Now more than ever, you need a personal brand.
More and more, our world is becoming automatic, transactional, and impersonal. In business, a human founder’s name on the door now yields to Acme, Initech, and Globex. Too many company brands look and sound like carbon copies of one another. It’s as if AI wrote their boilerplate vision, mission and values statements. What does that mean for those of you looking to advance your careers? Generic company brands–no matter how big and successful the enterprise–foster impersonal and generic perceptions of employees like you. When you join these companies, or try to rise up the ranks, management reduces you to a functional title shared by a herd of others: Director, Specialist, Analyst, Vice President, and so on. In reality, these corporations are branding you, and not to your benefit.
Now, job titles are necessary, of course. But here’s my real point: are you stuck in a job because your supervisor still thinks you are the same person he/she hired four years ago? Do you long to make a leap to another company or industry, but want to avoid the same trap once again? It’s time to play offense. Work with a branding expert to forge a unique personal brand–an aspirational self that stays true to who you are, yet dials up what makes you special.
What is personal branding?
Personal branding is a strategic synthesis of your learned skills, natural talents and distinctive personality, that optimizes your image and helps people realize the unique value you bring to any situation. In short, it’s designed to positively change the way people see you.
For example: let’s say that management thinks you’re an Account Director (AD). [Insert your job title here]. They like you. Also, your company has 12 other ADs. You’re in a good place, but you’ve been at this job for two years, and occasionally ask yourself if you could do better. You want to advance to a position for which you believe you’re best qualified. You’re not sure exactly what your ultimate career goal will be, so you think one move at a time. Promotion to promotion to promotion, with perhaps a jump to another company somewhere in the middle. A Senior Account Director job opens in your current organization. The salary is 25% more than you are making, and it’s a supervisory position over two junior ADs. Like you, a few of your AD colleagues vie for the spot. Maybe your plan is to stroll into your boss’s office and mention that you’re interested. Chances are, your AD colleagues do the same. Management ends up hiring one of the 200 candidates who applied to the job posting on LinkedIn. Huh? What just happened? If you ask why you didn’t get the promotion, they may respond with: “you have no supervisory experience,” or “it’s more responsibility than you are able to handle at this time.” You’ve just been branded. No matter how proud you are about your abilities and potential, you are what others think about you. In this case–as I wrote before–they think you’re a smart, reliable Account Director. That sounded good at the time. Now you realize how much better it should be.
A personal brand strategy can effectively inform your behaviors and actions to accelerate your success.
Is it right for me?
The idea of a personal branding project conjures a lengthy, expensive initiative only afforded by companies, products and services in the commercial market. Not true. While the strategic process is exactly the same for building commercial brands, the cost and duration are more in line with the budgets and busy schedules of students, careerists and entrepreneurs. Personal branding is an investment that pays off quickly, and builds equity over the long term. The strategy process has three basic steps:
1. A disciplined audit of your abilities, character assets, and personality from the perspectives of you and others who know you.
2. A strategy session that outlines your ambitions and goals, and most importantly, profiles the personalities and values of those you must engage en route to your goals.
3. A working session that forges your personal brand strategy using the elements generated in the first two steps.
Case study: Branding a successful healthcare influencer
I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Jennifer Caudle (drjencaudle.com) on her personal brand. She’s a board-certified osteopathic physician practicing in family medicine–just like 150,000 other U.S. professionals with such credentials. However, Dr. Jen wanted to be something special: a trusted medical media personality with a following. She sought a personal brand to transform from a successful doctor to an authority on everyday health and wellness topics. Using the personal branding process outlined above, you can now see her in action on TV, online and other media (Google her). We even gave her a personal tagline: America’s Family Doctor. Top left is the personal brand strategy plan we developed, that guided her actions and behavior in pursuit of her ambitions.
Be more than just a job title
Instead of living with an image and reputation that’s good enough to get in the game, why not be a superstar? When people meet you, or work with you, or tune into your social media, let everyone know that you’re not just a Computer Network Specialist that keeps the system running smoothly, you’re a guardian of the corporate galaxy. Break out of being one of 10 Customer Service Representatives. You’re the chief satisfaction officer. And stop settling for generic brand status. Be an indispensable asset, or a tough problem-solver, or a talent magnet, or a big-idea machine. Brand yourself before others do it for you.