Do you focus on your reputation and personal branding? Do you know how to ‘sell’ yourself? Do you want to build a strong personal brand to assist you with your career? If you never paid attention to these matters, today might be the day.
Professionals need to establish a strong personal brand to assist in their career success. In order for the best companies to find your profile, you need to highlight your talents and strengths.
How to define personal branding?
Personal branding is about using and adapting to a person, professional methods and technics usually dedicated to promoting a company’s brand. You create a professional identity and you manage the way people perceive it.
In other words, personal branding is your reputation. Like it or not, we all have one. Personal branding is about choosing what you want people find and know about you.
If we use Donald Trump as an example, he has a strong personal brand. No matter if you like him or not, even before he became president of the United State, we all knew who Donald Trump was.
Your personal branding’s goal is to showcase your story, so ask yourself; what are you passionate about? What you do you bring to a team? What are your talents and your special skills?
Personal Branding helps you with your career as you will inspire trust and differentiate yourself from the competition. It is also a list of your skills and values, helping you to make better choices in your professional and private life.
“Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover”
“Don't judge a book by its cover” is what we usually say and it would be awesome if it could be true. Unfortunately, when it comes to professional appearance and credibility it is more likely that you will be judged by your personal presentation. We have codes and representations of what a banker, a doctor, a politician, a handyman, should look like. If your contractor arrives in a suit to do some repairs in your home you might question his skills. It would be more than surprising to see your banker in shorts and flip flops behind his desk.
So if we look at the photo below, do you think we could picture the woman on the left working as an attorney, an HR executive or a banker? What about the woman on the right, can you picture her, dressed like that, taking care of kids in childcare, teaching yoga or working in an organic shop?
Your personal presentation is definitely a big part of your personal brand.
How to build a strong personal brand in 3 easy steps?
How to make a good first impression or how to improve people’s opinion of you?
Simply by following our process to understand who you are and how to convey it in your personal brand.
1. The first step to create your personal brand: personal audit
Answer the following essential questions to structure your personal brand:
Where does my passion lie?
Who am I and what are my values?
What do I want to be known for?
What are my career goals?
What does differentiate me from others?
2. Second step to create your personal brand: develop your storytelling skills
Define yourself with 3 or 4 of your best skills and try to remember past situations where you have demonstrated these skills. This step will assist you to promote yourself and highlight success stories.
3. The third step to create your personal brand: embody your brand
Embody your brand and reflect it in your actions and behaviour. Take care of everything that represents you including:
Resume and cover letter
Online presence (social media, websites, blogs)
Personal presentation & grooming
Career and personal hobbies
Once you completed the three easy steps to create your strong personal brand, use our checklist to ensure you haven’t forgotten anything.
Personal branding checklist for a strong reputation
The essentials to remember to create a strong personal brand
Building a strong reputation is not a one-time thing, it requires consistent day-to-day work. To create and manage your personal branding, you must know yourself well and be aware of your assets as well as your goals.
In today’s digital era, everyone is more exposed with easier access to information. It is essential to keep control of your personal information and to select the exact information and messages you want to share.
What people think and remember about you is your reputation; it is your personal brand.
Do you want to reinforce your personal brand? Do you want your team members to reinforce their personal brand? Contact us to organise a personal branding coaching or a personal branding workshop.
Contact us:
+61 (0)2 9569 6906
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