In this week's episode of The Apprentice, the candidates were set a task to sell art in a London gallery. As the weeks go by, we're learning a lot more about the individuals and how they like to work. This prompted me to think about how important personal identity can be in social enterprise.
Here at InspirEngage International, we train aspiring entrepreneurs through our InspirEngage skills bootcamps and our first and most important module is on identity and personal branding.
Let's look at what brand means? A dictionary defines it as "a particular identity regarded as an asset". But why do so many of us make the mistake of thinking it only relevant in connection to products or services?
In my experience, there's no asset of greater value than your personal brand. If we trust the individual, and like or respect what they stand for, we are more likely to buy into what they have to sell.
There are examples of very strong personal brands out there. It's good to take inspiration from successful people, but don't waste your efforts trying to be the next Richard Branson or Bill Gates – they're already taken.
Each individual has their own unique path to success, and that path will only be determined by a clear sense of identity and establishing your personal brand. As social entrepreneurs, we've been accustomed to putting our cause at the centre of what we do. While that will always remain a defining characteristic of social enterprise, it's equally important to be bold and establish a strong personal brand. Social enterprises aren't abstract entities or entirely cause defined – they're made up of passionate people, and the stronger their brand, the more successful the social enterprise.
So let's look at the four steps of developing and communicating your personal brand
Discover
What's your story? What are your values? What makes you unique? These are questions you should consider when discovering your personal brand. As part of this journey, you'll also discover your passion, which for a social entrepreneur should be simple. If you can then turn your passion into a career, you don't have to work a day in your life – the perk for so many social entrepreneurs. Your brand is a mixture of professional and personal factors. It's not only who you are in terms of qualifications, experience and skill set, but also who you are in terms of being an introvert or extrovert; a leader or deputy; a details person or blue sky thinker. At this stage, it's also important to have a destination in mind: as a social entrepreneur, what do you want to achieve through establishing a strong personal brand?
Create
The second stage is creating your brand – how would you want it to be manifested, and on what platforms? The important thing here is to be consistent. For a social entrepreneur, your cause should be visible and central to your personal brand, and if you can build momentum of people buying into and supporting that vision then that's a powerful thing. Your brand values are the filter through which you run all of your decision-making; what's right and wrong, what's worthy of your time, focus and resources, who you choose to surround yourself with.
Communicate
You've discovered and created your brand, now you need to let people know you exist and what you offer. If you're a social enterprise startup, I would strongly recommend using social media to build the brand behind your cause. The various platforms such as blogs, Twitter and Youtube channel can reach huge numbers in a short space of time. I've found that by communicating my personal brand using interactive methods, people are a lot more likely to engage with me.
Maintain
Your brand needs maintaining, so, if you're using social and digital media to manifest your brand, you should update your content and monitor feedback. It should also reflect your work with your beneficiaries. As a social enterprise, it's absolutely necessary to stay connected with your beneficiaries. For InspirEngage that's young people. Once you lose touch with the needs of your beneficiaries, you won't know whether you're really serving the cause.
I once read: "Wealth is what you have, when you've lost everything." I would say that if one day you lost everything, the one thing no one can ever take away from you would be your personal brand. That's what sets you apart from the other 6 billion people on the planet.
Melody Hossaini is founder and chief executive of InspirEngage International, a social enterprise delivering skills bootcamps to support young people into employment and enterprise. In 2011 she became the first ever social entrepreneur to compete on BBC's The Apprentice making it to week 10 out of 12. She tweets @Melody_Hossaini
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