You personal brand is the single most important aspect of your professional identity.
In today’s fast-paced world, where the competition is fierce and attention spans are short, having a strong personal brand is a game changer.
Sadly, most of us don’t know that we already have a personal brand. Or worse, we are misaligned with our personal brand.
So what is a personal brand, really? Why should you care?
Understanding Your Personal Branding
What is a Personal Brand?
Your personal brand is your unique combination of skills, experiences, and personality the world sees. Your DNA, fingerprint, your uniqueness, your reputation.
There is no one like you, and this leaves an impression on everything you touch, everywhere you engage, and every person you reach. If you don’t control your personal brand, than people won’t know your authentic self, and this can lead to people misrepresenting you.
For example, think about your favorite person – you can probably sum up who they are within 1-2 sentences and when asked for more details you can probably provide more information with little preparation. Tiger Woods – golfer, professional, GOAT. I could probably say more about him when asked, you already have an image of him playing golf in your mind.
This is the same for you – when someone hears your name, they have a few trigger words that captures your brand, reputation. Tiger’s recognition is global, yours might be smaller until you get to that stage.
Why is Personal Brand Important?
Not knowing your brand makes it more difficult for people to get to know you, or show interest in getting to know you. Let alone, ask you to interviews, to be a speaker, take on leadership roles, etc.
A strong personal brand can open doors to new opportunities, enhance your credibility, and set you apart from the crowd. Imagine walking into a room and immediately being recognized as a leader in your field. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
That is the power of your personal brand.
How to build your Personal Brand?
Reflect, reflect, reflect
Your reputation comes down to your foundational values, how you carry yourself, and what you and others say about you. Thus, self-reflection is the key to developing a personal brand that is yours.
You can follow influencers, you can follow leaders, or others you admire, but you will never be like them and they will never be like you. So, you must take the best of what agrees with your core values and hone your statements to reflect back to your core values.
For example, my personal brand is I’m a helper and I believe everyone deserves to live a balanced and fulfilling life. Life is complicated, and I’m here to help people un-complicate their lives and help them live a balanced life. I pursued my education in counseling because I believed in my mission and purpose, it aligned with my core values. I specialize in Career development because we send nearly one third of our adult life crafting our professional identity, but I focus on balanced life because once we have a fulfilling career, we can focus on living a well balanced life where work-life are balanced and we aren’t living to work, but working to live.
Think about your experiences, reflect on how you came to be in this situation, what life experiences, values, challenges, etc. led you to here. Right now.
Here are some questions to get you started:
– What truly matters to me?
– What are the principles that guide me?
– What do I want to share with the world?
– How have my experiences, education, skills, knowledge, etc shaped me?
Identify your Unique Strengths
– What are you exceptionally good at?
– What do others come to you for?
Identifying your unique strengths helps you carve out a niche that highlights your expertise.
This can be difficult for many of us because we might not appreciate the little things that come natural to us. I call them “hidden talents”, these are activities that feel easy and common sense, but those tend to hide our superpower.
It never hurts to take an assessment to identify more our strengths. For example, the MBTI assessment can offer you a vast amount of knowledge and understanding of who you are, how you get energy, how you process the world, how you make decisions, and how you plan/live your life. When we are in alignment, we are balanced and we go further with minimal effort.
Additionally, if you’re overwhelmed by the choices and strengths within you, taking the Strong Interest Inventory can help you narrow down your professional interests and help guide you to building the right career for you, so it’s easier for your to succeed.
Craft your Personal Brand Statement
Your personal brand statement is a concise, impactful sentence that encapsulates who you are and what you offer.
If you’ve spent time in the last two sections of reflecting on your core values, motivations, and identified your strengths – this becomes easy. Because all you’re doing is summarize who you are.
Try it – Think about a friend, describe them in 2-3 sentences on their strengths and core values. Was it difficult? Likely, it wasn’t difficult for you to provide a statement for your friend. But, we are extremely hard on ourselves and this complicates how we approach our personal statement.
Write it down, refine it, and let it guide your decisions and actions. Remember, clarity is key.
Can you describe your brand in one powerful sentence?
Usually, a brand statement is about 3-5 sentences, and it adapts to the context in where it’s delivered. The core (60%) of the brand statement stays the same, but some parts change to adapt to your environment and the people you’re surrounding.
Embracing the internet and your brand statement
You can’t escape it, you can avoid it, but you’ll come back to it.
The internet has changed how people interact, engage. In today’s digital age, your online presence is a critical part of your personal brand. Assess your online presence and modify as needed:
– Are your social media profiles consistent with your brand message?
– Are you sharing content that reflects your values and expertise?
Take a moment to audit your online presence and ensure it aligns with your personal brand.
Engaging Others with your Personal Brand
Connecting Authentically
Your personal brand is not about self-promotion, it helps in self-promotion, but it’s more than that. It’s about letting others know of who you are and what you stand for, it helps people find you.
Have you ever wondered, why you can make friends with some people more easily than others?
Likely, it’s because you found a common element, interest, which sparked an authentic conversation that led to deeper conversations and stronger bond.
Having a brand statement help you connect with others quickly because you’re already promoting what is important to you and how you’ll engage with them, the value you have, and the benefits they’ll receive from engaging with you.
The most popular interview/social question, “Tell me about yourself.”
Yikes!
It’s a loaded question, but it becomes a lot easier when you have your personal brand in mind.
“Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” – Oscar Wilde
Sharing your knowledge and insights
When your brand statement is available for the world to see, and you’re comfortable owning your brand statement, you get to unlock a different level of communication and engagement from people around you.
You position yourself as a thought leader.
As you build relationships, connect authentically, share your thoughts in articles, videos, or give talks, leave comments, etc. You are sharing valuable content, exchanging your knowledge and insights in helping others – you build trust and credibility.
– What’s one topic you could start sharing insights on today?
Take a moment to find in-person and online spaces where you can help others and share your knowledge and insights to help others.
Stay humble and adaptable
As you build credibility, trust, and become a thought leader, know that you’ll get more responsibilities to carry on your personal brand and share your story.
But, sometimes, we grow differently than how established personal brand, or we want to re-brand ourselves. How do we do that?
A personal brand is not static, it changes as we grow. Stay humble to the past that brought you here, and adapt to the next version of yourself.
Best thing you can do for your personal and professional development is to seek feedback. A 360º feedback can help us grow tremendously, it’s where you get feedback from peers, mentors, friends, leaders, and even your audience.
– How do they perceive you?
– What have they noticed about your brand?
– What strengths have you built?
– How can you improve?
These and other questions will help you return to the reflection stage of your personal brand. Adapt, and continue growing yourself and your personal brand.
The Impact of a Strong Personal Brand on Leadership
Inspiring Confidence and Trust
When you project authenticity and credibility, you create an environment where people feel safe and motivated to contribute their best efforts.
This trust is the foundation upon which strong, resilient teams are built. It fosters open communication, encourages collaboration, and cultivates a culture of mutual respect.
As a leader, your personal brand can serve as a beacon, guiding and inspiring others to achieve shared goals. By consistently demonstrating your values and strengths, you not only reinforce your leadership position but also empower those around you to grow and thrive.
So, how can you ensure that your personal brand inspires the confidence and trust necessary for effective leadership?
Become more vulnerable (the good kind), and share your process, give back, stay humble, and develop your professional brand statement.
For example, when speaking with leaders, my brand statement is slightly modified. I’ve lead several teams to achieve unimaginable goals by providing them with the tools where they took ownership and joy of building their own success. My goal was to support them in becoming leaders, and they excelled beyond my scope. I coach them to live a more meaningful life, respecting their autonomy, and trusting them to bring solutions to their challenges.
Enhancing Career Opportunities
There’s a saying, I can predict how much you’ll make by the first two sentences on your resume.
When I’m reviewing executive resumes and their summary statement isn’t clear, I know they’ve been struggling for a while. This struggle is demotivating, and can cause severe delays in career success.
A strong personal brand can lead to new career opportunities.
But, it’s not solely the brand statement that makes the career opportunities, it’s all the effort you made in self-reflection, commmunity engagement, establishing a focus and building creditibility and trust, which help you advance in your career faster. Your brand / reputation acts as a magnet for opportunities.
Leadership is about Personal and Professional Growth
A strong personal brand motivates you and others around you to grow and help you develop your KSAs to lead more, take on additional responsibilities, and help more people because you’ve built trust.
Let your personal brand statement be your foundation and your guiding principle, where people find your authentic self and you share your journey challenges and triumphs with humility and honor.
