Do you have a personal brand?
Today I met a young man looking for his first role out of university, very committed, enthusiastic with a great academic record. He is however struggling to get past a first interview. A big reason in my mind is his lack of an elevator pitch, which needs to include his potted history scripted ready to recite and he hasn’t defined his own personal brand — so that employers can identify where he might fit within their organisation.
This reminded me of a blog I wrote immediately after the US election back in 2016 where I was struck by the stark differences in candidates and their voter facing personas. Some were highly curated, consistently on message with every movement or speech well rehearsed. Others appear to have been somewhat more authentic, with mistakes made, inconsistencies of message, reactive emotional responses.
Specifically I wondered increasingly whether President Trump’s “authentic persona” had been a highly orchestrated and curated performance for us the “viewing public”? One thing I think we can all agree is the Personal Brands of every US election candidate were clear and easy to identify with, or rally against.
So what? why do I need a personal brand?
Your personal brand matters, investors invest in both the business itself and the team, board members sign up based on both the business and the team, staff sign up based on the leadership, customers buy from companies and people they trust — and employers take a punt on the candidate they really understood.
How you make people feel is surprisingly important, as I have said before, tell your story with passion and leave strangers with a feeling (hopefully positive, competent, trustworthy one). We need to package ourselves up in a way people can identify with.
How to build your personal brand (well get started)
The exercise I suggest to anyone looking to understand their own personal brand drivers is similar to the one I take startups through — visualising what you want to be known for.
Basically you write up what you want to be known for, and what you don’t want to be known for. Think about your personal values, your mission in life and imagine if someone was to introduce you to other, what would you want them to say?
If you use post-it notes you can then prioritise those on a wall or table — most important to least important. This can inform the language and style you project, help where you focus your attention and preparing your own “elevator pitch”.
In a startup context these key words can go into a pitch document and business plan, in a personal context into your CV.
The keys to success of this exercise include both being authentic and talking someone else through your thought process — collaboration in this instance is a powerful tool especially if you aren’t naturally self reflective.
It’s also a useful exercise for reinvention, which all elect to do from time to time. If you wanted to re-write your CV from coming across as a Project Manager to present yourself as a Business Analyst for instance.
Great advice people have given me
Wise people have given me great advice over the years some of it helped shape my personal brand.
- Learn to pause before you speak
- Shooting from the hip or reacting with emotion comes across in a business context as toddler like behaviour. Learning to pause, consider what you just heard and most importantly the perspective of the other party is hard but the most valuable thing I have ever done.
- If you are liable to react to an email or vocalise via email — write down everything your emotional self wants to say and send it to yourself! Only use that email as your venting mechanism, do not take any of it into your reply or reaction messaging into the actual correspondence.
2. Fake it at your peril
- There is a common phrase in business “fake it til you make it” to be honest it’s a fine line between talking yourself (or your business) up — and bullshit. Depending on your personal brand and values over promising and under delivering is a dangerous place to be in business and life, and can rapidly lead to a loss of trust.
- People generally respect honesty and will respond in kind with honesty.
3. That feedback wasn’t necessarily personal
- Remind yourself business is business, unless you are being personally attacked (which is incredibly rare in my experience) people are usually delivering a factual message, accept it as such. It’s about the outcome (and happy ending) not whether they agree with you all the time.
- Like learning to pause before you react — learn to see past the emotion and accept feedback, input or advice at the face value it’s given. I struggle to wrap things up with a pretty spin so sometimes can be blunt and direct which some sensitive people struggle to digest.
Time to get started
We’re not all politicians I know. We do all need to interact with others whether job hunting, selling our products or services, partnering, investing, whatever. So it’s worth giving this personal brand exercise a go. If you have a goal in life to promote yourself further — perhaps to becoming a politician — then find a personal branding coach like Lou from Draper Cormack who you can engage to help you invent / reinvent your personal brand.
Good luck! the mahi will pay off. Vic
“We live in a great country so helping every New Zealander reach their potential in life is something we can all aspire to achieve”. You can follow me on LinkedIN or on Twitter and read my context here.
This post is my personal opinion so while I wear many hats it doesn’t necessarily reflect the views and positions of the various organisations I represent. Vic