Personal Branding

What is Personal Branding?

If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, you’ll hear the word ‘branding’ left, right and centre. Branding is key to creating the right perception of your company. In my experience, for branding to have the biggest impact, it has to be personal. Potential buyers need to know exactly who you are and what you stand for. In my opinion, many sales professionals, although they are good at selling a product, are not as good at selling themselves. A personal brand is the unique combination of skills and experiences that make you who you are. It is what makes you unique and sets you apart from everybody else. 

Why is Personal Branding Important?

Before you embark on the journey into personal branding, it is essential to understand exactly why it is worth your time. After all, we’re all busy people and business pulls our time in many different ways. So, here is why I think personal branding is important.

Standing out from the crowd.

Personal branding supports you to stand out from the crowd. Today, more than ever, in the business world, we need to rise above our competition and set ourselves apart from everybody else. 

More Opportunities.

Personal branding will bring in more opportunities for your company. There’s a chance that you may be approached to do things you might never have dreamed of.

Trust, Influence, Authority and Professional Relationships.

Personal branding facilitates the growth of good, solid professional relationships. If people feel like they know you, they are more likely to engage with you. Through the development of your own personal brand, everybody can see who you are and what you stand for. People get to know you even before they meet you and when they do finally meet you, it feels like they already know you. You have already provided them with a good first impression of who you are and therefore you have a solid foundation to build upon. 

Shows you as an expert in your field.

Personal branding is essentially showing off what you are capable of (as well as what you stand for and your achievements). You should be sharing your personal experience and skills. If shaped in the right way, and consistently, you can come across as the go-to person for advice in your line of work. As, at the moment, not everybody has a personal brand, those who need advice are far more likely to turn to somebody they feel they know and respect. Being visible and creating your own brand means that others know exactly who you are. Imagine walking into a room at a networking event and everybody already knows who you are because you created a personal brand that works. 

Brings you joy.

Not only is personal branding particularly great at bringing in new customers and opportunities, but it is also fun too. I love working on personal branding. Building your own brand and creating more opportunities will enable you to meet people and do more diverse things in your working life. Others will contact you to do events, speaking opportunities, and maybe even conferences if they see you as the ‘expert’ you are. Over the last three years, I’ve been invited to do podcasts, TV/newspaper interviews, run networking events, join committees, chair roundtable discussions, join trade association boards and speak at events, all of this because I pushed myself onto social media and created my own personal brand. 

The benefits of personal branding are clear. It can be quite a daunting experience initially, it can make you feel quite exposed and self-conscious, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You can ease yourself into the process and make it work for you.

Top 10 Tips for Personal Branding

Here are my top tips to ensure you are successful and make the most of personal branding. It doesn’t have to be a huge time-consuming task. You can make it fit easily around your work day. And, you never know, you might even enjoy it.

Get Online

Getting started is as simple as setting up LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles and making sure that you use them. Put a good picture on there that shows yourself in the best light and make your page stand out by adding videos, photos and articles. This is your profile so make sure it reflects you and the image you want to portray,

Be Genuine

If you’re not genuine, people will see through that. Share what you do online, but also share your vulnerabilities and thoughts on subjects that are relevant to you and your industry. 

Tell Your Story

People will be more inclined to engage with you if you become a great storyteller. By that, I mean creating interesting content that others will find appealing. By talking about yourself and your views, you will create instant and meaningful connections. As you begin telling your story and sharing your experience, consider who you are, as personal branding can be a great reflective experience.

Be Consistent

I’m always talking about consistency because consistency is important in so many different aspects of business (and your personal life). Creating any brand, especially your own personal brand, takes time. You need to post regularly so that everybody knows who you are and what you do. The brand, the image and the perception of you will build and develop the more content you put out there. 

Don’t Be Afraid to Fail

The only way you can truly fail is if you don’t try. Just have a go and see what happens. Far too often people think something is an awesome idea, but get caught up doing other things. The whole point of personal branding is to show the world who you are, so just start and be true to yourself. 

Be Helpful

People remember those who have helped them. Often, the best way to come across as helpful is to actually help people. Through collaboration, you will see how positively people will talk about you and how often they start to turn to you.

Grow Your Network

Networking is crucial for any business, but it is also an important part of personal branding. Personally, I believe it gives you more opportunities and by extending your network, you will come across people from many different backgrounds and fields who you may be able to support with their journey, or who may be able to support you with yours. The larger your network, the more people become aware of you 

Use Different Forms of Media

Varying your content is key if you’re going to stand apart from the crowd. Some people prefer the written word, others prefer videos, some prefer podcasts. Utilising all types of media in your content will ensure that the most people can access it. 

Get Involved

In order to create great content that people want to interact with, you have to have something to say. Making sure that you’re regularly attending events, conferences, exhibiting and getting involved in your local community can give you a lot of great content to share. Whatever interests you and is important to you will often be of value to others. 

Continue to Reinvent Your Personal Brand

The person you are today will be different to the person you are this time next year. Or in five years, or ten years. It is important to reflect to the outside world who you are at each point in time and if you have a website, or social media accounts, that don’t reflect who you currently are, then you need to make it a priority to rectify this. 

I hope this has been useful and if you want any more help and advice please do get in touch.