Creating a Personal Brand: How do You Want to be Seen?

As a marketing expert, I am often asked to help businesses improve their branding or develop a compelling value proposition. It’s critical that organizations are clear about the value they provide customers. This allows them to create the right targeted messages to attract consumers to their brand.

What may not be as obvious is that it’s just as important that individuals create powerful brands for themselves.

Your personal brand won’t likely be found on product packaging or be the focus of a major advertising campaign. But it will be visible in online venues like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

It’s also critical to your career. How do you show up in the work environment? What image do you project in terms of how you talk, how you look, and what you wear? Do you appear self-confident and assured, or timid and out of place?

Do you project stability? Innovation? Trustworthiness? Adventure? Responsibility? Risk taking?
Do those around you feel comfortable asking you for your input and support? Do they trust you? Do you reflect the key values your organization represents?

There’s no right or wrong answer as to what your personal brand should be. Except that it needs to reflect the real you. It takes much too much energy to sustain a false persona over a long period of time. And it’s unlikely you’ll be able to do this well.

It’s also important that you understand the core values of the organization for which you work. Do they match what you hold important for yourself? If not, the incongruity will cause tension and stress, as well as hurt your career prospects.

How do you know what your personal brand is today? Try this exercise. Write down as many attributes as you can that reflect your personality at work. Possible choices include: dependability, experience, maturity, innovation, creativity, integrity, spontaneity, technical ability, political savvy, assertiveness, team orientation, enthusiasm, nurturing, persuasiveness, stability, attention to detail. Feel free to add to this list.

Now ask a few colleagues or peers to each tell you the five words that they think best describe you. Be open to their input. Don’t agree or disagree. Just collect the data.

Compare these to your original list. How much overlap do you have? Are there any surprises? What have you learned? Do any of the new responses resonate with you? Where do you see patterns?

In the next post, we’ll look at how you can take what you’ve learned and use that to build the personal brand you’d like to project for the future.

-Linda Popky, President, Leverage2Market Associates