Personal Branding — The Key to an Epic Career
At some point in our lives we have been told that to be successful in your career we need to have a combination of a good education, relevant industry skills and of course experience. However, as the job market becomes more competitive, this outdated formula simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Fear not though as there is a secret weapon that each of us has and if deployed strategically, can put us far ahead of the competition and seriously propel our career forwards. In fact, it can take transform an ordinary career into one that it truly epic. It’s our Personal Brand!
What is Personal Branding:
Personal Branding is really an umbrella term that covers a variety of aspects. It is how you productise and package yourself, your image and presence, how you go about building a respected name for yourself, being associated with a unique skillset or field of expertise, how you position yourself in the market, your reputation, your value and how you promote yourself. Above all though, Personal Branding is really about perception management… managing the way people see you and what comes to their mind when they think about you.
Everyone has a Personal Brand, whether they realise it or not, which begs the question; if you are not aware of your brand, then you are not in control of it. If that is the case, then you are missing out on a whole lot of life changing career opportunities.
How to Build Your Personal Brand:
Building your personal brand and getting your name out there takes time. To effectively build a strong Personal Brand, you need to have a solid foundation, meaning a sound understanding of your Professional Identity. After all, there is no point trying to promote or sell yourself if you are unsure what exactly you are selling. If you are confused about this, imagine what it will be like for others who are trying to understand what exactly you are and what you are all about when you communicate with them in a professional sense.
Your Professional Identity encompasses who you are (your professional label), what you do (what problems you solve for companies), your core strengths and skills, your area of specialisation and most of all, the value you can bring to an organisation.
Once you have got this crucial part figured out, the next step is to ‘package’ yourself by defining your core message, the one that you will use throughout your branding material e.g. elevator pitch, CV, LinkedIn and personal website. While the message needs to be tailored for each medium, the essence or core needs to stay the same so that you remain, ‘on brand’. The core message is really the essence of your brand.
Now that you know what you are and what you want to promote, the next thing is to develop a ‘visibility strategy’. There is no point keeping all that awesomeness to yourself, you need to let people know you exists. Decide on which tools you want to use in order to promote yourself. The most obvious is social media but there are numerous other ways you can build a respected name for yourself. Creating and publishing content (blogging) is one of the best ways to position yourself as a Subject Matter Expert as well as, speaking engagements and expert panel discussions.
Key Benefits of a Strong Personal Brand
Having a Strong Personal Brand will bring enormous benefits that you can leverage off to grow your career. These include gaining a greater sense of purpose and direction, being seen as a Subject Matter Expert in your domain, credibility and trust, a competitive edge in the job market as well as the power to positively influence others. Those with strong personal brands don’t always need to go hunting for their next role, as their name and reputation in the market is enough to attract exiting career opportunities.
If you want to see where your current Personal Brand sits, just Google yourself and take note of the results. Do these results portray you in the way you want to be perceived? Does the content really capture and communicate what you are, what you do and the value you bring?
In Closing
A powerful Personal Brand is one that is honest an authentic. Never portray an image of yourself that is not true. It takes years to build a good solid brand but only seconds to destroy it. People with strong Personal Brands often incorporate both the good parts and not so good parts and so instead of hiding the negatives, I say embrace it! If you have quirks to your personality, build that into your brand and use it to your advantage to help you stand out. After all, it is what adds to your uniqueness.
Remember, your brand is the carefully constructed story of you! If you don’t take control of your brand and tell your own story… someone else will!
Johnathan Maltby is a Personal Branding and Career Consultant with proven strategies designed to empower you to energise and ignite your career. If you’re wanting to define your Professional Identify and build your Personal Brand to supercharge your career, then contact Johnathan at www.johnmaltby.com.au and connect with him on LinkedIn. New connections welcome.
