Let me begin by taking my hat off to the well-informed, sophisticated and knowledge-driven destiny connect readership. It really is a great honour to be associated with the destiny connect online network. In my personal quest to uncover and unravel the being behind my name, personality, character-traits, cultural background, education, lifestyle and religious beliefs, political views and out-look and business acumen, i have made an interesting discovery about personal branding.

This is a very crucial and effective toolkit that everyone needs to acquire and effective utilise in the process of building, developing, designing and tailor-making their destiny, I would like to share with the readership some of the significant factors, ingredients and elements that goes into a process of self-making men/women, guidelines on how to design, construct and furnish their destiny in life and be in charge of where YOU end up in life and what legacy YOU will leave behind.

This process of managing the relationship between your own personal perceptions about yourself and the real life characteristics that you project on a daily basis in comparison to the general percerption that your family, friends, community, colleagues and the society generates about you, the way they see you as a person and an individual based on your set of personal values, morals, cultural and political ideology, your involvement in the community development and building initiatives, your business profile and of course the legacy YOU create. This entire process will start with YOU and end with YOU as in order for one to brand themselves effectively, they will need to understand and acknowledge that essentially this is all about YOU as an individual.

There are various things that one will have to consider before venturing on a personal branding mission and here are some of those variables based on my experiences within the media/advertising and branding industry.

• Establish and distinguish why you would like to develop yourself as a brand ( Unique selling proposition)
• Establish why it's important for YOU to brand yourself. ( The purpose of the initiative)
• Establish your personal vision and mission statements ( Same formulae as applied by the corporate brand)
• Develop a marketing strategy using the marketing mix tools to implement the process.
• Research more on global personal brands and trends, i.e individuals in business, media, sports, arts & culture and politics 
• Learn more about brand positioning, brand differentiation, brand segmenting, promotional strategies, brand value, brand identity and brand management.
• Develop a personal and corporate image for yourself, as appearance is the first point of contact that inflences people's perceptions and views about the type of person you are, so in essence you need an image that will be aligned to your personal branding objectives and project the needed messages, visuals and formulate the right images in the eyes of the community.
• Establish the relevant strategic partners who would compliment and add value to YOU as a brand, i.e this would be various leaders that you look up to, role models in the society, colleagues, business partners and associates. It's very important even for us as individuals to carefully watch and monitor the company we keep as that can either add value to you as an individual or perhaps tarnish/ damage personal brand value within the community.
• Develop a passion for a human related cause, such as joining groups or organizations that are against crime, women and child abuse, or those that encourage the greening initiatives of the planet, or even by being part of a volunteer group that spends time and help out orphanages and other non-profit.
• Develop politically correct and religious sensitive viewpoints, values and methods that will enhance your unique selling value-proposition.
• Be your first and most effective ambassador on promoting, developing and marketing yourself as a brand, be the first person to believe in your own initiatives, purpose and the legacy you're building in the society.

Those are some of the various variables that one needs to take into consideration within the 1st phase when developing themselves a brand, within the next few days, i will share with YOU some of the factors that you can use, adopt and employ into your daily habits, lifestyle, thought processes and your business initiatives which will form the 2nd phase of the personal branding processes, but all in all if you think about it human beings have already branded themselves through everything that's man-made, such as technology, invetions, architectural and scientific advancements and the only problem with that approach that haunts us, is the fact the in most cases our inventions evolve with time and generations to a point whereby even the perceptions of the people involved in those inventions/ legacies also shift and evolve- which means that the next few generations might have a vague and an incongruent perceptions about YOU as a person, and that is why world leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King will still have a resounding lgacy even a few centuries from now because their legacies were founded on strong, personal branded foundations, which makes gives their brand identity a solid stature that will not evolve even with the times but only adapt themselves to the constant generations and human spirited causes. If there's anything that's constant and inevitable, it's change- and with that we need to change our mindsets and attitudes on how we see ourselves and allow other people to see you and construct all sorts od opinions about YOU, everyone has a key to their own destiny, everyone has the ability to design, build and construct themselves and ingrain themselves within their respective lifetimes, and that is why today alot more people are striving to become personal brands and be seen as icons, trend setters, opinion leaders, idea activists and the human race ambassadors due to the esteemed admiration, validation and the legacy to breeds in one's life.

That is all for now, please do look out for a follow article within the next week or so on "The essential guigelines of personal branding..volume 2"

Wishing you a prosperous festive season and a wonderful merry christmas in advance.

Regards

Lennox Mokwena

C.E.O

Vokalbooth Media ( Pty) Ltd

http://vokalbooth.bravehost.com

vokalbooth@yahoo.co.uk