This Saturday I had the opportunity to participate as a speaker in the 5th Personal Branding Lab Day Congress. First of all, let me congratulate the event’s hosts, Nilton Navarro and Alicia Ro, and also the other friends who help in organizing it.
They asked me to talk about my book Desmárcate. But the conference was not about my book but about what I understand by standing out. I started by explaining the meaning of standing out. It means “getting away from the way of thinking or acting of the rest.” That is, to stand out is to look for the roads less traveled, not doing what the majority do and doing what only a minority does. Standing out is synonymous with extraordinary. Extraordinary means out of the ordinary. Therefore, standing out is doing something extraordinary. And extraordinary does not mean climbing Everest or stepping on the moon. Just doing things out of the ordinary, different things than most people do.
To successfully develop your personal brand, standing out is important, I would say almost essential. In the talk, I comment on some of the possible ways to stand out.
- One of them is differentiation. Differentiate yourself in the way of providing services, in the way of communicating, of packaging, in the way of monetizing … Doing things differently is very useful to enhance your personal brand and distinguish yourself from others.
- Another route is that of specialization. Concentrate all our energy on a small market niche, on a very specific type of product and / or service, on a really limited target audience.
- Also being the best in a certain field is a good way to differentiate yourself. Although it is not easy and is only available to a few.
- Another option to differentiate yourself is to be the first. Generally, the first company or professional to develop an activity in a specific field usually has a competitive advantage.
- Also communicating more and better is another good way to uncheck yourself. Some professionals, despite not being very competent or having been the first or the best, gain a valuable advantage by communicating their value proposition very well or very insistently.
But the most important way to differentiate yourself, from my humble point of view, is to focus on your own strengths. It is estimated that less than 20% of people carry out professional activities clearly aligned with their own strengths. Most of the people who are lucky enough to work do what they can. Only a minority manages to do so in their area of strengths.
To set yourself apart from others and successfully develop your personal brand based on strengths, you must follow these 4 steps:
- Discover your talents. Fortunately, we are all born with very different talents. As management guru Tom Peters put it, “Most people claim to know your talents … but they are generally wrong.”
- Turn your talents into strengths. To do this, once you have identified your innate talents, your areas of great potential, you must turn them into strengths by adding to the talent knowledge (courses, workshops, books, podcasts …) and practical experience (putting your potential and acquired knowledge into practice).
- Use your strengths daily: it is a double advantage. First of all, the more you use your talents, the more powerful and stronger they are. In addition, using your talents gives you an advantage over your competitors with what your results will be better and your personal brand will grow.
- Communicate effectively. Everything we have discussed above will be of little use if you are not able to communicate your strengths with your target audience and be perceived as how you want.
In short, 4 steps that will help you use your strengths as a way to distinguish yourself from others and successfully develop your personal brand.
Because, as the aforementioned Tom Peters said, “A person can only achieve great performance if he acts from his strengths”.
