In today’s highly competitive marketplace, no one can afford to fade into the background.
But with millions of other professionals with qualifications and skillsets similar to yours going after the same job, or the same prospective clients as you are, the struggle to stand out is real, indeed.
Standing out is a must for anyone who’s serious about achieving their objectives as a professional who needs to build relationships with others—making this something everyone needs to do.
A personal brand helps you to stand out, which in turn helps others understand why you are the person they need to do business with.
The importance of having a personal brand may cause some to delay their brand-building efforts but, given the amount and intensity of the competition, it’s never too soon to start.
What is a personal brand, and who needs to build one?
The dictionary defines brand as an identity or an image considered as an asset because of the way it benefits its owner. Brands benefit businesses by facilitating the sale of its products and services because of how they help people to identify, and identify with what’s being sold.
Much like a business’ brand, a personal brand helps your target market to recognise and make a connection with you.
At the outset, it may seem that personal branding is only for the likes of celebrities or influencers, but that really isn’t the case. Building a personal brand is useful to anybody on the job market, whether you’re looking for a job, or looking to move up the corporate ladder.
Should you already be at the top of that ladder, cultivating your personal brand still has its advantages in relationship-building and public relations, both for you and for your organisation.
And if you manage your own business, whether as a freelancer or as head of your own team, a personal brand is paramount to earning the trust and patronage of potential clients.
Why is building a personal brand so crucial?
1. You have a lot of competition. It’s not enough to just be good at what you do because there are so many others who can do it, too. Personal branding doesn’t just enable you to draw attention to yourself in a crowd of me-too’s, but highlight the value of your skills and experience. Your personal brand shows people why nobody else can do what you do the way you do it, bringing what is unique about you to the fore as a reason for choosing you.
2. You need to demonstrate your authority. It’s not enough to say you’re good at what you do; you have to show people that you can back up what you say. In building your personal brand, you are “walking the talk” and giving people more reasons for believing in you and doing business with you.
3. Your public image belongs to you. It’s not enough to establish your presence online, or anywhere else, for that matter—you need to manage how people see you.
Whatever you do online or in person, you are already shaping your personal brand, and people are already forming their opinions about you based on what they see. While you have no control over the conclusions they ultimately come to, you do have control over what leads them to draw those conclusions.
And when those conclusions affect their decisions on whether or not to engage your services or buy your products, it makes sense to consider how you can influence the way they regard you as far as you are able.
This is also why it makes perfect sense to be proactive in building your own brand, rather than passively allowing it to form in the minds of others. Leaving your personal branding to chance, as it were, runs the risk of something that would not be an asset or advantageous to your career being seen or misinterpreted.
What steps can you take to build your personal brand?
1. First, get in touch with who you are. Building a brand for yourself isn’t about putting on a facade or acting out a part. It’s about putting your best foot forward for people whom you know will benefit from your expertise, and you can’t do this without an honest and thorough self-assessment.
2. Next, figure out who your target market is. A business’ brand speaks to a specific audience because not everyone is an ideal customer, and a personal brand is no different.
Quality beats quantity when it comes to personal brand building. While this means that you probably won’t “be friends with everybody,” it does mean that those you do end up “making friends with” are more likely to become advocates or promote your personal brand within their own networks.
3. Then, consider how you will reach your target. This consideration is two-fold: where and how your target market is more likely to be reached, and which channels and forms of content you’re most comfortable using. You might, for example, choose to use video-sharing platforms if you know your audience frequents them.
Again, quality beats quantity when it comes to the number of channels you use to reach your audience. Even if you use all the platforms you know your target is using, it may not be practical nor sustainable given that brand building is just one of your many responsibilities. Master the use of one or two channels, then branch out to others when possible.
4. Now, reach out to your target market consistently. There are many different kinds of content and it’s up to you to choose the kind that best communicates what your personal brand stands for.
Whichever you choose, make sure that your content provides value or is helpful to your target market, and that you produce and publish this content on a regular basis.
Note how these brand-building efforts don’t just encompass your online activities but those that are performed in person, as well. These include events such as talks or classes you might give, parties or get-togethers, and even basic things like meeting people for the first time or giving them your business card.
Finally, if you’ve already begun or have been building your personal brand for some time but would like to rebrand, get advice for doing just that, here.
Learn to build your personal brand.
Anyone who wants to learn how to create and build their own personal brand more effectively would do well to study luxury brands.
Luxury brands are exemplars of effective branding because of the way they create identities around essentially ordinary products or services. These identities convey the quality of these products and services and associate them with the lifestyle of their target audiences.
SMU Academy helps you learn key branding lessons from luxury brands in “Personal Branding—Learning from the Best (Lessons from Global Luxury Brands for Personal Branding Success)”.
This one-day programme provides you with insights into the concepts and principles of luxury branding, evaluates the characteristics and expectations of successful global luxury brands, and shows you how you can apply them to personal branding.
Experiential learning methods such as personality analysis, case study discussion, presentation and application exercises allow you to practice what you’ve learned.
You will be learning from Tan Kim Boon, Founder & Principal Consultant for Tanacity Associates. Kim spent more than 25 years in various Asia Pacific Leadership roles involved in the branding, retailing and marketing of brands such as Bally, Dior, Gucci, Lanvin, LVMH, Porsche, Rolls Royce and Vertu.
Find out how you can take the first step towards unlocking the potential of your own personal brand, here.
