In the competitive market place building your own personal brand and your business network is what is going to catapult your career to the next level. Women often make the classic mistake of becoming no-name brands by focusing more on what they do than who they know.

When most business people are asked whether they see themselves as sales people, they shake their heads vigorously as their job description said nothing about selling.

This is the first mindset change that needs to take place in building your own personal brand. Even if you are employed by an organisation, your “sales product” is one hour of your time. You may sell 160 hours per week to one company if you are a full time employee, or if you are self employed you will sell a variety of hours to different organisations. The most important point is that you are the product, selling yourself, and your time every day. If people don’t buy or like you they won’t pursue the relationship and won’t be exposed to you or your company’s services.

Performance theory indicates that on average 45% of people could do the same job as you. Another 45% could perform the job better than you. Where you are unique is in your top 10% - this is where you are in your flow or your “zone” as sports stars call it. Athletes compete in their top 10% zone all the time as it’s what makes them unique and is the edge they have over their competitors.

Your brand needs to be built around your top 10% zone, as it is in that space that you are fulfilling your life’s purpose and doing the work you were meant to do. I studied to be an accountant and I know that I would never have been performing in my top 10% zone dealing with figures all day. I could have ended up being a mediocre accountant but I would never have achieved true success, fulfilment or happiness as I wouldn’t be doing the work I was born to do. Knowing this, my brand then needs to be built around my top 10% zone which is training, consulting and speaking.

• Do you know your strengths?
• Is your career aligned to your “top 10%” zone?

Once you’ve answered those two questions you are in a position to brand yourself and adopt your own personal branding strategy.

The difference between a brand and a product is that a brand is the promise of the benefits the product delivers. A brand conjures up an emotion e.g. Levis makes you think: trendy, hip and happening jeans. No-name brands just don’t engender the same exciting feeling of brand delivery. I don’t think anyone gets uncontrollable urges to rush out and buy no-name apple juice from your local supermarket.

In the same way, careers are not built around no-name brands. To build your personal brand you need to adopt the same marketing principles that are applied to establishing some of the best loved, most popular brands in the world, like Coca Cola and Virgin.

Marketing Principles to build brands
• Packaging
• Promotion
• Price
• Visibility
• Delivery

Implicit in a brand promise of delivery are two important elements, consistency and reliability. Integrity has been defined as when what you think, what you say and what you do are all in a straight line. Brand integrity is when all the marketing elements work together to deliver the brand’s customer experience.

If you are sitting on an aeroplane about to embark on a trip and you see a coffee stain on the tray table, immediately that brand is out of brand integrity as you think to yourself, “What else have they neglected to check?” The aeroplane’s tray table is not consistent with its brand promise.

If you want your personal brand to be one of a professional business women then you would not be in brand integrity if you arrived late at a networking function, feeling flustered, with business cards showcasing your children’s artistic talents! The way you look, act and speak all contribute to the establishment of your brand. That is why I often recommend voice coaching for business women whose ideas aren’t being taken seriously, because their voice may be detracting from their good ideas and they are then not in brand integrity.

It may seem like a contradiction when we say “Be consistent in building your brand but at the same time you also need to be the queen of re-invention.” You may either love or hate Madonna but she is the queen of branding and re-invention. None of her albums sound or look the same. She has changed her appearance and hair colour more times than anyone else I know. She has constantly reinvented, updated and improved herself.

Self investment is one of the best investments you can make in building your personal brand. If you still have the same hairstyle, skill set or job description that you had five years ago, it’s time to re-invent your brand. Go for coaching, update your image, study further or acquire that new skill.
I was at a blue chip organisation recently when the woman I was meeting with had just received notification that she had been awarded a multi-million rand deal that she had been working on for a year. She was over the moon with excitement. The CEO of the organisation walked down the passageway and I said to her “Go and tell him the good news.”

She suddenly transformed from a confident self-assured business woman to a shy embarrassed little girl who replied “Oh no, he’ll hear the news from my boss.” This is a classic business mistake - don’t entrust the building of your brand to someone else.

To be successful brands need to be visible, and that’s where networking becomes vitally important. Networking is the method of raising the visibility of your own personal brand.

About the author: Helen Nicholson studied to be an Accountant at Wits University and has evolved into a passionate entrepreneur. Helen specialises in personal branding and in helping business people expand and develop their business networks. She lived in the Middle East for five years where she developed and sold her own successful business in Dubai before returning to South Africa. She also gained international corporate experience in the IT industry, co-ordinating the marketing Middle East operation for Novell. Helen then consulted and lectured at Wits Business School where she edited the Wits Business School magazine called Embark. Helen is a passionate South African and thrives on the meaningful work she does as a consultant in the area of Leadership development. Her clients include Ernst & Young, FNB, the City of Joburg, Anglo Platinum, Sasol and Eskom. Helen is a mentor at Cida City Campus for aspiring young business people and is a professional member of the National Speakers Association of South Africa. She has co-authored a book on Networking with international expert Nigel Risner. Helen is a single mother of identical twin girls and is an avid reader and runner. For further info on “Master the Art of Networking” workshops or presentations, contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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