Reinforcing your Personal Brand with Implicit Communication – blog

IMPLICIT COMMUNICATION & YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

We can think of communicating our PERSONAL BRAND both EXPLICITLY and IMPLICITLY:

• EXPLICIT as in the words. Overt, direct, unambiguous messages. This includes your resume and how you introduce yourself.  
• IMPLICIT as in signalling or sending queues. This is less direct, but critically important communication, as in your body language, your style, and lots more…

image: Unsplash @ Maria Lupan
She’s got style!
What’s she “implicitly communicating”?

In this week’s podcast and newsletter, we’re focusing on IMPLICITLY COMMUNICATING OUR PERSONAL BRAND. 

Read on to learn:

• 5 ways to implicitly communicate your personal brand
• Why it’s so important to focus on your implicit communication
• Where to start – my top 3 suggestions!

Let’s do this!

5 Ways to IMPLICITLY COMMUNICATE Your Personal Brand

                                        
1️⃣ Your Appearance

• Your style
• Your possessions
• How you “Show Up” 

 2️⃣ Images of You

• Your LinkedIn and other social media headshot
• Other online photos  (Are they updated? Don’t surprise people with how old you are when you meet for the first time!)

 3️⃣ Your Affiliations & Credentials

• People, including professional colleagues, personal friends and family
• Institutions including your employer, your school, clubs
• Hobbies and activities

 4️⃣ Your Online Signalling

• Your email signature
• Fonts!
• Your online meeting background
• Your website design

 5️⃣ Implicit Elements of Your Personal Communication

• Your vocabulary
• Your voice
• Your voice mail greeting
• Body language and posture
• Your manners (Posture and manners?  Ok, ok. Thanks, Mom.  You were right!)

Why IMPLICIT COMMUNICATION is so Important

There are 2 main reasons why implicit communication of our personal brand is so important:

1. REINFORCEMENT
2. CONSISTENCY

REINFORCEMENT – Implicit Communication provides an opportunity to REINFORCE the most important elements of your Personal Brand.

• Imagine your personal brand is focused on “leadership.” You can explicitly communicate this by leading people and by using the word “leader,” but also implicitly by dressing and acting like a leader.  You’re reinforcing the leadership message. 
• On the other hand, imagine someone who labels themselves as an “inclusive manager,” but then they do things that contradict the value of inclusivity, like making it difficult for people with different lifestyles to attend meetings, or interrupting people who are different from them. 

image: Unsplash @ Clay Banks

CONSISTENCY  – Humans crave consistency.  It helps us make sense of things. If you took any psychology classes, you’ll probably remember the term cognitive dissonance.   Consonance or consistency helps us make sense of things.  Inconsistency causes dissonance, and that’s not good.  We seek to reinforce our existing beliefs, even about people. 

This video beautifully illustrates the significance of consistency in our implicit communication.  The inconsistency between Susan Boyle’s frumpy appearance and her stunningly beautiful voice is almost inconceivable, which explains why over 20 million people have watched this video!
 

WHERE TO START?

Feeling overwhelmed?  Here’s my advice on where to start.

image: Unsplash @ Braden Collum

First, consider two factors:

• IMPACT – Where do you have the most “touchpoints” with people who matter the most?
• EFFORT – How easy is it to improve?

 My 3 suggestions:

1. Update your headshot(s)
2. Your online meeting background (or wherever you have frequent touch-points with people)
3. Check your voicemail!

I hope this inspires you to focus more on how you implicitly communicate your personal brand.  And I hope you enjoy the podcast! Please let me know what you think.  I love to hear from you.

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