Wunmi Adelusi: Here’s Why you Should Identify your Brand’s Value

A personal brand is the unique blend of experiences that make you who you are – it is how you show yourself to the world. At the core of presenting yourself to the world is knowing who you are and what matters to you the most. Businesses across the globe, often in establishing their vision and mission statement, first identify their values, which then influences many of their business decisions. In the same vein, identifying our values – belief system – unlocks a different perception of personal branding.

To have a resilient personal brand, we must recognise that our brand as career professionals embodies our values. If you are struggling with building your brand, you may want to go back to the drawing board to identify your values and establish what matters to you.

How can you do this? Find time to do self-reflection and ask yourself, “what patterns do I cherish the most or what puts me off the most?” Sometimes we know what we want by knowing what we don’t want. For example, if you dislike people lying, you know that integrity is one of the things you value.

How does identifying my values help my brand?

Authenticity

Having a solid personal brand is being grounded in authenticity because personal brand is a process that requires diving deep into your area of strengths, personality and story. When you know your values, you are more grounded in who you are, and it is more effortless to project who you are to others. This is what personal branding is all about.

Clarity of Message

Next to authenticity is message clarity. Personal branding is about how you want people to perceive you, which is why knowing what you stand for will help you craft a unique selling proposition that articulates your person.

Networking

A healthy network is built on what you can offer. Once we can identify our value, we can relate to people based on what we offer and determine the people we want to be associated with. For example, someone whose value is integrity will not waste time linking up with someone that isn’t straightforward. Knowing what matters to you is a reflection of who you want to be with.

Confidence and Focus

Knowing your values gives you the confidence and grit to trust your process and stay committed . Often, personal brand can be misconstrued as overnight success, whereas the truth is that no one suddenly appears. Everyone you see out there today was somewhere in the background years ago.

In the words of Alexander Hamilton, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

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