Build That Personal Brand of Yours

 

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We live in a world where, like it or not, your personal brand defines you. Even if you imagine yourself to be the shy and diffident type, you have to work on building your brand. You cannot rest content that if you are good at what you do, you don't need to spend any time showing to the world that you are. To overturn a clichéd phrase a book is judged by its cover. As a matter of fact, in today's hyper-connected world of social media, you cannot but help create a personal brand image, even if it is not the one that you care for.

Your personal brand is very important because it is your calling card in the digital world. It screams out about you to your peers, colleagues, family members, neighbours, potential clients and employers and even your classmates from your time in school about what you have made of yourself in life. The right kind of brand image will offer you greater and better opportunities in life, allowing you to make the decisions that will propel you ahead in life.

Defining a Personal Brand

Your personal brand conveys who you are and what you stand for in terms of your values and how you profess those. It is quite similar to a business brand in that it helps you convey your abilities and offerings to your target audience, helping distinguish you from others who may be your competitors. It gives you your unique identity, allowing a clear communication of your value to your prospects.

A good personal brand is your tale told well.

 

Why Develop a Personal Brand

 

Have you ever wondered why the great empires of the past starting from the Egyptian and Roman empires of the ancient world to the European colonial empires of modern times left behind grand monuments like pyramids, theatres, aqueducts, statues, cathedrals, forts and so on? The idea was to convey the splendour of the empire in question, evoking, admiration, pride and loyalty in the citizens of the empire and awe and fear among the enemies. This was nothing other than building the brand of an empire which often lasted for many centuries.

Similarly, a well-told story can help you boost your business or career. Your personal profile is often looked up by prospective employers and clients to determine if you are worth the trust they are thinking of reposing in you. A well-established personal brand shines a light on your strong suit enabling you to grow your reputation as an expert in your line of work or endeavor. It lets your prospective clients or employers determine whether you are the right fit for their requirements or not.

 

How do you build a personal brand?

 

Identify your USP

Just like in the case of a business brand, you need to first and foremost zero in on what it is that makes you stand out from your peers, in terms of what your skillset offers to your prospects or clients. Your value proposition should be explicitly evident on account of your personal brand.

Know your target audience

You need to know exactly why who your target audience is in terms of who it is that could make the best use of your skills and expertise. You need to be clear about the demographic profile or the industrial background of your target audience. You also need to be confident of your ability to help address the challenges they face. This will put you in the right position to customize your brand message in a manner that is just right to hit home with your target audience.

Let your expertise shine through advocacy

You need to diligently and consistently profess and advocate your brand via your digital as well as real life engagements. Everything from your website and social media profiles to your email signatures and business cards should convey the essence of your brand. Care has to be taken to convey your USP to your target audience in the optimal manner.

The content that you put out in the online space should portray you as a thought leader in your domain. Content in the form of articles, social media posts, blogs and Op-Eds can help you establish your brand presence as can video content and participating in webinars as well as offline seminars, exhibitions and conferences. By letting your expertise shine through by providing your target audience a glimpse of it you not only enhance your brand value but also help them believe that you can help address their concerns in a most effective manner.

Build relationships

Forging relationships helps grow your brand like nothing else as you have others advocating for you. You should prioritise relationship building over everything else if you are serious about taking your personal brand to the next level. You should do whatever it takes to foster relationships with members of your target audience. Engaging in online conversations by way of exchanging comments and attending offline events where you can personally interact with the right kind of people can help you build long-lasting relationships which you can cash in on when the need arises. Entering into a collaboration with an influence, for example, can help you extend your own sphere of influence considerably.

The best way of helping people take to you is by not holding back when it comes to sharing your expertise and knowledge with them. If you are supportive of them, they will be of you.

Be yourself and never fake it

Sincerity and genuineness outlive gimmickry and tall claims. If your personal brand does not truly speak of what you stand for your credibility will never get established with your target audience, as they will very quickly realize that you don't offer them real value. The way you communicate should make it clear that you are the real deal. Let them know how you are passionate about what you do by showcasing your expertise and depth of knowledge. They should repose enough faith in you to trust you to help them with their concerns.

If the foundations of your relationships are based on genuineness and authenticity, you will go on to build long term relationships that will help you achieve your professional and personal goals in the best possible manner possible.

 

Our personal brand determines how we fare in most aspects of life. It is worth everyone’s while to accord it the importance it deserves. You can dream the biggest and fondest dream and make it come true if you build a personal brand around that and sell it to the right people.

Build that personal brand of yours now!

 

 

 

Junk Aggression and Grow

We live in hyper-aggressive times. Nations are aggressive, and so are people. Aggression is promoted as a virtue. Youngsters are exhorted and advised to forcefully strive for what they believe is theirs. Those who are naturally shy or reticent are advised to toughen up and develop a killer instinct if they want to amount to something in life.

We see signs of this aggressive approach towards people, and all manner of social situations all around us. Everybody is brusque and aggressive towards whoever they come in contact with. Neighbours having horrible fights over parking issues often leading to appalling physical fights is a common occurrence across our towns and cities. The same is true about fights that they have over a pet using an apartment lift or allegedly attacking someone’s child.

People drive aggressively, honking incessantly without reason and dangerously overtaking and switching lanes as if the road were their exclusive private estate. If a traffic signal has broken down, everyone dashes ahead with their vehicle, hoping to be the first one to get ahead. What happens instead is a bad tangle of grid-locked cars, busses, e-rickshaws and two wheelers unable to move ahead, backwards or sideways. This results in an incessant cacophony of honking and yelling accompanies by smouldering glares at whoever one locks one’s eyes with.

This situation prevails for what seems to be an interminably long time, until better sense prevails on a few individuals who get out of their vehicles and attempt to direct vehicles out of the mess. That is when everybody gets to move ahead. This illustrates the point of the article. Junk aggression and grow. Even the biggest battle and the longest war is succeeded by talks. That is the only way forward, or there is nothing that separates humans from animals.

Mankind’s ability to communicate effectively with one another is what gave it an evolutionary advantage over other species. Why waste that tremendous gift for achieving progress and regress to the level of a pack of wolves fighting over a peace of meat?

Modern life can no doubt be very stressful and managing one’s high pressure job, relationships,  and social obligations can take quite a toll on one’s psychological well being which often manifests itself as aggressive behavior. This leads to one's coming across as rude and badly behaved towards the people one interacts with often leading to resentment among the latter, who often retaliate and exacerbate the situation. These situations can be best avoided if one learns not to stress oneself over the ups and downs of daily life.

One could, of course, try out things like regular exercise, meditation and maintaining a gratitude journal to keep oneself stress-free and thereby avoid getting into negative situations. More importantly, one should inwardly realize that losing one's temper does not ever lead to desirable conclusions. It is smarter to hold one's peace and not open new avenues of stress by losing one's temper over what you perceive is someone else's fault.

The thing is that it is human nature to not accept one's own fault and pointing it out to someone is not going to make them accept the fact and make amends. On the contrary, they will double down and fight you every inch of the way. They are too driven by their ego and insecurities to ever agree with you. Rather than mess with such primaeval emotions, let them be. You disengage and get back to doing things that further your interests in life.

The people who are chronically aggressive don’t have it good in life. They may sometimes seem to get away with their obnoxious treatment of those they interact with and sometimes even seem to forge ahead of their more well-behaved peers, but this does not last. There will always be somebody more aggressive and perhaps even more dangerous who will knock them down. There is the old adage that those who live by the sword perish by it. That is true of those who wear aggressiveness as a badge of honour. Such people will eventually excite enough resentment against a large enough number of people who will then turn on them and cause their downfall.

Junking aggression and trying to cooperate with people, no matter how difficult it is at times is the path to the top. People take to individuals who are able to exude calm in both good and not-so-good situations. Such people are able to build an extensive social network that helps propel their rise to the top.  They succeed because they see the world as a beautiful place replete with opportunities to grow and prosper. Settling scores with people who are disagreeable or don’t subscribe to their point of view is the least of their priorities. They are too busy living their best life.

The Perils of AI-Generated Videos

 

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As the ability of AI tools to create life-like videos grows by leaps and bounds, one needs to take a step back and look at the implications of these paradigm-redefining technologies. The biggest positive is that it makes video and filmmaking available to whoever may care to dabble in it, regardless of how much money they have or the kind of technical training they may or may not have received. This pushes open the doors to creative filmmaking for would-be movie makers, professional YouTubers, advertising and PR professionals, educationists, business people and just about anyone seeking to leverage videos to promote themselves or their products and services.

On the flip side, AI-generated deepfake videos are the biggest danger, as the recent Tailor Swift incident clearly demonstrated. They are also potent weapons for spreading misinformation, which can be used by nations at war or unscrupulous politicians seeking to push bizarre conspiracy theories in order to win elections.  Even legally created AI videos can be quite harmful to the interests of a whole range of professionals. Famous movie actors may, for instance, be compelled by circumstances to allow the likeness of their images to be signed away to movie corporations to use as they see fit. New actors may never get to practice their craft. The sword of AI-generated videos would also hang on TV news presenters' and anchors' heads as media organisations might prefer to deploy AI-generated life-like news and programme presenters.

There would no longer be any flesh and blood travel vloggers needed as anyone could create wonderfully crafted life-like travel videos simply by asking AI to both script and film these according to one’s exact specifications and requirements. With everybody consuming virtual content that has been regurgitated from all the content of that type that has preceded it, there will be a gradual erosion in the quality of the content as there will really be nothing new and original that will get created. People may stop viewing videos altogether owing to the presence of millions of slickly made videos possessing no soul. What is human existence without sweat, tears and toil leading to celebratory triumph?

Already the young are doomscrolling the stupidest of reels on their phones all day and sometimes all night long.  Better and better AI-created videos will only further this addiction. Life will become eerily close to what they show in the Matrix movies. People will lose their humanity and forget the very purpose of life. This will not leave the owners of the neo-colonial big-tech firms unscathed, for they are part of the universe of humans too-or are they?

 

How to write a sales letter that leads to sales

 

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A sales letter is one of the most effective tools for increasing the sales of your products and services. It is, however grossly underrated and not used in the most efficacious manner by most marketers. At the heart of the success of a sales letter is how it has been crafted. The mailbox of your target audience is inundated by hundreds of emails every day and that makes it nearly impossible for your particular newsletter to be the lucky one which gets read.

The first criterion for a sales letter to be effective is that it should be read. You need to provide a subject line that grabs the reader's attention, the moment they see it. The subject should not only be able to convey what is on offer in a concise manner but also do that in a manner that is interesting to the reader.

As regards the main text of the sales letter it should be entirely driven by what the reader needs or is interested in. At the same time, the message should be conveyed to the reader in an easy-to-understand conversational manner. However, what makes the sales letter truly effective is your ability to deploy persuasive language to nudge the reader towards making a purchase decision.  The best way to buttress your claims regarding your products or services is to furnish testimonials along with the sales letter.

Stand Out Features of a Sales Letter

 

-Outstanding headline or subject line

The headline or subject line is the calling card of your sales letter. You just have to get it right. You need to get your headline aligned with how aware your reader is about your product or service's ability to help them. Making them a promise that fulfils or even exceeds their expectations, is the right way to go about it. This is what will make the reader proceed to the main text of the headline in question.

-Evocative opening lines and body copy

A good subject line will make a prospect open the email to read it, but you have to build on that to entice them to continue reading by way of an evocative and engaging opening line. This is something that immediately speaks to the reader's expectation from the letter by coming up with something that speaks to a specific concern of theirs and does not meander along pointlessly.

The body copy comprises the meat of the sales letter, but that does not mean that you cram it with words. The content that you put in there should be lively in the sense that it piques the interest of the reader and informs them as well. Brevity is the soul of wit, as far as sales letters are concerned and your focus has to be to furnish information that is important, while being upfront and clear about your offerings and how these can be of benefit to the prospect who is reading the letter.

-Support with proof and testimonials

We live in an age where false claims and deceitful practices have made people extremely circumspect about what marketers try to pitch to them. It is, therefore, critically important that one supports the claims made on behalf of your products or services with the help of solid proof. These could be in the shape of client testimonials and certifications, by proving your point with the help of case studies or offering them guarantees. The idea is to leave the reader in no doubt about the genuineness and sincerity of your offer.

-Address the prospect individually

When everyone and their uncle is shooting out sales letter to everybody and their uncle, it becomes important for you to show that your sales letter speaks to the individual needs and requirements of your prospect. The best way to do that is to address your sales letter to them personally and individually. They should get the feeling that the letter is indeed meant to address their specific concerns.

 

-Proactive CTA

The whole point of a sales letter is to bring about a sale of the product or service that you are pitching. That is the reason why your CTA or Call-to-Action has to be a proactive one. You could ask them direct questions like "Would you like to set up an appointment the coming Monday?" or "Would you like to know more about this product?-Please call me at xxxxxxxx. Alternatively, you could just provide them with a button to click on. If your sales letter compels your prospect to be as eager to get his or her hands on what is being offered as a kid in a candy store, they are sure to click on the button.

To conclude

Sales letters are one of the oldest and most cost-effective ways of driving sales. This is, unfortunately, lost on many new-age marketers smitten by the charms of social media and influencer endorsement. Sales letters provide way better ROI and get the job done quietly and effectively. Make it the spearhead of your marketing outreach.

 

 

Marketing via storytelling

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood: https://www.pexels.com/photo/opened-white-book-1447273/

 

Mankind has been using storytelling to educate and motivate people from the earliest days of cave dwellers who would draw scenes inspired by their surroundings on the walls of their dwellings. They would often depict the animals they lived amongst, with many of the paintings showing groups of people indulging in hunting. These paintings told tales to the young, teaching them valuable lessons about what kind of life lay ahead for them. To a youngster looking at these paintings on the roof and walls of his or her cave in the flickering light of a log fire, the stories told by them would appear almost like watching a movie in a darkened cinema theatre.

As mankind evolved, so did its ability to tell emotive tales about legends, folklore, and religion to one another. The hold that such vivid imagery implanted in people's minds became unshakeable and this remains true to this day. Look at the world around us and you will see people going to war over religion and perceived historical wrongs imprinted on their minds, thanks to all the stories heard by them about these.

This happens because mankind is more emotional than rational. The reason for that is that humans are not really very different from other animals in that they react primarily on the basis of instinct, rather than any well-thought-out reasoned argument.  The only difference is that humans have a much better ability to communicate with each other and are able to very well articulate their hopes, fears and aspirations. This is something that they do best with the help of storytelling.

Savvy marketers know that the best way to connect with their target audience is on an emotional level rather than a factual one. This led to the rise of the advertising industry whose primary function was to emotionally connect a product to a potential customer by relating a story about it that resonated with the latter. Advertising worked fine for a very long time, but eventually, its magic wore thin with the intended target audience being put off by the slickness of the ads in question. They no longer related to the synthetic emotions associated with the brand.

The advent of the digital age and the age of social media which empowered the customers to engage in real time both with the brands and other consumers sounded the death knell of traditional advertising as one knew it. Instead, consumers shared their personal stories about their real-life experiences with the brands in question. This forced brands to invest in long-term, personal relations with their customers. The only way to do that was to exchange stories with them.

These needn’t necessarily only be about using the brand, but more about what’s going on in their lives and helping find what they are looking for or fulfilling their aspirations. The brand still exists, but more as a friend and an enabler than a product or service that needs to be sold. People are bored of artifice and crave genuineness. That is the reason why we see the movie industry in the doldrums. People would rather see YouTube videos of people like them doing stuff that interests them than watch the fake heroics and the dramatic scenarios that traditional cinema throws at them.

If you can get your customers invested in your brand through the tales you relate to them, you will not only make paying customers out of them but also loyal advocates of your brand. They will buy your brand not because you sold it to them, but because they bought it from you, as it is the natural thing for them to do.

 

Indian IT-The Way Forward

 

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The phenomenal growth seen by the Indian IT industry over the past few decades has clearly been a remarkable one, transforming India’s image from being largely an agricultural economy to a technology superpower. The industry seems to be all set to continue on its upward trajectory despite facing global headwinds.

According to NASSCOM the industry shall grow at the rate of 5.1% in FY2025, which is more than the 4% growth achieved in FY2025. Its turnover is expected to rise from $282.6 billion in FY 20225 to more than $300 billion in FY 2026.[1] That being stated, the industry growth rate is quite modest being in single figures, with the biggest perceived challenge coming from the rise and rise of AI.

The fact that it is not all smooth sailing for the Indian IT sector is borne out by the fourth quarter results of financial years 2025 posted by Indian IT majors, Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL Tech. While Infosys saw a 3.5% drop over the previous quarter, the other three big guns saw their top lines go down by 0.8%.[2]

Given the inherent strength of the India IT sector, however, the way forward is both challenging as well as potentially rewarding. There is no denying that fact that the global economic as well as geo-political situation is quite fluid and dynamic and will remain so in the near future. In circumstances such as these, India needs to adopt a multi-faceted and multi-pronged approach.

From integrating IT into their service offerings to shifting their focus to innovation and value creation, there is much that leading Indian IT companies can do to remain globally relevant and competitive. With regard to the Indian IT sector, being a major employment provider, it is important to upskill and reskill its workforce. Those with expertise in data science, AI, machine learning and cyber security will be particularly valued.

Besides, Indian IT companies should diversify their service offerings, making them not unnecessarily dependent on specific sectors. Among the verticals they can look at are healthcare, advanced manufacturing and sustainability. It is also crucial for them to substantially invest in R&D which would empower them to come up with cutting-edge solutions, thereby gaining an edge over competition in the global market.

The Indian IT industry can definitely continue to be both a major player globally as well as an important contributor to the Indian economy in the time to come if it learns to adapt to the evolving technological landscape. It would do well to hire the right kind of talent and diversify its offerings, apart from working on strengthening its core capabilities.

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[1] https://www.business-standard.com/industry/news/indian-it-industry-likely-to-cross-300-billion-in-fy26-says-nasscom-125022400908_1.html

[2] https://www.cnbctv18.com/market/earnings/infosys-tcs-wipro-hcl-tech-it-sector-q4fy25-earnings-performance-ws-l-19592680.htm

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