CAREER TRAJECTORY
By Kevin Meglic | Senior Member
The Oxford dictionary defines Branding as the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design. The word brand comes from the Old Norse word Brandr, meaning to burn.
Branding first originated as far back as 2,700 BC, in order to identify the ownership of livestock. As this process developed, consumers found a continuous trust in quality to a particular “brand” and that is why we continue the practice in most organizations today.
Why is this important to you? Because creating your personal brand can create a potential bond between you and a future employer, customer, or colleague before you even meet. Hence the old saying “your reputation precedes you.”
How do you create your personal branding?
After some online research, I liked founder of SlimplyBe, a personal branding agency, Jessica Zweig Fishers’ method of creating your personal branding by using these 3 pillars:
- Know your audience
- Know your value
- Know your why.
By identifying your audience, you can determine the characteristics of your products or services and narrow down which of those you wish to highlight.
By knowing your value, you can begin to establish a business case for why your skills are needed in any organization. One of the ways you can determine your value is by combining your experience using the tools of your industry, your soft skills, and unique attributes that make you, you.
An important part in this process is to not directly compare yourself to any other individual. You can, however, use people in your field as a benchmark for success. But the truth is, we are all unique and our experiences give value to everything we can apply them to.
Knowing your why, which is what your motivations and passions are, will help you find your place in the organization and where you can be of most effective. This is very important because if you don’t know why a particular organization needs your services, then they won’t either. Ask yourself what you can do to help achieve goals in your industry.
Ways to improve your personal branding
I was recently talking to a colleague about a book they were thinking about writing, and where to start. My piece of advice was to gather stories relevant to the subject matter and write them down. After you have your stories, you can then categorize them into chapters and add your “filler”. Writing a book can establish you as a subject matter expert and give you something to promote. One of my friend’s favorite things is to cite his own work in various articles and other publications.
Creating a website is another way to promote your personal brand. By creating a website, you will have a central repository of information about you. And the best part is that you can use your own structure to determine how that information is presented, which gives the viewer a deeper sense of your ability without any further form of communication.
As a recruiter, I was searching for an instructional designer. I found one and asked them for samples of their work. They gave me a website to visit, but the website was so poorly structured I decided not to submit them to the client. The next candidate I found also gave me a website to reference. However, in this case I was so blown away by their work that I immediately forwarded not only their resume but the website to the client as well. The moral of the story is if you are going to create a website to promote your personal branding, make sure that it represents who you are as a professional. Don’t spend more time on the theme than you do on how well the information is presented.
Public Speaking is also a great way to promote your personal brand. By creating presentations based upon your experience and skill, you demonstrate not only your grasp of the subject matter but also how it can be applied to fixing a common problem saving an organization time, money, or both!
By increasing your presence in your industry, you stand out as a professional with unique skills and talents that will be an asset to potential customers or employers.
