How to Measure Your Personal Brand Equity

I wrote this as a response to a question on our FB page : 

The QUESTION : 

Assume one is endowed with a natural skill set. How does enjoying your natural skills (like driving, swimming, cooking, singing, soccer) relate to your personal branding efforts? Do they follow the same path or they are at variance? Also what happens if there's an absence of natural skills? Yinka Ayeni /PBWKB

MY RESPONSE 

If you unmask every major brand, there's something basic and functional about their offering. However, there can be many footballers, but only one David Beckham. There can be many singers but only one Michael Jackson. Underneath all these glories and branding are the skills set. Your skill set is necessary to start a journey of branding. We don't brand lies. You must have something you are offering me. Even Paris Hilton has a Social skill set that graces major events.  She does offer something. [ you know that, right?] 

One of many ways to measure Brand equity for Personal Branding is Brand depth and breadth. If you are very good at what you do, that is depth. However if you are very good at what you do and you are in people's conversations in other fields apart from your own, that is breadth. You are relevant where you belong but you are trending outside of your local environments. 

A PB equity = BD+BB. Brand Depth + Brand Breadth 

Take Sharapova in Tennis for instance. In March 2006, Forbes magazine listed her as the highest-paid female athlete in the world, with annual earnings of over US $18 million, the majority of which was from endorsements and sponsorships. She has topped that list every year since, even after her 2007 shoulder injury. 

In 2011, Forbes listed Sharapova as No. 29 in their list of 50 top-paid athletes, the only woman on the list. In 2012, she was listed as No. 15, and was joined in the top 20 by Li Na at No. 16 and Serena Williams at No. 17. In April 2005, People named her one of the 50 most beautiful celebrities in the world. In 2006, Maxim ranked Sharapova the hottest athlete in the world for the fourth consecutive year. She posed in a six-page bikini photoshoot spread in the 2006 Valentine's Day issue of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, alongside 25 supermodels. 

In a poll run by Britain's FHM magazine, she was voted the seventh most eligible bachelorette,based on both "wealth and looks." Source: Wikipedia . 

Now, that's not Tennis. That's some Personal Branding. 
Now compare that to Martina Navratilova. Martina is arguably world's ever best tennis player but with only a brand depth in tennis. 

Sharapova has a brand breadth that surpasses tennis playing. Breadth is added when you stand for more than is functionally expected of you. 
ALL IMAGES ARE SOURCED FROM GOOGLE IMAGES.