PENTA CEO shares personal branding strategies with Central Mass business women

MARLBOROUGH _ Identifying your unique brand to grow personally and professionally is a subject of which Deborah Penta, Founder and CEO of PENTA Communications, Inc. is an expert. Along with being a successful entrepreneur for over 25 years, Penta is recognized as a nationwide expert in marketing, advertising, and public relations, and is a featured speaker at national conferences.

She was recently the featured speaker at the Corridor Nine Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business Forward Females (BFF) May luncheon, held at the Boston Marlborough Courtyard by Marriott in Marlborough on May 13, 2014. The BFF networking group for women was developed to encourage, support, educate, and promote business women in the Corridor Nine Area Chamber of Commerce region.

Her work in the field of female leadership through FLIC®, and numerous organizations that support women’s initiatives over the past decade, has spun into various programs that educate women and girls about topics ranging from leadership and mentoring to continuous growth opportunities.

“Many believe that personal branding is about the exterior packaging of an individual,” said Penta. “However, there is much more to it. It starts with discovering yourself, and arriving at the clarity of who you are, and playing to your strengths with the highest level of integrity and authenticity.” For example, if you are a construction company, you want to know personally as well as professionally what your niche is and who you want your target audience to be, you can then work around that and get creative. Using a logo maker online to construct a unique logo brand that will appeal to your audience and bring more awareness.

During the program, Penta helped attendees develop a greater awareness of what they could do to delve deep within themselves and find answers to questions that would help them on their journeys to creating and developing their personal brands.

“It’s impossible to create a brand without research and development, assessing market needs and opportunities, and positioning. It’s interesting that many people ‘package’ themselves without truly digging deep enough to gain an understanding of who they really are, before springing off in whatever role they put themselves in at any given time,” said Penta. “How can we simply package a brand, without truly knowing what that brand represents on every level? The same is true with respect to personal branding.”

Nearly 100 women representing various industries from the Central Massachusetts and Metrowest region attended the program.

“It was truly wonderful having Deborah as our guest speaker for our Business Forward Females group. Her message was chock-full of tips and insights that were perfect for our audience, and the response was outstanding about her presentation,” said Karen Chapman, President, Corridor Nine Area Chamber of Commerce.

“Deborah Penta is a consummate professional who focuses on helping business women appreciate their skills and talents. In the BFF presentation, Ms. Penta directed women to identify their individual ‘brand’ to enhance their professional and personal lives,” said April Healy, Vice President of Retail Services, Central One Federal Credit Union.

“Deborah’s presentation exceeded my expectations. I have never heard the definition of vision and mission so clearly explained. I went back to my management team and shared what I learned and we are refocusing on our definition of both,” said Darline Yatim, Owner and President of Shrewsbury Health and Racquet Club. “The goal of the BFF is to learn something that can improve your business and this fulfilled that for me. Having a female business owner with such grace and success is a role model for me and others.”

“Deborah was a very dynamic speaker. I wasn’t sure what to expect on the subject of personal branding, but it was truly an informative program,” said Denise Kapulka, BFF’s Co-Chair and Sales Manager of Knight’s Airport Limousine.