Developing Your Personal Brand

Let’s Develop Your Personal Brand!

It’s time to develop your personal brand. PERSONAL BRANDING, or proactively managing our identity, is important.  But it can also be overwhelming.  Let’s take it one step at a time!

Last week I wrote and podcasted about HOW TO COMMUNICATE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND ONLINE. This is a great place to start, since our online digital footprint is accessible, assessable, and relatively easy to update.   Whether you listened to the podcast or simply started thinking about your personal brand, that’s progress!

Now, I encourage you to start developing your very own personal brand. Ultimately, our goal is to explicitly articulate a PERSONAL BRAND STATEMENT that is:

• unique (differentiated and focused)
• meaningful (relevant to you and to others)
• positive (aspirational)

Where to start? Let’s create your DIGITAL PERSONAL BRAND DOCUMENT.

Does this sound daunting? Relax! I have 5 thought-provoking prompts for you!

But first – what does your personal brand have to do with your CREDIT SCORE?!?

What does this have to do with my CREDIT SCORE?

There are at least 3 ways that managing your personal brand is similar to managing your CREDIT SCORE:

1. Whether or not we proactively manage our credit score (or our personal brand), we all have one!
2. Just as institutions can access your credit score, other individuals are also aware of your personal brand. 
3. The implications of both credit ratings and personal brands are significant:
   •  A poor credit rating (negative personal brand) diminishes opportunities.
   • A healthy credit rating (ideal personal brand) opens doors…

Developing Your Personal Brand – 5 PROMPTS

There’s absolutely no pressure here.  This is a low-key, low commitment, private exercise.  And it can be fulfilling!
 
Where to start? Start with a blank sheet of paper…

(image: Unsplash @ jessbailydesigns)

Here are 5 prompts for you to consider. Go through them one-by-one and hand-write your thoughts. Write whatever comes to mind.  (You’re the only one who’s going to see this!)

PROMPT 1️⃣:
How do you WANT others to think about you?

• What do you hope others know about you?
• Highlight job titles, personality traits, adjectives…
• What compliments do you receive regularly that are most meaningful to you?

PROMPT 2️⃣:
Consider your PAST

• Think back to when you were 7-8 years old. What made you unique back then?  Has that changed?
• What failures did you learn from? Do you have a “transformation story”?
• What are some of your most impressive past accomplishments? What are you proud of?

PROMPT 3️⃣:
Your CURRENT STATUS

• What is your current identity? Role?  
• What is your happy place?
• What are you currently focused on that excites you?

PROMPT 4️⃣:
Your FUTURE

• What is your dream? 
• What do you want your legacy to be?
• What is true success to you?

PROMPT 5️⃣:
What makes you UNIQUE?

• Compared to your graduating class?
• Compared to your work colleagues?
• Compared to your friends?
• Compared to your family members?

(image: Unsplash @ dnevozhai)

When your ideas slow down, you can transcribe your thoughts into a digital document so you can easily update it.

This is just the first step…

This is just the first step in developing your personal brand.  Now that’s you’ve considered some preliminary thoughts and written them down, put it aside.  Pull out the document in a few weeks, and you’ll have some fresh new ideas to add!

More to come on developing your personal brand over the next few months.  In the meantime, I hope you’ll keep this DIGITAL PERSONAL BRAND DOCUMENT updated.

Please forward this email to anyone who might appreciate some advice on communication skills and personal branding.  Thank you!