Personal branding, more often than not, is brushed off as a 'fad' amongst some people as they believe that it is more than enough to rely on personal connections and traditional interviews to get the things that they want in life. Even if they do get on the boat of personal branding, most of them end up building misleading personal brands or personal brands that do not reflect their true character at all, thus bringing about some damage in the long run. It can be in the form of losing out on a potential job promotion or the inability to undergo a fresh and successful career change.
If you are looking to what aspects you need to know and consider in personal branding, read the following points with an open mind that will explain what you need to know about personal branding, what you can do and why is it important to do it.
See 10 must read books for personal branding.
A Good Name For Yourself Is A Good name For Your Personal Brand
You don't need to have an actual established brand in order to make a name. Think of yourself as the company instead, and believe that you are useful not just in your own eyes, but to the rest of the world as well. Start by highlighting your professional skills and capabilities, followed by the positives and negative characteristics that you have as a person and brand yourself accordingly.
Avoid being too self-indulgent and complacent about your abilities and character, and always put in the consistent effort into building a humble yet dominant image that others will be impressed with.
From this, you will be able to create a brand personality that is going to resonate with both how you would want to come across as a prominent figure in the industry that you are going to mingle in, and how the people in the industry are going to perceive you.
This is the foundation step that you need to take to create the correct image that will help you find your way to the future career that you desire the most.
Professional Credibility and Personal Branding Goes Hand In Hand
Whenever you are moving from job to job or career to career, you have to work hard and maintain your relations and networking in the process to act as an additional 'insurance' to your credibility. Never scrap away the connections that you have established in your previous workplace or career, as they might come into use in one way or another in the future. It will be tedious, and at times, even difficult to keep your networking alive and well amidst your transition into a new job or career, but it will definitely pay off when you realise that your connections can help build up your professional credibility down the road.
Go out and have a weekend brunch with your previous colleagues, catch up with your past superiors and you might have just guaranteed a great referral that you will want to be written about you in the future. Your professional credibility can also be enhanced when you are able to refer and give others the benefits that they need through your connections.
Remember that being focused on maintaining your professional credibility can help you enhance your personal branding even further. It will help you get ahead when the time comes to change professions.
Personal Branding Is Enhanced When You Are Connected To or Affiliated With Other Similar Brands
When you are in the midst of establishing yourself in the industry that you are mingling in, learn how to scope out who are the people that you would want to be associated with, why is that so and how they can benefit your own career and branding in the course of the future.
Making the effort to know these people and create relations with them can take you to greater heights in the future. Think about the cheerleader effect: if you invest the time to hang out with the crowd that is known to have positive and successful careers in their respective fields, it is definitely likely that you will come across as the same in the eyes of other individuals as well.
Do your research on the big shots too, and see if there is any existing overlaps between you and them that can be transformed into opportunities for you to take hold of in the future. Keep in mind that it's not enough to just connect with the others; you need to be aware and keep in touch with them regardless through the attendance of a Facebook event, sending your well-wishes via an online comment or promoting their activities further through your own set of contacts that you have gained from networking.
This way, the favour is more or less secured when it is your turn to have your personal brand sold to potential clients that you would want to work and profit from; having these connections to be your referrals will amp up the credibility for your personal brand. These important connections that you have established in your industry will be ones to back up the credibility in not just work, but your persona as well.
Personal Branding Is The Most Effective When It's Honest
Never establish a personal brand that is a complete different persona compared to your real life character. Not only will it be tiring to maintain, it can actually damage your credibility as a person as well when people start to realise that you are not what you say you are. Instead, reflect on yourself and figure out what kind of personal brand will work for you best, and which positive traits that you possess can be amplified even further to build up a strong personal brand.
The greatest and most effective personal brand that sells well is always one that lines up with what your actual personality in real life the most. In the areas that you lack, you have to find time and figure out how you can make up for it. Take immediate action to rectify the personal brand that you are portraying if you realise that it's actually not relaying accurate aspects of your character in real life.
A way to ensure this is to gather feedback from trusted yet unbiased individuals about the impression that you tend to give off from the way you create content online to the way you interact with others physically during social events. If a certain action causes you to be perceived wrongly, cut it out and avoid repeating it in future events. Constructive criticisim is your best mate to have in this case.
Personal Branding Must Be Sustained Through Consistent Self-Improvement
As mentioned previously, no matter how solid your personal branding is in the industry that you are working in, you are not indispensable; there is always someone out there that is better, faster and more hardworking than you are.
You must not grow complacent and make sure that you put aside enough time to remain focused on bettering your existing skills and learning new ones that are applicable or might come in handy in the future.
Build your portfolio and make it fool-proof so that others can see that you are the real deal and not just someone who made it simply because of luck. Always have the positive attitude to engage in life-long learning and give your best, no matter how small the task is in order to sustain your place in the industry.
When you are in the world of business everything matters: from the way to dress, to the way you network. To help you make the most out of all the opportunies that is made available to you, make the best out of it and never slack off even when you loathe to dress and look the part that you need to portray during networking in real life or on the Internet. Again, keeping these points in mind will help you understand what you need to know of personal branding, why is it important and how you can build it accordingly to your advantage in the future.
You have a set of amazing traits and skills that are definitely going to help you advance up the career ladder if you learn how to package them in the right manner through effective personal branding. Strike while the iron's hot; wait no further and start to plan out how you are going to build your own personal brand to help you get the advantages that you need and want in the future!
