog? My CV? In
a video? Should I scream it from a mountain
top? Should I whisper it in someone’s ear?
Should I play it? Write a song about it? Write it
on a thousand post-its? Draw it in the sand?
Color it with watercolors?

25. What ever you choose... How
you will tell your story... How it
will help you get closer to your
dreams, and how it will make
your life a bit more interesting...
Love it. Have fun with it. Find
happiness in it.

26. Write down your personal brand now.

28. Know it. Tell it. Live it.

29. This guide is part of my bachelor’s thesis
”How to brand a person?”.