PERSONAL

BRANDING 101

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STARTER WORKBOOK

unleashyour inner boss

The Stepping Stones

 What are you great at?

What do you love to do?

What do you suck at?

What values guide you?

How can you bring it all together?

What will you show the world?

Where do you begin?

 Any great brand requires a solid foundation to

understand where you are and where you are going.

Let's start by answering these questions. 

Goals, Goals, Goals

It's important to lay out the landscape of what your short and

long-term goals are to consider how to approach building and

promoting your personal brand. Depending on what you hope to

achieve, your brand can either hurt or help you. 

Use the table below to start thinking about your short and

long-term goals - consider professional, financial, and

personal goals. Be aggressive!

S - Specific (What are you trying to achieve?)

M - Measurable (How will you know when it is complete?)

A - Achievable (How realistic is this goal?)

R - Relevant (Is this the right time?)

T - Time- Bound (When do I want to complete this by?)

Remember to set S.M.A.R.T goals 

3. What do you suck at?

4. What values guide you?

What are you great at?

Your skill set is likely vast and

diverse. You play, or have played,

many roles throughout your life

that have helped shape the person

you are today - child, friend,

sibling, parent, student, athlete,

employee, aunt, uncle, babysitter,

coach, mentor, etc. In each of those

roles, you either grew a current

skill or learned a new set of them.

You have two sets of skills - hard

and soft. Hard skills are those that

can be defined and measured

(ex.math, science, typing speed, how

much weight you can lift, how fast

you can run, design skills, etc).

Soft skills, on the other hand, are

less tangible but just as

important. These include

communication, empathy, etiquette,

leadership, and listening.

What are your hard skills? 

To determine what your hard skills are, just think about what

topics you have expertise in. What subjects did you always ace

in school? What do you do every day for work? What are your

hobbies?  What certifications or degrees do you have?

Here are some of mine:

Writing

Marketing Strategy

Social Media Planning &

Execution

Content Marketing

Digital Marketing

B2B Marketing

Personal Branding

Blogging

Weight Lifting

Fitness/Nutrition Goal-

Setting

MBA, Marketing

Event Planning

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It's your turn! List your hard skills below 

Now Identify the Top 3- 5

From the list you generated above, think about which of those

are your core skills. Which ones do you have the greatest

amount of expertise (or wish to have the greatest expertise

in)? Which do you see yourself continuing to sharpen as you

progress through your career?

Personal Branding

Content Marketing

Social Media Strategy & Execution

Fitness/Nutrition Goal-Setting

Writing

Write your

answers on the

Summary Sheet

on pg. 16

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What are your soft skills?

Moving on to soft skills as these are just as important to who you

are and how you present yourself as hard skills. 

Go through this list of 140 soft skills and rate yourself for each

using the below scale. 

1= Highly Skilled, 3= Average Skill, 5 = Skill needs significant

work

For optimum insight, try having a family member or close

friend fill this out for you as well. It may surprise you how

others view your particular skill-set differently than you do

(in a good way!). 

Take a look back at the skills you gave yourself a '1' for. Try

and narrow it down to 5 skills that you either are known for

or are striving to be known for. Also consider skills that you

feel are valuable to your brand and what you stand for.

Use the space below to help with prioritizing and then write

down your top 5 in the Summary Sheet on page X.   

Identify your top 5 Soft Skills 

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What do you love to do?

We all have things that we just love to do. Maybe they act as

stress-relievers, maybe they help us feel inspired, maybe they

help us connect with the world around us. Whatever sets your

soul on fire, it's important in defining your brand and your

future decisions.   

From what you listed above, identify 3-5 activities that you

wish you could do more of and would do all day if you could!

List those on the Summary Sheet on Page X under "Top 5 Things I

Love to Do".   

Hobbies: 

I relieve stress by:

I like to give back by: 

I feel most inspired when.... 

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What do you suck at?

This may seem like an odd question considering branding is

all about emphasizing your strengths and values but it's

important to also consider your weaknesses when developing a

personal brand.  Why? Because we all have them and it's better

to recognize, manage and improve upon them rather than

ignore them. 

Your weaknesses are often your main sources of fear so let's

figure out what they are so we can manage and conquer them!

Take a look back at your hard skills and the soft skills you rated

yourself on earlier. Which of the ones that you gave yourself a 4 or 5

on do you think are important for you to improve upon? Think back to

your list of goals. Will any of the soft skills you rated yourself low

on have a negative impact on achieving those goals? It's important to

identify the weaknesses that could prevent you from hitting your

goals.

Use the space below to help with prioritizing the hard and soft

skills to strengthen and then write down your top 5 in the Summary

Sheet on page X

 

Your 5 Biggest Weaknesses

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What values guide you?

Understanding the values that guide us will help us write our

personal mission statements. In the list below, check off the top 5

that really drive your life and write them down in the Summary Sheet

on Page 16. 

Bringing it all together

Using the Summary Sheet of your skills, passions, values and

the goals you outlined on page 2, start bringing together in a

few sentences your elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is how

you would explain or sell yourself in 30 seconds or less. To

keep it concise, it's important to only focus on the

information that is most important for others to know (this is

what the self-discovery sections were all about!)

Here's an example:  

As a award-winning millennial in marketing, my passion lies in educating

and empowering others to utilize the power of personal branding, social media

& content marketing to tell their story. Storytelling and understanding

personal drivers excites me  - and has been a constant theme through my life

and education - from winning the award for most books read in 5th grade to

majoring in psychology in undergrad to obtaining my MBA in Marketing.

I attribute my success in life, my career, fitness, and  leadership to my ability

to set and crush goals,  and always have a plan B, C, D & E. When one

goal is achieved, another is set so I am always learning, growing and

throwing excuses to the wind.   

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What will you show the world?

Now that you've got a strong branding statement that

exemplifies who you are and what you stand for, it's time to

decide what elements of that you will focus on building. It's

okay to start small and start building your community around

just one topic. As you get comfortable with sharing and your

community grows, you can expand your focus areas and

collaborate with others. Here are a few ways you can continue

to build your brand: 

Set up social accounts

Use the same user name for all accounts so you are

searchable (i.e. @sarahdudley3)

Post your own content regularly in the forms of blogs,

tweets, pins, snaps, videos, etc.

Share others' content if it's applicable to your brand

Get a professional picture taken

Consider starting your own blog or website

Collaborate with others who have similar interests

via blogs, podcasts, & forums

Engage, Engage, Engage

Build your own community of like-minded peeps

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Where do you begin?

Anything new is hard to start. But really all you have to do is

START. Make a plan. Set achievable but ambitious goals. Be

original. Share your story.

It's sad when people who have settled in life scoff at the idea

that we are all unique. Not a single one of us has had the same

experiences or felt the same emotions.  Be your little

snowflake self. We are all snowflakes, yet like snowflakes, if

nobody looks too close, we all look exactly alike. Make people

look close. Tell your story, share what matters to you, and

find others out there who understand you. 

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Top 5 Hard Skills 

Your current description 

Top 5 Soft Skills 

Summary Sheet

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Top 5 Things you Love 

Top 5 Values 

Top 5 Weaknesses 

Summary Sheet (cont.)

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Summary Sheet (cont.)

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What are your soft skills? (Extra)

Moving on to soft skills as these are just as important to who you

are and how you present yourself as hard skills. 

Go through this list of 140 soft skills and rate yourself for each

using the below scale. 

1= Highly Skilled, 3= Average Skill, 5 = Skill needs significant

work

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