Personal branding is anything but personal!
My friend Byron Davis said this once and it immediately helped me demystify the idea of personal branding.
For too long, I left the mystery in it and never explored the idea because I thought to have a personal brand projected a prideful, arrogant or a better-than-thou attitude. In reality, I ALREADY HAD A PERSONAL BRAND. And so do you. The questions to ask is, are you aware of it?; is it accidental or intentional?; how can you improve it?; does it reflect who you really are or aspire to be? Like good brands, does it mean something? Does it evoke positive or negative connotations?
My friends at BrandCulture.com taught me that brand and culture should be two sides of the same coin.
Brand is how people think of you, your reputation, the summary of your culture and values and actions and achievements.
This is equally true for you as a professional as it is for the company where you exert your professional energy.
A personal brand is anything but personal because it signals to and helps others know what value and help you bring to the table that could enable them make progress in their business, life, project, etc.
Personal brand communicates important information about you to others. And as with the most powerful brands in the world, they end up saying more about the person that buys from them. It helps shape their identity as an extension of what that business, company, it’s product and services actually provide.
Apple says something about the person using that computer. So do all the stickers you see on laptops.
But not communicating to people a crisp sense of who you are by how you appear online ans before you open your mouth, by the words on your online bios — especially in professional contexts — is perhaps perhaps more selfish than it is humble.
And a personal brand shouldn’t be about you. It should be about others ability to know what to expect when working with you.
