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Health & Fitness

What's a Brand Worth?

People talk about brands, brand equity, and building your own personal brand fairly often. In the post-financial-crisis world that we all live in, some of the most well-known and (formerly) respected brand names have been tarnished. AIG, Bank of America and GM are just three of the many firms that have suffered severe damage to both their financial performance and brand reputation. In addition to the degraded financial results, these firms have had to deal with the public outcry regarding their actions (or inactions), and the effort/expense that is required to rebuild their tarnished reputations.

These firms, as well as many others, have rebounded financially in the post-financial-crisis world, and many others have put concerted plans and energy into rebuilding their brand equity.

What exactly is brand equity? Everyone knows what a brand is, or at least has working understanding of what it means for them — a brand, in essence, communicates what the firm provides for their customers/clients. Most people have heard of an income statement, balance sheet, profit/loss, and a “good return.” These, and other financial definitions, are familiar to many people — assets, debt, and “equity” are things that are tangible, well-known, and easily understood.

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But what about brands?

I have attached a link with the top 10 firms from Interbrand, which was cited on Forbes.com, that lists the world’s most valuable brands for 2013. Corporate brands are worth tens of billions, and that is very nice, but what about your personal brand? Just like any business, we as individuals are in the business of marketing our products/services to potential customers/clients. This leads to the inevitable question — what are you doing on a daily basis to increase the worth of your own personal brand? Corporations hire entire teams of people and spend huge amounts of money on P.R., marketing, and other brand-building teams, and while that might not be feasible for you there are still plenty of ways that you can enhance your own personal brand — we will discussing them all week!

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