Today we’re discusing, 10 Tips to Build Your Successful Personal Brand.
In a nutshell, personal branding is how you are perceived in the world. Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty before we get into the tips. You are a salesperson, a finance person, a supply chain person…you are always selling yourself in career management. It’s important that you get into the sales mode and think of yourself as a product. The personal brand is a component of that product and the market is large, whether we are in good times or bad times So, you need to get your message out to that market, your name, your personal brand, to as many people as you can.
Tip # 1 Find out your unique promise of value.
What is so special about you? Why should I, if I was in a hiring position, choose you over Mary, Mark, or Paul. What is your differentiator? What is your competitive advantage? Why should I employ you?
Tip # 2 Determine who exactly you are.
We mentioned that product. You now need to define that product. What do people in the world consider you as? Ask current colleagues, ex-colleagues, other acquaintances, even family, what they think of you? The more homework you do, the more you learn. And the more confident you will be in being able to articulate, express, and communicate that personal brand. What skills and traits do you have that differentiate you? It’s all about differentiation.
Tip # 3 Define your audience.
Who is your audience? Are you staying within your own industry or are you changing industries? There’s a huge audience worldwide and you need to define it. So think about your audience. Is it going to be over here or is it going to be over there?
Tip # 4 Look at the personal brands of experts in your audience, in your field.
What do they say about themselves? What is their personal brand? Do a lot of homework. It’s your due diligence into finding out about you. The more we know about ourselves, the more confident we are when we plan and execute a job search because remember you are selling. It’s pretty simple. Your personal brand is YOU!
Tip #5 Ask as many people as you can about exactly who they think you are.
Be prepared for some negativity, negativity is not uncommon. Somebody might say something about you that might really hurt you, but you know what? You can learn from that. It’s not going to be all positive. You are going to learn a lot about yourself. So be prepared for the negativity as well as the positive attributes that are going to be shared with you. You will come out of this exercise, buoyant knowing exactly who you are.
Tip #6 Now you can prepare your personal statement.
Make it very resonating, make it memorable so that when you go to a networking event or you’re doing a Zoom or any other meeting, any other platform, people will know exactly who you are and be able to remember you because of that statement. Use the English language, it’s an amazing language so use it to the maximum, to seduce, to entice people to really think about you and remember you,
Tip #7 You need to embrace networking.
Whether it be in person or whether it be on Zoom, you have to network as networking gives you the venue, the platform to market your personal brand. Talk about your personal brand, and never be frightened. You should be very confident in articulating your value, your niche, exactly who you are.
Tip #8 Get your resume up to date.
Keep your resume up to date. And secondly, have an UpToDate fully functional, fully complete LinkedIn profile. Do not be afraid to exude or to express that personal brand, using the platforms of a resume, CV, and LinkedIn. Also, I would suggest that you actually be on Facebook. Facebook is becoming increasingly important in recruitment and personal branding. It gives you another venue, another platform to maybe highlight a bit more of the personal aspect rather than purely business which is what LinkedIn is.
Tip #9 Now we come to really get it out there…Express Your Brand!
Don’t be frightened about getting your name out there. The more people that know about you, the more offers will come your way. Even if you are not in career transition, if you are gainfully employed, you never know when your dream job will come. A recruiter is looking for you right now on LinkedIn and he, or she may have that dream job for you. So, get your name out there to the worldwide audience. Your defined audience.
Tip #10 Finally, be a trusted source of information.
It’s giving as well as taking so be willing to give, share information, share leads because that will come back to help you later on. Hopefully, you’ve got a wealth of knowledge on personal branding from this post.
I am passionate about helping you reach your career goals and so I have an offer for you; a free resume critique and LinkedIn audit. I’d like to offer you a no-obligation, no sales pitch, LinkedIn audit, and a resume critique. However, I do warn you, I am realistic and I will say it as it is, I am tough because I want you to learn what I’m going to tell you and I will remove all the red flags for you so you have a complete bank of green flags, so it will be clear sailing if you have to go into career transition. Are you interested? If so, email me in the message section on LinkedIn. Or send me an email using the link posted below.
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