Building Your Personal Brand

With a new year comes new opportunities, growth, and career changes. Being a woman in a male dominated workplace, it’s very important for me to always make sure my personal brand is on point to get the credit I deserve.

In my personal experience, I used to believe that if I just put my head down and worked my butt off, everything else would speak for itself. And while this is still true, I soon realized that people weren’t walking around waiting to put a crown on my head and call me the queen. I had to lean in on my personal brand and make sure it also represented who I was and what value proposition I could offer. I realized the importance of speaking myself up.

Whether you are pursuing a career in corporate America, living life on your own terms as a entrepreneur, or working in a grueling start-up environment, it’s important to make sure your brand represents your best self.

In a busy world, it’s important to make sure we are shining light on ourselves to make sure all our hard work doesn’t get overlooked. It’s time to put our heads up, speak up on our work, and appreciate our abilities.

So let’s get started building your personal brand with these essential steps below:

1. Understand Yourself: Write out your strengths, weaknesses, values, personal life vision, and passion. What are some soft and hard skills that you could easily pitch in under 30 seconds? Through understanding yourself, you will be able to identify your unique value proposition that makes you special.
2. Network / Socialize: According to Gaby Ezel, Lead Product Marketing Manager at AT&T, it’s important socialize in order to grow your personal brand. She says you should attend charity and young professional events and have business cards with all your contact information. Take the opportunity to be social and talk about what you do.
3. Social Media Presence: It’s hard to have a brand without a strong presence and following on social media. Continue to grow your following with like-minded people who you can inspire and motivate.
4. Community Service/ Displaying Gratitude: Once you gain a solid following, display gratitude and goodwill by finding opportunities to help out in your local community. For example; volunteering or supporting a movement you believe in.
5. Positive Mindset: Maintaining a positive mindset is key to your brand. Always be forward-thinking in your approach. People are drawn and attracted to positivity. After all, the law of karma states; “everything we do creates a corresponding energy that comes back to us in some form or another.”

Let us know in the comments section below how you plan to build your personal brand in 2019! Stay tuned for our interactive “build your personal brand series”.