The Personal Brand

Are you feeling uncertain about the direction of your career? Do you struggle to articulate what makes you unique and valuable? Look no further! In this post, we delve into the world of personal branding and explore how it can give you the focus, intention, and influence you need to achieve your career goals. From building a strong and compelling personal brand, to creating opportunities for yourself, to developing credibility and taking control of who you are, this guide will provide you with the tools you need to make a lasting impact in your professional life. So, don’t leave your reputation to chance. Take control of your personal brand today and start creating your desired legacy.

Creating Your Identity

If you asked a dozen people who know you what they think you’re good at or what they think makes you unique,* what would they say?* Would they give you the same answer that you might say about yourself?

Personal branding puts the intention and the focus in your reputation, and ensures that other people see you the way you want. Your power in your career directly corresponds to your ability to make and maintain influence. Building influence requires a strong and compelling personal brand.

Your personal brand is your reputation. It’s your legacy. It tells people what they can expect from you. It helps people understand what they’ll will feel when working with you or serving alongside of you.

Personal branding is about finding a sense of control, and gaining options for yourself.

Creating Opportunities for Yourself

When you look at your career and where you are right now, can you honestly answer the question of *how did you get here? *Did you design it or did someone design it for you?

Personal branding gives you is the opportunity to take a moment, stop where you are and ask yourself, where do I want to be going forward?

When thinking about the personal branding process, it takes the randomness out of your career and allows you to articulate a game plan and a strategy that helps you make smart decisions.

You might take a moment now and think five years out, who do you want to be in five years? What are you passionate about? Who inspires you? What skills and talents do you have that you would love to grow?

Take an inventory of where you are and what you would love to do with your career and what it might take to get there. You’ll find is you’re going to be able to move from a reactive career into something that’s much more intentional and much more proactive.

Building Influence with Personal Value

Perhaps you’re looking for a new job or you want a promotion, or looking for some additional tools and resources in the job that you have.

If you don’t have a clear and strong value proposition, or rather a personal brand, then it’s really difficult to positively influence those people who are making those decisions about giving you that job or those resources.

The people who have those opportunities are your target audience, and you need to be positioned correctly for them. When you’re clear about your value proposition, about your target audience, and the goals that you have, then you’re able to build influence.

Building influence with the decision makers and collaborators in your workplace means you’re able to identify and respond to their needs, but you also have a strategy for how you want to be known.

No personal brand is worth anything unless you have credibility. There’s no shortcut. The formula for building credibility is that values plus action equals credibility.

You have to start by being really clear about your values. What do you believe in? What is so core to your moral fibre that, if it wasn’t there, you wouldn’t be you? What do you believe in that you would fight for?

And then, how are you showing up? How are you behaving that’s consistent with those values? You have to be able to tell people what you stand for and then show action.

That’s how you get credit. That’s how you get credibility.

A lot of people are doing really good work, and they’re making really good decisions, living a life of integrity, but not telling people why. If you’re not attaching that action to the value, and you’re not getting credit.

In the world of personal branding and career advancement, you do need credibility to build influence.

Taking Control of Who You Are

Again, your personal brand gives you focus and intention. It takes the randomness out of how you’re going to show up, the relationships you’re going to build, and where you’re going to go in your career.

Personal branding is all about you personally. While there are formulas and metrics, your path is yours alone, and you must feel confident in your values in order to make this work.

Start by taking inventory of your current brand. Don’t judge it, just accept it and understand it, but develop a strategy and work that strategy.

Use your personal brand to help you make critical decisions from deciding what company to work for, to what wardrobe makes you feel most confident, to what the banner on your blog should look like, etc.

Filter everything through this question: *Will it get me closer to my desired reputation and my legacy? *Let your brand evolve and mature as it’s supposed to.

Everyone has a personal brand by design or by default. Don’t leave it to chance that other people see you the way you want them to. You can build influence and direct your reputation, so start today, and take control.

About B. Kenneth Brown