What is Branding?

You are a brand made by God to be sold in this world. 

There was a time when you had intellectual knowledge and you went to a company for a job and they gave you a job and then you worked there for a long time and got promoted. But that doesn’t work any more.
Now, things have changed. We are the brand now, our knowledge is a brand and we take that brand from company to company to company. Now people stay in jobs for 2-3 years ideally and 1-2 years in practice and then they leave the job but they retain their brand.

Branding differentiates between what to buy and what to reject.

(1) Why would you buy this water than that water? 
(2) Why should any body employ you instead of the other candidate?
 
The real brand is what is You; who are you? It is not the brand that we are the greatest company, the biggest firm, the best service provider. This is not real branding. The consumer cannot quantify these things.

Tell him: 
Hi, I am listening. What would you like me to know? 
That is real branding.

In 1997, Tom Peters introduced the concept of Brand U in his book Re-Imagine!. At the time, self-branding was an assertive marketing concept best reserved for high-flying techies and senior executives who wanted to maximize the financial returns of their biggest asset—their career.

Branding is a promise fullfilled.

Today, personal branding is a matter of survival. Personal Brand is nothing but you control what other people think about you. It happens in the way you speak, write, dress, meet, and behave. We do this to influence other people.

We already have a personal brand, we just need to improve it. Then we make a promise and fulfill it. Every brand (be it a product or a person) has a personality. With your personality, you position yourself and fulfill a promise - that is branding.

You are not Coca Cola but you own a company or a job that sells something so you make a brand. Branding is the sum total of everything you do. It is a promise wrapped up in an experience of doing business with you or being touched by your business.