Having been lucky enough to work across a number of organisations improving sales and marketing alignment, I have heard the statement “they’re buying you” a lot and it’s very true.
So as a sales professional how much do you invest in the value of your own personal brand? Have you ever thought about yourself actually as a brand? Defining your own personal brand can help you understand and even align with brand attributes of the organisation you work for.
It’s also vice versa; with many organisations investing in the development of a key individual’s personal brand to directly benefit its own corporate identity.
A sales professional with a clearly defined personal brand is motivated, has clearer objectives, is relevant in a busy and commodified market and delivers an “on brand” message that only serves to increase success.
After all, you are selling your credibility into a prospective or existing client who can find pretty much anything about you at the click of a button, profile view or Google search. Chances are they have searched and viewed your LinkedIn profile the moment you added the meeting into the calendar.
In short, you already have an active online personal brand. The key question is what choice(s) do you make to develop and manage it?
Here’s 5 things you can do right now to help develop your personal brand:
1. A personal brand audit
Award yourself points for having a social media profile on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus. How up to date/complete are your profiles? Pictures, relevant professional summaries, up to date job role, endorsements, skills and relevant content posts/shares all enhance your credibility amongst your peers, clients and prospects.
Rank your visibility/presence in each social channel out of 10 (or get a colleague to do this for you).
2. Manage your personal brand
Dependant on your score, start making changes quickly or over time and get into the habit of making weekly (eventually daily updates) to your profiles to help build and improve your personal brand. Set yourself some goals, ask yourself what do you want your personal brand to stand for? All of this can drive your next stage of activity.
3. Personal Brand Content Marketing
Content marketing is by now a term your marketing teams will have bounced across a meeting table at some point as a pillar of success. However, time is always an issue in sales, so writing a blog a week is going to be a challenge and a white paper on a given sales process or product may be your content Everest.
So why not find existing content? It needs to be relevant and informative to your audience and quick to share via a smartphone or tablet and helps you be seen as a thought leader. Company news, product updates and industry news all carry value to your peers. Remember, Curation is as effective as Creation.
4. Personal Brand Endorsement – “Loyalty Laddering”
Happy clients are happy for a reason and that is usually because you’re doing a great job of servicing their needs. LinkedIn recommendations from colleagues and clients carry a powerful message to prospects that your personal brand is trusted and respected.
5. Be The Purple Cow.
“The key to success is to find a way to stand out-to be the purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins” – Seth Godin
The best sales professionals are high energy individuals who choose to do something remarkable and get remembered. They focus on long term strategic relationships at various stakeholder levels both within their own organisation and prospective and existing client bases; and continue to perform year upon year.
But above they all else, they have created a personal brand and have the awareness to know that in order to be successful, their brand has to stand out, it has to be the purple cow.
At Salestrong we work closely with groups of sales professionals delivering sales development, training and consultancy programmes that look at presentation skills and delivering great insights along with personal branding to build professional confidence and sales performance.
Talk to us today via info@salestrong.co.uk or 01778 382773 and arrange a consultation to discover how we can help your organisation transform its sales effectiveness.
