Let bestselling author Stedman Graham show you how building your own "Life Brand" will result in a more successful and fulfilling life. From traditional corporations to the Internet, from top executives to people striving every day in their communities, "branding" has become one of the most significant marketing practices in pop culture today. We all rely on our favorite brand-name products to provide us with a certain level of quality. Now Stedman Graham shows readers how applying branding strategies to their own lives can help them attain their greatest potential and value. We all have talents, knowldge, and other gifts to share -- not just at work but with loved ones and everyone we meet. Putting these traits to work for you as part of your Life Brand will enable you to reach your highest goals and enrich the world around you. With entertaining and pointed insights on personal branding styles and step-by-step instructions for developing a brand of your own, Build Your Own Life Brand! will show you how to: Discover and develop your individual brand assets, like your talents, knowldege, and personal characteristics - Build and expand upon those strengths - Identify "target markets" for key areas of your life -- your work your relationships, and your community - Create more value in those markets as well as your own life. Stedman Graham is chairman and CEO of S. Graham and Associates, a management and marketing consulting firm based in Chicago. He is the author of ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers. Graham lectures and conducts seminars for businesses and organizations around the country. He is a former adjunct professor at Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, and is currently a visiting professor at several other universities. Active in philanthropy and community work, he is on the international board of Junior Achievement, is founder of Athletes Against Drugs, and is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago. Chapter One: Build a Brand Name for Yourself When I was playing high school basketball many years ago, there was one name that stood out in every game: Chuck Taylor. Chuck wasn't a big scorer or a great rebounder. In fact, he was constantly underfoot on the court. More accurately, he was on our feet. Before there were Nikes or Reeboks, Converse Chuck Taylor All Stars was the brand. It was the most popular basketball shoe of my high school generation. Back then, when you made the varsity team, you just had to get a pair of Chuck Taylor high-tops. All the players that I admired in high school, college, and the pros were wearing them, so I associated Chuck Taylor with success on the basketball court. I grew up like everyone else, with hundreds of other brand-name products around me -- top brands such as Wheaties, Pepsi, and Ford Thunderbird -- but my desire to have a pair of Chuck Taylors marked the real beginning of my brand awareness as a consumer. A brand product is one with a unique identity intended to set it apart from similar products. The cereal brand Wheaties is "the breakfast of champions." The Pepsi soft drink brand is "the joy of cola." Compaq brand computers offer "better answers," according to an ad in a magazine on my desk. We are so bombarded by product brands that we are hardly conscious of them much of the time, but most of us have at least some level of brand awareness. We can sing the jingles of our favorite brands. It's the real thing! We can repeat their ad slogans. Just do it! Most important for the companies that make brand-name products, we look for them when we shop. Increasing a product's brand awareness is one of the jobs performed by my management and marketing consulting company, S. Graham & Associates. Marketing and working with brands are the primary roles of my firm, which provides strategic planning, marketing, consulting, and program execution to companies seeking to target general and multicultural markets. Our clients come to us for help in creating, expanding, and revitalizing their brand names. Our speciality is to build upon what they have already accomplished with their brands by helping them sell their products to multicultural consumers whom they may not be reaching effectively. We also help new companies develop and establish their brands by determining what their primary target markets are and how they can best explain the value of their product to consumers. A BRAND-NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT YOUR LIFE "Everything is a brand. Most people don't recognize that. Where you live, the house you live in, the street you live on...they are all brands. And people are brands," Frank Delano, president of the New York-based Delano & Young, a brand-image firm, told the Chicago Tribune recently. - "We're all brands, in the sense that we have a certain identity, have to maintain a certain quality and have to bring something to [radio station] affiliates they can't bring to themselves," said broad