LEILA KIGHA's BLOG

It all comes down to your brand's unique promise to clients and customers.


In the past, “personal branding” was just a term that was first used by Tom Peters in an article he wrote in 1997. Today, every person is considered their own personal brand. Even if you don’t understand the term yet, your personal brand refers to how others perceive you, how they consider your knowledge and skills and the things that make you unique and different from every other person out there. It's your unique promise of value.

Part of your personal brand is the cumulative perceptions people have about you. It is your reputation, both online and off. It is what makes you one of a kind, even in the midst of all the others who have the same or similar skills. This is what makes people choose you, and only you. Your personal brand is basically your promise.

What does your personal brand promise?

Think of some of the popular brands out there and what their brand promise is. You come to have certain expectations of these brands – Apple, Starbucks, Toyota, McDonald’s, Amazon – and you will surely get disappointed if this “promise” isn’t kept. You already know what you’re going to get when you buy from or obtain the services of these well-known brands.

Ask yourself: What does my personal brand promise to my clients and customers? Why should they hire me and not the other hundred applicants for the job? Why should they buy from me rather than the hundreds of other small businesses out there? Think about what you want to promise to your clients and customers. This is where your personal brand can start.

How do you deliver that promise?

Once you’ve realized your personal brand’s promise, you now have to consider how you’re going to consistently deliver that promise. Consistency is the word here, because if you aren’t going to be consistent, then your promise is nothing.

You can’t give your best one time, and then be mediocre and forgettable the next time. You represent your brand promise by always delivering every single time. Don’t just try your best – do your best. Lady Gaga, for example, is uniquely Lady Gaga. Maybe she has the weirdest sense of fashion, but that’s what you come to expect of her, and she always delivers.

How do you make people remember your promise?

Branding and social marketing are all about visibility and being clear in who you are. To build your brand, you need to promote it by being everywhere. Have a social media presence, create your own website and show up in places where your products or services might be needed. Don’t limit yourself to the online world – target your local community as well. Check out other small businesses that may be in need of the services you’re offering. You never know who your next client or business partner could be.

Also, to help people recall your personal brand and promise, be sure that you have a consistent picture, logo and color scheme on your social media accounts, fliers, newsletter and other promotional content. This will help people associate these things with your brand, so that they will remember you. Think of McDonald’s and their classic "M" logo. Or Starbucks. Or Apple. Each of their brands really holds a promise, and it’s reflected in each of their logos.

Go the extra mile. Be helpful. Live and enjoy what you do. Go to local events related to the industry you’re in. The more you get out there and show off what you really do and what you stand for, the better for your personal brand and for upholding its promise.

Your promise is what makes your personal brand unique.

At the core, it’s your promise that makes your personal brand unique. It is what makes you stand out from the crowd, what makes people buy from you and what makes you get hired. There are many tools available to help you spread the word about your brand, but what’s important is consistently delivering on what your brand has promised.

Be memorable. Find ways to show people what your brand is all about. And even when you succeed and evolve from an individual to a small business brand, always remember that it’s still about you at the core. Your brand is associated with you and no one else. Never forget to consistently keep your personal brand’s promise.

Maria Elena Duron is a brand relationship trainer, national presenter, author and small business marketing coach specializing in helping individuals, teams, businesses and organizations apply the concepts of the book “The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace” in their daily business and interactions with customers. She is editor-in-chief of the Personal Branding Blog.


TAGS: careers money job searching networking
+ More

Maria Elena Duron is a blogger with TheBuzz101 and Appreciation in Business. You can follow her on Twitter @MariaDuron or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Drop the Personal and Professional – You Are One Brand

The pressures of life as well as needs are unavoidable. They are part and parcel of everything we do and everyday life. We face pressures from relationships, society, the work force...

Each of these pressures then produces stress in our lives.
Suicides are increasing at alarming rates. French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre expressed the despair many feel when he wrote, "Now I know, things are entirely what they appear to be, and behind them there is nothing."

Thousands of people feel like Sartre, the clinical psychologist and the high school boy. They feel that life is empty. Overpowered by the idea of "nothingness," they kill themselves or seek escape through drug or alcohol addiction.
Things speak and call out to us from every direction and at every point. There comes a point where we just want to give up and say what will be will be.
That is the purpose of all these pressures; to bring you to a point where you can give up your life life and destiny in the hands of fate.
Two reflections i will like to share with you:

A wise man once said "all the pressures you face in life all have one objective; to question your identity and sense of belonging"Dr Shawn Smith.
He said when you are assured of who you are and most importantly, whose you are, these pressures are mere illusions. When your origin and identity is not based on something or someone greater than yourself, your achievements, your qualifications or wealth, in the day of lack or adversity, you will succumb to the choices pressure will bring to you.
It usually comes with subtle,attractive and even appealing options but all things maybe permissible but not all things are useful or acceptable.
Like a child will wholeheartedly and effortlessly place his confidence and trust in his parents, so we must also in our daily living,place our trust in the higher powers,trusting and knowing that our strength and life derrives from the invisible yet tangible source and it is that source that defines our reactions and response to situations.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them".Albert Einstein
The pressures, circumstances and situations we face are direct or indirect consequences of decisions we made earlier on. These decisions and choices we make guide our actions and these actions are the source of our experiences.
In the midst of a controvertial or urgent situation what will determine the outcome , is the state of mind and consciousness.
The same level of thinking we had when the problem was created cannot be the same level of thinking that will solve the problem.
There must be a paradigm shift in the mind. If the mind set was accurate in the first place, the problem would not have been created.What you believe is a result of what you have consciously accepted as the truth, these beliefs have become the basis on which you react and respond in society and situations, and what you aspouse as belief will inevitably become your experience in time!

Therefore, the pressures we face daily are just consequences of the paradigms we have adopted as a result of what we have believed and accepted as truth and reality.
What are you thinking about your life, job, children,business, colleaugues etc, it will become your experience in time!
"As a man thinketh(believes, acknowledges) in his heart(mind) so is he"

Have you ever looked  back at your life and  felt like you are wasting your time and life?
Have you ever looked at your peers and felt you are the only one left behind in practically everything? Most of your friends are married, have good jobs,have kids,promoted, ride great cars etc
well i have experienced that repeatedly in the past.

I am coming from a week very rich in experience and challenges. Had alot of things i did put into question and alot of new lessons learned.One of such lessons was about the value of  the time of preparation.
When i felt like all my efforts were worthless and not appreciated, and was at the point of almost giving up, a very dear friend reminded me of a statement Dr Shawn Smith made 'preparation time is never wasted time'
This statement opened my eyes to a world of reality i had been taking for granted.

"The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare."Thane Yost

Many of us are caught in the illusion that because we desire to succeed , things are just going to happen over night simply because we desire or we wish and when things don't happen in the days or months ahead we give up and say it didn't work out or it wasn't meant for us.

Well i have news for you only those who spend time preparing will identify and respond to opportunity when they meet one and that will result in manifestation.

We are so impatient that we don't give time to deligently study, research on the projects, plans or dreams we have. We think it surffices to dream big'but like the saying goes " if wishes were horses beggars will ride"!

Preparation time can be considered as incubation, conception or nurturing time. The dreams and projects you have need time to mature and become living entities , first of all in you before you can take it to others. You can only give what you have.This time is usually characterised by somany things, some you can even consider unimportant or a waste of time.But great men are those with a track record of several moments of doing unreasonable things and at the moment of doing them , they had no idea why they did them but those same things years later on became the bedrock of their greatness.

   For sometime now i have been witnessing a good number of events. Events that at every step of the way, needed choices and decisions to be made.What i realised at each occasion is this; good choices were made but somehow these choices when placed on a scale of importance,were not that important and the important things were most often than not religated to the 2nd position.
I began thinking and pondering over this, when it dawned on me,it is an issue of value and priority.Setting priorities in our lives based on our knowledge of what is important,valuable and sacred.

This unfortunately is very rare to find nowadays. We are living in a digital age where everything is within our reach either via the internet, television,phones etc. These media bombard us with options by the second and we are somehow obliged to make or maintain choices continously.This can be very difficult when you are one without a value system based on persuasion as a result of convictions and beliefs. In this situation you will fall for anything attractive in the short run but destructive if you were to pause a moment and think things out.
Many a time,we give less value to the most important things of life and i realised we do this either out of family or peer pressure. The desire to please everyone at the expense of the very things that stand as pillars in our lives. This as i said before is as a result of a lack of consciousness which come by adequate knowledge of that which is important, of value and sacred.
Many have said priorities change everyday as you advance in life, most of the things that were important to you as a single person, become less important when you get married,etc. This is not incorrect but i will say incomplete. There are somethings in our lives that remain priorities, irrespective of our change. These are the kind of priorities we are talking about. Choices that determine the course of our whole life!
For example, becoming a chief executive, getting married,getting promoted do not in anyway mean we stop being polite, kind, hardworking, attentive,respectful towards our parents and mentors, give pride of place and honour to God. A change in attitude and behaviour towards these category of persons and others, first of all indicate misplaced priorities and the effect will be seen in the choices that follow.

In the words of Stephen Covey "the key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities"
It is a conscious decision and choice you make to determine what is important and what is not!

Many may think this applies to individuals only but like Steven Covey says for organisations as well, the bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritized their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life.

A prioritization matrix courtesy of the late Stephen Covey complied by Stever Robbins,can help you figure out your life’s priorities so you don’t waste time on things that don’t matter.
Read on...

We all like to be over-achievers! Someone says, “achieve,” and we jump right to it. We even achieve multiple things at once (I’ll bet you’re reading this while working or eating—am I awesomely psychic, or what?). We make lists of projects we have to do. Then each project becomes a collection of to-do items. We add those to our to-do list. Pretty soon, we have more to-do items than Imelda Marcos has shoes—and Imelda has a lot of shoes.

It’s not easy being her. Imagine being invited to a function. She has a choice of 3,487 pairs of shoes she might wear. How does she decide? Does she organize by color? By how much toe is visible? By number of sequins? My pal Bernice would approve. Or by topological shape? Her boyfriend Melvin would love that. Or how many countries she visited in a given pair? Jet-setting Europa would go wild. It’s too hard a problem. Some theoretical mathematicians speculate solving it will take longer than the lifetime of the universe (just ask Math Dude).

Fortunately, your to-do list is a lot more manageable than Imelda’s closet. Today’s writing is a tribute to the late Steven Covey. He was the author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and he recently passed away. I don’t know if he invented it, but he certainly popularized one way to think about choosing tasks to do. Here are some tips based upon his wisdom:

Urgency and Importance Are Different

Stephen Covey noticed that we decide a to-do is high priority in two different ways. The first is urgency. Something is urgent if it has to be done now for some reason. The dog is running in circles, crossing its legs, making whimpering noises that mean “Take me for a walk or grandma’s antique carpet is goin’ down.” Delay is not an option.

Other to-dos become high priority because they’re important. Sending in your mortgage payment, for example, needs to be done or the bank will repossess your house. Sending in that payment is high priority. (Of course, some banks repossess your house even if you don’t have a mortgage! Banking is FUN!)

Prioritize Using an Urgent/Important Grid

Make your life easier with a 2x2 grid. Label the rows Important and Not Important. Label the vertical columns Urgent and Not Urgent. Finally, label the upper left quadrant 1, the upper right quadrant 2, the lower left quadrant 3, and the lower right quadrant 4. Each quadrant is a different combination of urgent and important.


                                   Urgent Not Urgent

Important I II


Not Important. II. IV


When setting priorities, decide which quadrant your activity belongs in. Then use the quadrant to prioritize the activity.

Quadrant I: Omigosh!

Quadrant I contains the urgent and important. It’s the quadrant of Omigosh-hand-me-the-fire-extinguisher. This stuff needs doing, and it needs doing now. Your top priority will be quadrant I activities. When your wife says “The contractions are two minutes apart,” it’s time to shut down World of Warcraft and head to the hospital. And no, you don’t have time to finish your current campaign first.

Quadrant II: Awesomeness

Quadrant II contains the important-but-not-urgent. It’s the quadrant of Becoming Awesome. Most of the things we need to do to become awesome are important, but not urgent. Typical activities that belong in quadrant II would include doing long-term planning, taking classes, spending time with your husband, wife, or family unit.

Quadrant II is where most personal development activities happen: understanding your deepest values so you can orient your life around them, giving yourself true rest and relaxation so you are in top form, and recaulking the bathtub so the grout doesn’t grow legs and attack you in your sleep.

These are your next priority items, right after quadrant I. Sometimes, these can be even higher priority. If you live your life in quadrant I, always embroiled in urgent emergencies, you must visit quadrant II to create the infrastructure that will handle emergencies before they become urgent. Quadrant II is where you get the highest leverage and biggest boost to your life. It’s where you do prevention, redesign systems, and listen to the Get-it-Done Guy podcast (obviously).

Quadrant II also includes non-work stuff like building friendships, deepening ties with your family, and pursuing spirituality, meaning, and legacy. Those are rarely urgent, but they’re the most important parts of life. Do them now! Don’t wait until they become urgent.

Quadrant III: Social Media

Quadrant III is the quadrant of temptation. These are things that aren’t important, but they sure are urgent. When Bernice gets a bucket of chocolate-covered ice cream bars, I suddenly find myself in a state of near panic. “What if they melt while they’re sitting in the lunch room? I’m pretty sure the freezer isn’t working right. We have to eat these before they melt. It’s absolutely vital!”

Not-quite-emergencies often fall into quadrant III. Like social media. “Someone on Twitter just said our product sucks!!! We have to respond to this before it blows up!” Well isn’t that just a kick in the rubber parts?

It’s urgent! After all, in the 21st century, it’s all about being in conversation with our customers. But is it really important? Say you have 10 million customers and only 20,000 Twitter followers. Of the 20,000, 3 are watching their Twitter feed at the moment, because all the rest are too busy playing World of Warcraft. Doing things that are urgent-but-not-important gives us an adrenaline shot, makes us feel productive, but is actually a waste of time. Make sure your social media is genuinely important to your business by measuring it. Otherwise, social media belongs in quadrant III unless proven otherwise.

Quadrant IV: Time Wasters

The final quadrant is the your-mom-would-know-better quadrant. This is stuff that’s neither urgent nor important. Remember World of Warcraft? Yeah, it’s quadrant IV. Along with Real Housewives, American Idol, and the Twilight movies. Actually, the Twilight movies might even be quadrant V, which is even worse.

Quadrant IV activities should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Some meetings can be quadrant IV. A lot of email is quadrant IV. Posting pictures of kittens on Facebook is neither urgent nor important. And neither is getting stoned and inadvertently eating a wall-hanging after mistaking it for licorice. Next time you feel tempted to do something in quadrant IV, do something useful instead, like recommending the short and useful Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts to all your friends. You’ll strengthen your friendships and do good for the world, all at once.

Look over your to-do list today. Note the quadrant each item falls into. Make your top priorities your quadrant I activities, and do your best to toss in a quadrant II activity or two. Say goodbye to anything in quadrants III or IV. You owe it to yourself to spend your time doing the things that matter!

(Steve Covey's prioritization matrix Courtesy Stever Robbins Podcast "How to proiritize your life")
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!