Wednesday Wisdom: What’s Your Personal Brand Image?

Wednesday Wisdom, Business Success Strategies for Women Entrepreneurs, Female Business Owners, Small Businesses

It is 11:30 p.m. on any Saturday night. What’s the first image that comes to mind? Watching a movie with your significant other? Getting in from a night out on the town (pre-Covid)? Simply reading in bed? For me, it is Saturday Night Live because I was a teenager in the mid-1970s. The show first aired on October 11, 1975, and has been in my life a long time, much like Lawrence Welk’s weekly Champagne Room performances for my grandparents.

Saturday Night Live is known for creating characters, sketches, musical performances, and parodies by poking fun at current or past celebrities, athletes, politicians, and international leaders. Iconic SNL characters have been formed around the brand of popular people. In case you didn’t know, according to Google, “a personal brand is the image that people see of you. It can be a combination of how they look at you in real life, how the media portrays you, and now even the impression that people gain from the information about you available online.”

As Women’s History Month approaches every year my inbox gets full with requests for speaking engagements, sponsorships, and ways to support female programs in and around the state all because of my corporate and personal brand image. It never ceases to amaze me how far reaching the requests are based on my company’s mission, my long-time feminist business image, and almost three decades of public outreach in many things “women.” Just like living in my house for thirty years, I’m unmovable when it comes to my passion for supporting women.

So if Saturday Night Live was creating a ‘flattering’ sketch, scene, or character replica of you, what would it look like or what would be highlighted? What images, props, costumes, colors, verbiage, and secondary characters would be around you? Can you clarify your own business or personal image in your to answer the question? If not, you need to work harder on your brand image.

Today’s Wednesday Wisdom is to inspire you to think deeper about the paragraph above because I believe not only our companies, but each of us personally, should have a brand image easily identifiable to potential customers, collaborators, media sources, and business partners to draw them to us. There is plenty of time to create and market an old, current or new brand image. A great way to start is to Google your name and sees what comes up. Read through the articles and identify your public image. Ask staff, other female business owners, and some clients to help you in the process. If the brand they identify isn’t the one you want, get to working on a new one.

There are 31 days in March to not only celebrate Women’s History Month, but to create a stronger personal brand image .