Be Confident with Your Personal Brand

Personal Brand, Personal Branding, Networking, Career Strategy

In today's world, it's important to take your personal brand seriously if you want others to take you seriously. Try out these tips for understanding the importance of personal branding, defining your own personal brand, and marketing your brand for greater career success.

Your personal brand helps you to:

  1. Prosper as a free agent. Your personal brand is your reputation. It's the way others see you. If you're like most people, you may be switching jobs and employers regularly. Your personal brand is an asset you can take with you wherever you go.
  2. Take the Lead. Your brand will help you to establish goals, priorities and action plans. Even while taking care of daily obligations, you'll have a bigger picture in mind.  
  3. Serve others. Self promotion can go too far, so it's easy to think that branding is somehow vain or self-absorbed. In reality, your personal brand shows the positive impact you can have on other people and the world around you.
Here are simple strategies to build your brand: 
  1. Increase your visibility. Post fresh content on your website or blog regularly. Stay active in social media. Look for opportunities to teach classes, give presentations, or write articles in your field. 
  2. Build buzz. Collect samples of positive feedback you get in the workplace. Assemble testimonials from happy clients and encourage them to make referrals. Word of mouth is often more effective and certainly cheaper than paid advertising. 
  3. Tell your success stories. Craft brief anecdotes about your accomplishments that showcase your skills and make you proud. Rehearse telling them so you sound natural. 
  4. Monetize your contribution. Numbers sound convincing. Try to quantify the value you can deliver. Example, closed X amount of service requests per week, reducing response turnaround by 25%.
  5. Put together a dream team. It's difficult to go it alone. Cultivate your network. Help others to market their brand and they're more likely to do the same for you. Team up with complementary partners. Exchange services like teaching a technical skill for a friend who knows the lead recruiter at company X.  Branding used to be for cattle and big corporations, but now everyone is in on the act. Take charge of your personal brand to achieve more career success and guide your life in a direction that is meaningful for you.
  6. Optimize your LinkedIn Profile. Your LinkedIn profile may be more important than your resume these days. Keep your summary current and compelling. Read more here.