Personal Branding - How to build your Brand

Jeff Bezos famously said, "Personal Brand is what people say about you when you leave the room", but executive presence is what will get you into the room in the first place.

If you are not known for something, or unforgettable, you can forget career advancement or financial success.

Boss-Level Personal Branding

The key to personal branding is that you clearly communicate your value, and that value is relevant to your audience (clients, colleagues, senior executives).

I was recently coaching a Professional Speaker in Singapore, who was struggling to find his 'tagline', that value statement that follows your name.

Do you have a tagline?

Ironically, this speaker was an expert on communication, but calling himself, 'The Communication Expert' was a bit too generic, so I challenged him to articulate, his Message, his Methodology, and his Market. I asked him what problem he solved for people and what they said about him after he solved it for them.

 Do you know what problem you solve, for your clients or company?

We brainstormed lots of taglines and then threw out the ones that were too general or had the possibility to be misinterpreted. Then the right line just 'dropped' and it felt like the earth moved. It was a Eureka moment and I immediately googled the Urban Dictionary to check that we had the right meaning. 

Since this speaker exclusively worked with C-level executives and helped them 'communicate like a boss', we settled on 'Boss-Level Communication'.

Boss- Level - "The status a person achieves by making a better quality of life for themselves by doing what they need to do regardless of all the haters and obstacles out there. A person that calls the shots." - urbandictionary.com

This definition -is a perfect fit for communication, and works for personal branding too. Many people hold back on embracing their strengths to achieve advancement because they are afraid of the haters, but then feel frustrated when less competent people are promoted because they put themselves forward. The moment you have a brand you increase your 'Influence Capital', your ability to get a willing "yes" to your ideas and proposals.

Exercises to Find your Personal Brand

Firstly, who are your heroes?

Who inspires you, for example, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Elon Musk, Batman, or Professor Dumbledor?

List 3 to 4. Then write down what is it about them that you value.

You will discover that what you value in your heroes, is what you value about life & career, and you probably live those values yourself. Now, your mission is to answer through action - how can I live my values, more like my heroes?

People trust people who have values and are developing themselves to get better. Notice, I said developing, NOT PERFECT.

The second exercise - think of a life or career moment that you are proud of. Maybe you succeeded at something or overcame an obstacle. Now think about the strengths you applied during this moment. Did you show courage, persistence, focus, or some other quality? These strengths are part of your personal brand and you should be comfortable talking about them.