Your Brand translates into your Reputation

In my line of work, my niche of communications is often called Brand Management or Reputation Management.

In business, your brand or your reputation is what others think or communicate about the promises that you’ve made. If you walk in integrity and righteousness then your reputation will be strong. If your promises falter so will your reputation. At my firm, nothing to me is more important than a brand. In a very personal sense, it’s all you have.

When I think back on my early life I was not at all sure of my gifts or my callings. I knew I wanted to be something for the sake of my kids. I wanted my name to stand for something bigger than myself. Whatever I chose to do I wanted to do it with integrity and purpose. I knew what mattered to me and what kind of person I wanted to be. I was just waiting for God to pull it all together for me.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Each of us has responded to that question at one time or another. But we should really ask, “Who do we want to be when we grow up?” Both questions must be answered as we mature, but the answers will be different. Your (personal) brand is your total persona. Mastering it is like packaging a product. Like products, each of us will be packaged differently from the next person. Expressing uniqueness in your packaging is crucially important.

God made each of us differently for reasons that only He can reveal. I had no idea when I was a teenager taking guitar lessons, hoping to be the next pop star or acting in a play at my university that I would be a PR Strategist after all these years. Starting over and attempting to launch my personal brand and the Sagacious Ladies as well as a blog site merging the ideas of branding, faith, and women of purpose, but God did.

There is a scripture that reads “He knew me before I was formed in my mother’s womb.” God had already called me and ordained me for such a time as this. This is just another way of explaining what it means to be branded. There is a promise and an expectation on each of us, a promise of peace and fulfillment in God, an expectation that we were destined for incredible things.

How you present yourself both physically and publicly through your various communication channels. How do you act when you interact with peers both professionally and personally? What do you talk about? In other words what do people say about you when you leave the room? All this adds up to equal your brand or your reputation. It is what we call in the industry your Brand DNA. How strong or how toxic is it?

If you want to make a difference this year more than you did last year. If you want to take real steps toward the future that you see for yourself, then it’s time to acknowledge that you are your own brand whether you want to admit it or not. It’s not going to be about what you say but rather what you do and how you project that to the outside world that will make all the difference. And for some of us, we may have some work to do before we can get any further down the road.

It may take some new mindsets to think in this new way but our brand, our gifts, our promises can only be found in God.

He is the ultimate brand manager.