Tony (name changed for matter of confidentiality), a professional with 18 years experience who I was coaching had a daily habit on getting up in the mornings and first checking his social media Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. And while scrolling through would continue to unknowingly gather feelings of lack. Why? That’s because he would mentally only keep comparing himself to others on social media – some making loads of money, some travelling to exotic places, some receiving awards and so on. And we would have heard of this saying – “Watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character”.
In terms of his career Tony was facing the challenge that inspite of being competent and skilled he was not getting promoted in his company and while seeking a job change, he would not attract recruiters.
On analysing I found that Tony had somewhere lost his true authentic self, his personal brand. And his daily habit of seeing his social media accounts first thing in the mornings was having a further influence on his mindset as he kept focusing only on lack.
He was a smart go getter, someone who was a people’s person, had great communication skills and was respected by his team mates for his unique ability to think out of the box. However Tony was not able to capitalise on his strengths because his primary focus was – why and how are other people more successful than him? And when I asked him his definition of success, he defined it in terms of reaching top management positions, earning loads of money & having a great family life. That is the general desire for most people and they were Tony’s priority goals.
However why was he not able to achieve his goals inspite of having all the capability to achieve the desired success? One major reason was that his personal brand – his authentic true self had got affected and was lost and hence he had developed a conflicting belief. He did not feel the pride in his own self. I made him do few exercises through my worksheets and we worked together and was able to get him to realise the potential of his personal brand and in few months he transited into a new job which he desired in a leadership position.
Your personal branding does play a important role in your career progress.
What is a personal brand?
It is your impression or perception in the marketplace on the basis of your competencies, skill, expertise and actions/ behaviour in the industry which tells your target audience clearly who you are and what can you do for them.
Now, all of us are gifted by God with some unique talents/skills/abilities and we feel comfortable using them. Though, evolving is a natural process as our career journey progresses because we keep developing new skills. However learning will happen only when we have clearly defined goals, are focused on them and have complete faith in ourselves that we will achieve them. Wavering in between, getting influenced by what others are achieving and losing confidence in our own unique abilities is going to diffuse our personal brand and that is where the problem lies.
Why is personal branding important?
It helps you stand out as a professional. If it is related to job search, you will realise that when you are clearly communicating about your brand and not coming across as a jack of all trades and master of none, recruiters will be attracted to you. Or even in your existing job, you will make greater progress because your seniors will give you more responsibilities pertaining to your strengths.
So how do you develop a strong personal brand?
It does not happen overnight and building your personal brand takes time. However you already are a brand whether you know of it or not because people already have a perception about you. You need to use that as a starting point and strengthen the strong areas further and it is very much doable and fun doing it.
Here are 5 tips for building your personal brand:
1] Be your authentic self :
We need not compromise on our own values and attempt to change who we are. For example, if you are basically by nature a down to earth person, stick to it and develop all your other traits around it. People will be attracted to you because of your holistic personality with your being down to earth as a differentiator. What is your unique value proposition?
2] Select a niche:
What are you really good at? What feels most comfortable to you in terms of the job role? Are you good with financial analysis, product management, sales? Do you have abilities like quantitative analysis, research, are creative, can think on your feet? Identify your core expertise and then work around those to communicate to your target audience what you can do for them (value). Even your LinkedIn profile headline needs to reflect your personal brand positioning.
3] Who is your target audience?:
Is it recruiters in a specific industry or is it your bosses/ stake holders in your current organisation or is it your clients or a mix of all ? You got to develop your communication strategy accordingly.
4] Social media profiles:
In today’s day and age of the digital medium, how you communicate, network and present yourself on platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook plays an important role. Consciously develop a communication strategy of how you want to be perceived by your target audience.
5] Content strategy:
The kind of content that you put out on social media adds to building your personal brand online. That can then be extended to what you do offline. During networking events or conferences you can leverage your online personal branding to built relationships with your target audience.
I have surely given you some food for thought.
P.S: Let me know in comments below what do you think and share your experience of building a powerful personal brand.
Best wishes!
Sarabjeet Sachar
Seasoned Career Coach, Founder & CEO, Aspiration