What is Personal Branding?

Personal Branding - Part 1 of 2 - What is Personal Branding?

We all have a different mix of skills, experience, energy, attitude, story,and personality. How you hold yourself, speak, and dress are all major factors that influence how others perceive you, both on and offline. And this is precisely where personal branding comes in.

Whether you’re applying for jobs or colleges, or trying to make a name for yourself as a business owner or freelancer, your reputation and your image matter. A lot. It includes your skills, job qualifications, personality, and everything else that makes you, you. Yes, it matters how you dress and speak, but in today's world it's equally important to pay attention to how you appear online.

Your personal brand is how you want people to see you. It is about visibility and the values that you outwardly represent.

To clearly differentiate your value and what you bring to the table, you need to have an outstanding personal brand.

If you really want a wake-up call for this, google yourself and see what comes up… or doesn’t.

Just like the branding of a product or service, personal branding is all about taking control of how others perceive you. This means you should remove any unprofessional tagged photos of yourself. Maintain your social media accounts with new, fresh photos. Create a website that puts all your essential information in one convenient place.

Personal branding is about putting your best foot forward in the most authentic way possible. It is very much about building a brand personality that represents yours.  Think beyond the external image you portray to others and fully personify your genuine self inside and out.

Your personal brand is how you represent who you are and what you are capable of.

What are the benefits of having a personal brand?

As a personal brand, you will develop your own unique brand identity.  People will be able to see the whole package of what you are all about. This comes with benefits for you:

• You become more relatable.  This helps build trust and authenticity.

  
  

• Establish a brand identity.   Personal branding will ensure that people know what to come to you for, and they will be able to rely on you for specific things.

  
  

• Get more opportunities. With a strong personal brand, you will most likely be exposed to more interviews, job offers, promotions, contacts, clients, event hosting gigs, and more.

  
  

• Differentiate yourself.  By building a brand, you show off your unique characteristics that set you apart from others in your area of expertise.  In much the same way that a product branding guide would do for a business, you can create a personal branding guide for yourself.

  
  

• Enhance your expertise.  The more exposure you get, the more your network expands, and those who you interact with will start to identify you as an expert in your field.  They will reach out to you for your opinion and expertise.

  
  

• Leave a lasting impression.  An unforgettable personal brand will stick out in people’s minds, so when it comes time to give referrals or recommendations, they will think of you first.

Now that we know what a personal brand is and why it matters, let’s look at how you can start building your own.

How to define your personal brand

There are many components that define a seller of a product or service. It could be the name, colors, logo, mission, words, style, and mood of the company.

You can have a wonderful service or product to sell, but if your brand is not defined, you may not get the outcome you want over the competition.

Even if we don't have a product or service to sell, we are growing and evolving in our careers in the corporate world or leading a project in a non-profit environment.

What do you want to project?

How do you create and define your own personal brand? What kind of personal brand should you have?

There is no right or wrong answer because it is very personal. Get out a notepad and pen or a word document on your computer and brainstorm these questions:

What is your goal in building your personal brand? What do you want to get out of it?

You may realize that you need to define and step up in terms of personal branding.

Ask yourself why you feel that need. Why now?

Are you aiming for a promotion at your work? Or have you been running your business for some years, but you are reaching a plateau in terms of sales, and you feel that your brand is not different enough from your competition? Or you are at a turning point in your life, and you feel the need to redefine what you want out of life. What is your next step?

What do you want to be known for? What do you want people to say about you?

It can be about a skill that you have, a craft that you master, a business that you grow, or a product that you sell. It can also be about soft skills that are unique to you, a way of being that people comment positively about you.

Imagine how you would like your best friend to speak about you to his/her friends. Or is your best client referring you to other friends?

In short, what do you want people to say behind your back?

What problem do you want to solve?

This is a time to get clear about this question. If you are working in a company, think about all the different tasks you enjoy accomplishing every day. What problems do you solve with your qualities and the way you do things?

What are your values in your career? Or rather, what makes you upset about how other people do their jobs that you don't want to do?

What are your strengths? Where do your skills shine?

Your personal brand is your personality and energy combined with your knowledge and experience, which are what will differentiate you from your colleagues or competitors.

So what makes you the BEST person on earth to solve the problem you are solving? Soft skills, hard skills, network, education ... where your business is located ... or the fact that you know someone or.... anything! Anything can enter that answer as long as they solve the problem and they are unique to you.

Put it all together.

After answering those four big questions, you should have a very clear idea of how you want to be perceived, what differentiates you, and why you are uniquely YOU to achieve what you want to achieve.

But let's not stop there!

Now, communicate that…