A NEW BLUEPRINT FOR POWERFUL AND
AUTHENTIC PERSONAL BRANDING
Hubert K. Rampersad
A strong personal brand is an important asset in today’s online, virtual, and individual age. As
a human performance technology (HPT) professional, you should take control of your brand and
the message it sends. This article introduces an authentic personal branding model that will help
HPT professionals build an effective personal brand that they can project in everything they do.
IN LIFE, AS IN BUSINESS, branding is more effective,
powerful, and sustainable than marketing and sales and
an effective way to eliminate competitors. It’s about influ-
encing others by creating a brand identity that associates
certain perceptions and feelings with that identity.
Successful personal branding entails managing percep-
tions effectively and controlling and influencing how oth-
ers perceive you and think of you. Having a strong
personal brand is an important asset in today’s online,
virtual, and individual age. It is becoming increasingly
essential and is the key to personal success. It is the posi-
tioning strategy behind some of the world’s most success-
ful people: Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan,
Donald Trump, Richard Branson, and Bill Gates, for
example. It is, therefore, important to be your own brand
and thereby become the CEO of your life.
Everyone has a personal brand, but most people are
not aware of this and do not manage it strategically, con-
sistently, and effectively. As a human performance tech-
nology (HPT) professional, you should take control of
your brand and the message it sends because it affects
how others perceive you. This will help you to grow and
distinguish yourself as an exceptional professional. Most
traditional personal branding concepts focus mainly on
personal marketing, image building, selling, packaging,
outward appearances, promoting yourself, and becoming
famous, which can turn into an ego trip and cause you to
be perceived as egocentric and selfish. These concepts
define personal branding from a personal marketing
(selling) point of view. In fact, personal branding is more
than marketing and promoting yourself.
Performance Improvement, vol. 47, no.6, July 2008
©2008 International Society for Performance Improvement
34 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com)
Your personal brand is the synthesis of all the expecta-
tions, images, and perceptions it creates in the minds of
others when they see or hear your name.
• When we think Oprah Winfrey, we think of warmth
and women’s empowerment.
• Bill Gates brings to mind gadgets, geeks, and philan-
thropy.
• J. K. Rowling is the professional writer behind the
Harry Potter series.
• Einstein was a great and gentle genius.
• Mother Teresa brings to mind helping the poor and
saintly behaviors.
• Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player today.
• Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer in the world.
Your personal brand should be authentic; reflect your
true character; and be built on your values, strengths,
uniqueness, and genius. If you are branded in this
organic, authentic, and holistic way, your personal brand
will be strong, clear, complete, and valuable to others.
Love is an important element in this personal brand-
ing equation. It is about loving yourself (self-love), loving
others, and loving what you do. You should love yourself
in at least equal measure to others or things.
In this article I introduce an organic, holistic, and
authentic personal branding model that will help you
unlock your potential and build a trusted image of your-
self that you want to project in everything you do and is
about your true values, beliefs, dream, and genius.
• DOI: 10.1002/pfi.20007
 An organic, holistic, and stand for, what makes you unique and special, why you
are different from others, what your values are, and iden-
authentic personal branding tifying your genius, incorporating an introduced breath-
ing and silence exercise. You are almost twice as likely to
model . . . will help you accomplish your brand if you write this down.
2. Define and formulate your personal brand.
unlock your potential and Define and formulate an authentic, distinctive, relevant,
consistent, concise, meaningful, and persuasive personal
build a trusted image of brand promise, and use it as the focal point of your
yourself that you want to behavior and actions. To develop your personal brand
statement, perform a personal SWOT analysis (strengths,
project in everything you do. weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and evaluate
yourself. These should also be related to four key perspec-
tives: internal, external, knowledge and learning, and
financial (see Figure 2).
As an HPT professional, it is at this point that you need
to determine your specialization, concentrating on a sin-
AN AUTHENTIC PERSONAL BRANDING gle core talent. Define your main specific services, your
MODEL key characteristics, and your single leading and most
powerful attribute. Finally, determine who your audience
Building an authentic personal brand is an evolutionary
(domain) is and what their greatest needs are. Your per-
and organic process consisting of four phases (see Figure 1):
sonal brand statement entails the total of your personal
1. Define and formulate your personal ambition. ambition, brand objectives, specialty, service dominant
This phase involves defining and formulating your per- attribute, and domain. It also includes your unique value
sonal ambition in an exciting and persuasive manner and proposition. The next step in this second stage is to define
making it visible. It is about identifying yourself and fig- your personal brand story, which is the essence of what
uring out what your dreams are, who you are, what you you want to say about your personal brand to produce a

FIGURE 1. AUTHENTIC PERSONAL BRANDING MODEL

Performance Improvement • Volume 47 • Number 6 • DOI: 10.1002/pfi 35

 FIGURE 2. AUTHENTIC PERSONAL BRANDING FRAMEWORK
positive emotional reaction. Finally you should design
your personal logo, a single graphical symbol that repre-
sents your personal brand.
3. Formulate your personal balanced scorecard
(PBSC). Personal ambition and personal brand have no
value unless you take action to make them a reality.
Therefore, the emphasis in this stage is on developing an
integrated and well-balanced action plan based on your
personal ambition and personal brand to reach your life
and brand objectives and eliminate any negative ele-
ments. This is about translating your personal ambition
and personal brand into your PBSC (action). Your PBSC
translates your personal ambition and personal brand
into manageable and measurable personal objectives,
milestones, and improvement actions in a holistic and
balanced way. Your PBSC is needed to improve and man-
age yourself based on your personal ambition and brand.
It is an effective tool that you can use to manage and mas-
ter yourself and your brand. You can use it to develop
improvement actions to achieve your objectives, keep
track of your progress, record key brand information,
explore your life and brand, define new career paths,
build a network of contacts, and quantify and report your
key accomplishments, for example. Your personal ambi-
tion and personal brand are related to your heart (emo-
tions) and the right half of your brain. Your PBSC,
however, is related to the left half of your brain, which has
mainly an analytical, logical, and quantitative function.
The right half of your brain has an intuitive, emotional,
36 www.ispi.org • DOI: 10.1002/pfi • JULY 2008
spiritual, and holistic function. One of the results of
applying this holistic and authentic personal branding
model along with the related introduced tools is the bal-
ance of the left and right sides of your brain and the
balance of your heart and head.
4. Implement and cultivate your personal ambition,
personal brand, and personal balanced scorecard.
Personal ambition, personal brand, and the PBSC have
no value unless you implement them to make them a
reality. Therefore, the next step is to implement, main-
tain, and cultivate your ambition, brand, and PBSC effec-
tively. You have to articulate your personal brand with
love and passion, be committed to change, and improve
your perceived value in the marketplace and yourself
continuously. In addition, try to build credibility and
become an expert in your field. Get the word out through
a variety of media channels, do work you love that is con-
sistent with your personal brand and values, gain experi-
ence in areas of your brand in which you are weak,
promote yourself, market your brand frequently and
consistently, make conscious choices about the people
you associate with, build a strong network, deliver on
your brand promise, and, in short, live according to your
brand promise.
To guide you in this process, consider using the plan-
deploy-act-challenge (PDAC) cycle, and follow it. The
more you strengthen, maintain, protect, and cultivate
your brand, the more successful you will be. It needs con-
stant updating to reflect the new challenges you take, the
lessons you have learned, and your own growth and that
of your brand.
As Figure 1 shows, the personal branding model consists
of four wheels, which are interrelated and need to turn in
the right direction to get the large personal branding wheel
moving and evolving in the right direction. After the last
phase is complete, the cycle is again followed to fine-tune
the personal ambition, personal brand, and PBSC with its
surroundings on a continuous basis. By doing this, you will
constantly improve your brand and performance.
SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS
This holistic personal branding framework will help you
build a trusted personal and professional image. As an
HPT professional, developing your personal brand will
help improve your perceived value in the marketplace,
build credibility and a solid reputation within your indus-
try, enrich your relationships, and unlock your perfor-
mance potential. This approach has been proven in
practice to produce sustainable results, not only for indi-
viduals but also for companies.

HUBERT K. RAMPERSAD, BS, MSc, PhD, is an internationally respected and recognized coach in the
field of organizational behavior, performance management, and personal branding. He is president
of TPS International in Miami Beach and the author of Total Performance Scorecard: Redefining
Management to Achieve Performance with Integrity (2003), Personal Balanced Scorecard: The Way
to Individual Happiness, Personal Integrity, and Organizational Effectiveness (2006), TPS-Lean Six
Sigma: Linking Human Capital to Lean Six Sigma—A New Blueprint for Creating High Performance
Companies (2007), and Effective Personal and Company Brand Management: A New Blueprint
for Powerful and Authentic Personal and Company Branding (2008). He has been selected by
the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management as one of the 35 distinguished thought leaders in the
field of leadership development. He may be reached at h.rampersad@tps-international.com.

Performance Improvement • Volume 47 • Number 6 • DOI: 10.1002/pfi 37