One of the hottest buzzwords is ‘personal branding’ and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. By now you are probably telling everybody that you are a personal brand, but what does that mean.

What are you? Free agent. Employee. Temp worker. Freelancer. Salary Worker. Knowledge worker. Artist. Unemployed. Entrepreneur. Student. Intrapreneur. Stay-at-home mother. Self-employed. Mogul. Investor. Professional Student. Comedian. Consultant. Actor. Musician. Model. Displaced Worker. Salesperson. Athlete. Blogger. Webpreneur. Politician.

As you start to develop your personal brand, think about who you are and what makes you special.

What is your passion?
What is your Unique Selling Position (USP)?

Personal branding is about more than creating your own personal celebrity. It is not just about being but becoming ‘YOU’. Let me know what ‘YOU’ are.

Brand YU Life- Chapter 04 Title Page Originally uploaded by h_flemings

November 19, 2007 (Detroit, MI) – ‘Who’s Who in Black Detroit’ recognizes me as an entrepreneur actively working to improve the quality of life in Detroit.

Who’s Who- Hajj E. Flemings, originally uploaded by h_flemings.

One of the most profound questions that you will ever be asked in life is, ‘r-u-Relevant?’ We live in a time and in a world where people are bombarded with an overwhelming amount of information. How do you stay on top of your customers mind? Brand Relevance is the answer. There are more than 6.5 billion online searches that are conducted each month. The number of text messages that are sent exceed the earth’s population. The myspace community is large enough to be the sixth largest country.
Students are being developed for jobs that do not exist. In this global economy how do you stay relevant?

As a personal brand how do you take the skills, abilities, and talent than are inside of you and turn them into value, so that people will pay to be in your presence? As a business brand how do you take the current products and services that you currently offer and re-position them, so that you are the only solution in the mind of your customers? Branding is about owning a slice of mental real estate. I don’t care what industry you are in or what station you are at in life, if you are a student, employer, employee, entrepreneur, author, or Pastor brand relevance is critical, for you developing your imprint on society and making you impact on life. Highly successful people understand that you will be defined in life by the size of the problem that you solve.

Brand Relevance turns:

Coffee into Starbucks
Sneakers into Nike.
Diamonds into Tiffany.
Dreams into Visions.
Life into Significances.
Drop-Outs into Billionaires.
Promises into Guarantees.

Today the question is ‘r-u-Relevant’, but tomorrow will you have the answer?