Brand building for professionals in their careers has become a major point of focus during the past few years. Until recently brand was thought more as something that a company or its products are required to have to establish their market presence. If you consider yourself as a product then the same consideration applies to how you brand yourself, promote your brand, and keep it in front of those who need to know about you.

There are a variety of considerations that are important in building your personal brand. Some are straightforward and commonsense, and others require constant, diligent, and planned efforts to maintain and promote that brand. This blog is about how to make it easy for others to know you, remember you, and associate what you do with your name. I’ve compiled this list from my own experience with my clients over the years and I bring it to their attention even if they are not pursuing a particular brand-building strategy outside of these commonsense practices.

1. Name and Email: If you have a long name that is difficult to spell or to pronounce identify yourself with a shorter version of that name and have your email address that synchs up with it. There is nothing more frustrating than remembering your name and not be able to email you because there is no connection between the two if the sender already has your name in their address book. For most people having used your email handle once should allow them to connect you to your name and to your email address without much effort or frustration.
   
   Let us take a real example: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Me-hi Sixenmihai) is a famous Hungarian-American psychologist. Although he is not my client, I have many who have names like this one, from many countries, including India. Even with some Indian names (I was born and raised in India) I have trouble with them (spelling, pronouncing, and remembering), so you can imagine how others not so familiar with such names struggle dealing with them. So, if I were to recommend this person to make himself more memorable to strangers and not-so strangers I’d ask him to have his email handle as sixnmihi@gmail.com instead of Mihaly.csikszentmihalyi@gmail.com Now as you start typing “sixn” his address will pop up in the right place, especially if you have already had prior email exchanges with him.
   1.  Yet another problem with someone you know trying to email you based on their memory of your name is when your name has no relationship to your email address. For example if your name Rajakrishmoorthy Subramaniam (a name made-up as a use case) and your email address is zprt21@yahoo.com someone trying to send you a quick email message is going to struggle with finding out how to email you correctly. Instead, if your email address is rks21@yahoo.com that connection is easy to remember. On many occasions when I want to send a quick reminder or a valuable tip to a client, as I often do, if their name does not pop-up in the email’s “To” field promptly, I move on to other clients’ names that give me the right address when I type a few letters of their remembered name.
   1. In a similar vein some even shorter names (especially of Asian origin) that are Americanized create their own problems. For example, if your original name is Cheng Ho and you changed that to Leianne Minh to partially “Americanize” it with your email address as leianne88@gmail.com you have made the problem worse for the sender to remember your name for a variety of reasons. First, if you make your email name Leianne at least make it easy to spell and pronounce. An easier version would be LeAnn (after American singer LeAnn Rhimes) with your email address as Leann88@gmail.com  Now you need to call yourself LeAnn Ho (not Cheng Ho) to make it easy to connect you to your email and vise-versa. If you kept your original name as Cheng Ho, then someone typing your email address will start typing cheng in the address field and not get the prompt for the right address.
   1. Yet another factor that can confuse how your email works is when your email has yours and your spouse’s name in the address: jimandsallysmith@gmail.com or sometimes jimsfamily@gmail.com When such an address is where you get your personal (but professional, not business) email some senders may be confused by their understanding of who will open your email. Just have your own name in the email when you use that for professional (not business) exchanges.
2. Voicemail Greetings: This is also one of my pet peeves. When you call someone and get their voicemail it is frustrating when the greeting announces you by their number—not name—in a robotic voice. These days most people call using their mobile phone and that, too, when on the move. So, the chances of people misdialing are great. In addition, about 10% of the population is dyslexic, which means that they automatically transpose written numbers. What is unprofessional about reaching a number you dialed (right or wrong) is that all you hear is that you have reached a certain number in an impersonal and robotic “greeting.” So, you have no clue if you dialed wrong or reached the intended party, since few remember the number they just dialed.
   
   The simple way to make yourself look professional is to have your own voice mail greeting in your voice and have a brief message on how you want to caller to deal with it. Even if you do not want to announce your name for privacy or security reasons, just having that greeting in your own voice will help the caller assure that they have reached the intended party.
3. “On-time” habits: This includes showing up on appointed time, calling people on time when you scheduled your call, meeting deadlines without excuses, and expecting people to follow suit. This simple habit of timeliness can help you create your own brand in ways that will help you differentiate yourself. Very few people make it a point of staying to their time commitments and are casual about missing them as, no big deal.
4.  Disciplined Communication: In today’s Twitter and IM world most people do not even write complete sentences and expect the readers of their messages to not only understand these cryptic messages, but also to act on them. Learn how to write concisely, forcefully, and meaningfully to avoid ambiguity and missed opportunities. Writing emails must also be done with thoughtfulness for you to stand out from the crowd. Most write sloppy emails and when someone goes out of the way to write a thoughtful and impactful message it is become memorable.
5. Acknowledging Vs Responding: Sometimes you get an email or a request to do something that requires thought, action, and time. If that email or request is from someone that matters to you then it is best to first simply acknowledge that as such and then state when you will respond in kind. This simple courtesy greatly increases your professionalism in how you deal with someone that matters to you. On its flip side, if you do nothing on that request or message until you are ready to respond with the right answer, which may take time, the person at the other end keep wondering whether you received their message or you are simply ignoring them; not a professional way to come across to others.

Building your brand or image as a professional requires attention to simple details, which are listed here partially. If you want to then go further to build your brand as a professional with a particular value proposition, then you need to keep working on that in ways that allows you to build it in specific ways. Even then, keeping these tips can only help you further your brand and make it stronger in your everyday work. Good luck!