Creating a Powerful Personal Brand
Personal Branding is a hot topic these days, and I have 5 ways you can create a powerful personal brand and leverage it to get into the career you really want…
Step #1. Understand your value.
Having a powerful personal brand means that you consistently deliver what you say you’re going to deliver. In other words, it’s the skills, experience, and value that you provide to your employer or clients. Whether it’s bringing in new streams of revenue, managing highly valued projects, developing creative marketing campaigns, or whatever, your career is fueled by the value that you consistently deliver to employers.
Your value is a unique blend of your strengths, professional accomplishments, and personal characteristics (such as being a good leader, risk taker, problem solver, strategic thinker, etc.). All of these things combined make up your “value package” which makes you truly unique from a crowd of colleagues, business associates, and even job applicants.
Step #2. Get into a career where you can thrive (and not just survive!)
Being in a passionless job is a career killer! If you’re walking around dull and listless (like the Clairol Herbal Essence girl before she shampoos her hair), then others are sure to see you that way. It’s impossible to have a powerful personal brand if you’re just going through the motions at work. You need to be in a career that challenges you, flexes your professional muscles, and excites you!
You want to be working on projects that excite you and teams that energize you! Start gravitating towards those projects and assignments where you can thrive. Or, if you’re in between jobs right now, then you want to focus on talking about those kinds of projects and accomplishments that you worked on in your networking and on your resume.
Step #3 Send the “right” messages.
Everything you do and say sends messages to your manager, senior managers, clients, peers, and potential employers. Your words, actions, presentations, reports, work deliverables, all shape the perceptions others have about you and the value you provide.
So you should take every opportunity to send a very clear message that you are a hiqh quality and results-driven contributor. Talk about the successes of your projects and teams, and the benefit they’re providing to the company. Talk about the obstacles that your team overcame, and the key lessons that you learned.
This is how employers and potential employers can view you as an asset to their company.
Step #4 Act as if your are on a stage.
Think about how you want others to perceive you. Do you want to be recognized as being smart? Strategic? Having specific expertise? A great leader? Whatever it is, you should be striving to send that message loud and clear.
Every day you have opportunities to shape and manage your personal brand. In every presentation that you give, in every meeting you attend, in all your conversations with other professionals – think of yourself as being on a stage. It’s your opportunity to shape and manage the way others are perceiving you.
Step #5 Network strategically.
If you want bigger promotions, better clients, and a richer, more meaningful career you need to work with people who value and appreciate you. So focus on creating a strong support system of what I call, career influencers. These are people who can hire you, promote you, inspire you, teach you, and open doors to new opportunities. Nurture your relationships with these people, and ask about their career path and strategies for blasting through career challenges. Seek out people who can give you the roadmap, guidance, and inspiration to help you advance your career.
Powerful personal brands don’t happen overnight. It takes time, focus, and commitment, but the payoff is huuuuuge. Imagine a world where you wake up every morning excited about your career! 
5 Ideas to Promote Yourself OUTSIDE an Organization
What thought have you given to promoting yourself to career influencers outside your work environment? These are the people in the medium and big rings of your sphere of influence who can potentially help you move into a different role, company or industry.
Here are 5 great ideas for promoting yourself outside an organization.
- Get published. If you have written a report, white paper, or newsletter article to share within your company, try to get it published externally. There are thousands of online newsletters for all kinds of topics and industries and most are avidly seeking contributing authors. If published, be sure to get the link and forward it to your career influencers.
- Become a public speaker. I believe that the single most effective way to strengthen your personal brand is to become a public speaker. Think of ways to get in front of your career influencers and share your expertise.
- Broadcast your message. Almost all cities have at least one television station providing morning and midday news and public affairs programming. Producers look for “hot topics” and experts who can inform and educate audiences on a particular subject. Be proactive and contact these producers in your area. If you are interviewed, be sure to capture the video and stream it on your web site, then send the link to your target audience.
- Teach your message to others. Adult education classes are in high demand at community colleges. Teaching a class gives you extra credibility and you may pick up a few new clients or have the opportunity to do some freelance work.
- Join a board of directors. Many trade associations and civic organizations need industry experts, smart business professionals and creative marketers. Be sure to pick a cause that genuinely drives your passion.
By continuously raising your credibility and visibility within your personal network, you’ll not only strengthen your personal brand and open new doors of opportunities, but you can also create an emotional connection with them that makes them not only want you on their team, but feel they need you.
7 Ways to Promote Yourself INSIDE an Organization
In a my Developing Your Personal Marketing Plan blog post I briefly discussed the two tracks of your personal marketing plan. Now, I will give you 7 ideas for promoting yourself within your current organization.
- Write regular project reports and status updates. Use project updates, status reports, memos and emails to convey your message. Spend time carefully writing monthly status reports and project updates so they support the fact that you take your position and career seriously and that you consistently deliver your promise of value. Focus on the results of the project, or the goals and milestones that you achieved or helped achieve.
- Write a newsletter article. Teach others about your areas of expertise by writing about it in the company newsletter, on the company’s web site or on the company’s blog. You have knowledge to share with your internal target audience that could strengthen and add credibility to your personal brand. Consider how to package your knowledge so that you can distribute it online.
- Make a presentation. Look for opportunities to present your message in person. Volunteer to give an update on your project or area of expertise at the next staff or management meeting. Consider mentoring or offering an internal class to teach others about your area of expertise.
- Create a new project to showcase your knowledge, skills or signature talents. Is there a project you can work on right now to demonstrate your expertise? If not, then could you create a project to do so? Figure out what you really love to do and make a proposal to a company or client to do it!
- Lead a team or project. An excellent way to raise your credibility is to be seen as a leader. Successfully leading a project or team demonstrates that you know how to meet deliverables, time lines and budget goals, and lead, manage and motivate others.
- Facilitate meetings. Lead a management, department or project meeting, quarterly update meeting, organizational status meeting or annual celebration. More than likely there are many opportunities within your company to facilitate a meeting. Take the first step and tell your manager you would like to volunteer.
- Fill in for your manager. When you manager goes on vacation, is sick or overloaded and cannot attend a meeting who fills in? Ask if it can be you. This is a great way for other senior leaders and department managers to view you at a higher level.
Developing Your Personal Marketing Plan
How do you deliver your message to your personal network? In other words, how do you promote your value and accomplishments without overtly bragging and selling yourself in a cheesy, I’m-the-best-thing-since-the-invention-of-cheese-fries kind of way?
Just like successful businesses have marketing plans, you need to develop a personal marketing plan. Your personal marketing plan should include two tracks: internal and external. Internal marketing includes strategies within your current organization; external marketing focuses on promoting yourself outside of the organization.
Depending on your current situation, you may want to have a combination of both tracks or focus on just one. For example, if you are currently employed, but have decided to leave the company in the near future, you may not need to create an internal marketing plan yet. If you like your current company and want to move into a new position, you will want to increase your visibility and build your credibility with colleagues, managers and senior managers so they will champion you for that new role or promotion.
The goal of your marketing plan is to find ways to deliver your message to those who can help you advance your career. By continuously raising your credibility and visibility within your personal network you’ll not only strengthen your personal brand and open new doors of opportunities, but you can also create an emotional connection with them that makes them not only want you on their team, but feel they need you. I will explore ways to promote yourself inside and outside your organization in upcoming blog posts.
Types of Career Influencers
Forming strong strategic partnerships with career influencers in four key categories can help strengthen your credibility and elevate your personal brand.
- Those who can evangelize your talents and accomplishments to others. They are your personal public relations representatives who give you visibility and exposure to other career influencers. They spread the good word about your work, accomplishments and the value you provide. They are living testimonials who can recommend you to other managers or clients.
- Those who currently hold, or have had, a position you desire. They can be career mentors or advisors to you providing invaluable advice on the skills and personal characteristics required to be successful in that role. They can offer guidance on your career path, share their steps in reaching that position or give insight into the professional challenges they faced and specific strategies they used to overcome obstacles.
- Those who can teach you a new skill. They are experts in their fields and possess specialized knowledge or experience to help you reach your career goals.
- Those who, just by working with them or being associated with them, can strengthen and add credibility to your personal brand. Simply by sitting on a board of directors with a well-respected industry expert, or reporting directly to someone well positioned in the company, or winning a new client who is admired within the community could give your personal brand a boost.
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Sherri Thomas, author “Career Smart – 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand” AMAZON’s TOP 10 LIST for personal branding books! Learn how to put yourself in high demand with leaders, clients and hiring managers! Buy it now!