Description

If you cannot sell yourself, why should anyone believe you can sell anything else? This assignment will require the development of a Personal Brand and a Personal Brand Portfolio. Everyone is in some fashion selling something. Everyone is selling an idea or a service or a product that is either their own or something provided by an employer. The perception of their brand will impact their sales effectiveness. An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your value proposition and your brand positioning will be conducted. The analysis should result in the creation and display of your brand portfolio on the Internet.

Be sure to create a Table of Contents for the following:

Specifically, each student is to do the following:

1. Conduct your own secondary research on the topic of Personal Branding and provide no more than a one page summary of your research on this topic. I provide you with some material below but do not limit your investigation of this important topic to what I am providing to you. This is an emerging topic in the Marketing profession. It is a cutting-edge topic. You will want to immerse yourself on this topic so that you too will be on the cutting edge. Do not limit your secondary research to the materials I am noting below. Go beyond those materials. This should be about one page in length.

To get you started, here is what Dr. Hubert Rampersad, an author on the topic, has said about Personal Branding:

"In life, as in business, branding is more effective, powerful, and sustainable than marketing and sales and an effective way to eliminate your competitors. It’s about influencing others, by creating a brand identity that associates certain perceptions and feelings with that identity. Branding isn’t just for companies anymore. There is a new trend called Personal Branding. Successful Personal Branding entails managing the perceptions effectively and controlling and influencing how others perceive you and think of you. Having a strong Personal Brand seems to be a very important asset in today’s online, virtual, and individual age. It is becoming increasingly essential and is the key to personal success. It is the positioning strategy behind the world's most successful people, like Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Donald Trump, Richard Branson and Bill Gates. It’s therefore important to be your own brand and to become the CEO of your life. Everyone has a Personal Brand but most people are not aware of this and do not manage this strategically, consistently, and effectively. You should take control of your brand and the message it sends and affect how others perceive you. This will help you to actively grow and distinguish yourself as an exceptional professional."

Review the discussion related to the development of a Personal Brand in my book: The Secret to Getting a Job After College: Marketing Tactics that Turn Degrees into Dollars. In addition, examine material from Dan Schawbel's websites (he has many sites). He is one of the most prolific authors on the subject:

An additional link you will find of interest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_branding

2. Develop key Personal Branding documents (all in word, not in PowerPoint) that help you develop and describe your Personal Brand.

AT A MINIMUM:

1.      Create a Vision Statement for yourself based on the best practices for developing Vision Statements (you will find these on the Internet and some of this material is in the book).

2.      After I read your vision statement, I had better have a very clear and precise understanding of how you see yourself in the future and what you think you will want to do in the future.  If I do not have that understanding, 10 points out of the 20 points will be deducted.

3.      Create a Skills/Interests grid as described in my book. The jobs do not have to be at other companies but can be jobs at your existing employer if you are currently employed. Note, you must array the jobs so that there is a clear difference in where each job falls within the four quadrants. No two jobs can be the same or tied. You need to make a hard decision as to where the jobs fall within the quadrants so that two jobs do not occupy the same point within the quadrant. People who have done this exercise find it best to do this in landscape rather than portrait within word. If you wish, in order to fit the jobs into the quadrants, you can abbreviate the job titles and below or on a second page, list the abbreviations along with the full title of the job. These should be jobs that people who major in what you are majoring in often aspire to obtain. Limit the jobs to jobs in what you think will be your chosen profession. Remember, however, while the range of jobs in your chosen profession is quite broad, not all will be of interest to you and you will not be skilled to excel in every job in your chosen profession. That is why you are to place these jobs in the grid on a range from 1 to 10 with regard to your interest and your skills.  See the book for a more detailed discussion.

4.      Create a Positioning Statement (a version of this often becomes a summary statement at the top of your resume).  In effect, you should have a statement that indicates who you are and why you are better than others on some skill or attribute or task or discipline and you should include the reason why one should believe this statement. It can begin “one of the few” or “the only” or “a unique combination of” to be sure that people see you as better than many (not necessarily all) others.

5.      Create a 15 second Elevator Speech and include this as a typed speech. You can learn more about how to create an elevator speech in the book or on the Internet. The elevator speech should be consistent with your positioning statement and your Vision Statement.

6.      Create a 30 second Elevator Speech and include this as a typed speech. You can learn more about how to create an elevator speech in the book or on the Internet. The elevator speech should be consistent with your positioning statement and your Vision Statement.