Personal Branding for Experts - What it is and Why it Matters.
Personal branding is a term that gets thrown around a lot and means different things to different people. To some it’s a series of cringe-y photo shoot images, to others it’s their professional reputation.
Here’s my definition: your personal brand is the inchoate sense people have about you.
If someone was put under hypnosis what words would they spit out when asked about you? Smart? Winner? Knowledgeable? Competent? Fraud? Sneaky? Honest? hard working? genius?
This combination of words is your personal brand.
Personal branding is really about understanding who you are and articulating it along four dimensions: communication, behaviors, outcomes and aesthetics. Personal branding is real and relevant for everyone.
Regardless of whether you’re a business owner, an employee, a leader in an organization, a thought leader or a celebrity, you have a personal brand. If you don’t define it, others will.
I measure a personal brand against five dimensions:
Who they are
How they communicate
How they behave
How they look (aesthetically present themselves to the world)
If they get results
1. Who are you?
The first step in defining your personal brand is understanding who you are. Authenticity is an overused term; it’s over used because it’s important.
People are alergic to phoniness. As our interactions become increasingly digital and online; you must get the essence of ‘you’ across authentically. Ask yourself these questions:
What are your strengths?
What are your weakness? I’m a believer of playing to and building on your strengths, but it’s important to know and understand what your weaknesses are and ways you can mitigate them.
What do you value?
How are you perceived? This isn’t always easy to know. People are hesitant to give constructive feedback. Some ways you can find out are by asking for feedback regularly, and giving people an opportunity to provide constructive feedback as well as positive feedback.
After I complete a project, I give clients the opportunity to give me constructive feedback by asking the question ‘What would have made the experience even better’. It gives them permission to share a weakness I might not otherwise hear about.
Having said this, it’s important to look for patterns. Do you hear the same feedback — positive or negative — repeatedly? This points to how you’re percieved.
Your personal brand is about taking the best of what you are and putting that front and center.
2. How do you communicate?
This isn’t about being an extrovert. Staying quiet in a meeting but following up with important players to share key insights afterwards is communication.
Choosing to swear or not on your podcast is a communication style. A formal tone in all of your website copy is communication.
However you communicate should map back to your values and strengths, and again, be authentic.
Your preferred way of communicating will impact the channels and media you use to communicate your personal brand; be it writing, speaking, video, audio or in person.
Ask yourself, are you:
Comfortable talking to a group?
‘No BS’?
Very thoughtful before speaking?
Public?
Loud?
Soft spoken?
Funny?
Serious?
3. Behaviors - How do you act?
In the context of running a business this is about your customer experience. How do people experience working with you. In the context of being an expert or thought leader its how you interact professionally; with colleagues, with your staff with event organizers and with your audience.
Some ways of behaving that contribute to your personal brand. Are you:
In the spotlight?
Behind the scenes?
1:1 Networker and relationship builder?
A team player?
A loner?
An operator?
Responsive?
Transparent?
Someone with smooth business processes?
4. Outcomes - Do you deliver on promises?
These days It’s easy to craft a presentation of yourself to the world, but can you prove you are what you say you are? Do you get results? As the kids say, do you have receipts?
You can demonstrate this online through testimonials, case studies, videos of your talks, excerpts of your book and long-form content.
Obviously, the best way to do this is to do great work.
Aesthetics - What you (and your work) look like
We are visual creatures and how we visually present ourselves is a key dimension of our brand. Aesthetics could really be a subsection of ‘communication’
Before anyone gets upset, this is not a judgement on whether someone is attractive or not. It’s how they present not only themselves, but their visual materials (presentations, graphics, website, social media, proposals, etc.) to the world.
For example, Slavoj Žižek, a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual would probably recoil at the phrase ‘personal brand’, but he has one whether he likes it or not!
He communicates his beliefs and philosophy by his way of dressing. He can be found in looking disheveled in rumpled sweaters and jeans. Would anyone take a Marxist seriously in a tweed blazer, crisp button down shirt and designer loafers? I wouldn’t.
The imagery and style of your visual communications, how you dress, the colors you regularly use are all aesthetics that contribute to your personal brand.
In our increasingly visual world, aesthetics are a major component of your personal brand.
Assessing your own personal brand
Take twenty minutes to think about the following: what are your values? Do you get a lot of referral clients or opportunities based on your reputation and word of mouth? Can you describe your strengths? Three bullet points are fine. How about aesthetics do you have a signature color you wear? What do your presentation decks look like? Do they match your other graphics? How do you communicate? How do you act in a professional setting?
The answers to these questions will give you a snapshot of your personal brand. Do you like what you see?
Personal branding is real and relevant for everyone. Regardless if you’re a business owner, an employee, a thought leader or a celebrity, you have a personal brand. If you don’t define it, others will.
Want to talk about crafting your personal brand?