"Effective personal branding isn’t about putting on a show or figuring out how to do as little work as possible while getting the most financial reward. Life is too short not to be the best possible version of yourself."
- Getting to Like, page 9-10
"You’re not defined by your job title or day-to-day responsibilities. You’re a brand as much as Coke, Nike, or Cover Girl. Ask yourself the same question that brand managers of companies ask themselves: How is my product or service different?"- Getting to Like, page 34
As obvious as it may seem, the first step to developing and promoting your personal brand is to understand what your personal brand actually is.
In order to position yourself as exceptional or distinct, it is crucial to understand your unique traits and abilities, and how these factors can be utilised in a professional setting.
Goldman and Zagat suggest that writing a Personal Brand Statement allows you to create a general framework for how you define yourself, including your personality, your accomplishments, your flaws and how you interact with others.
To start creating your Personal Brand Statement, ask yourself the following questions:
Once you’ve written down your answers, condense your response into 15 words or less. This statement should be attention grabbing and intriguing to your prospective audience, and may take time to develop and refine. This will be your Personal Branding Statement, and will help you to stay focused as your career moves forward.
"Personal brands are a constructed entity, but that’s okay. It doesn’t mean they’re fake. You can highlight certain parts of your personality or character in order to present a solid image; that doesn’t make them less true."- Getting to Like, page 147
When many people think about creating a personal brand, they often view it as inventing a whole new persona, and as a result they may view branding as being deceitful and inauthentic.
Personal branding is about creating a condensed version of your personality, interests and core values, or as Goldman and Zagat call it “You-Concentrate”.
Your brand is your reputation, and your reputation forms the foundation for your entire career. Creating a personal brand that doesn’t align with who you really are is a recipe for disaster. You audience will notice the inconsistencies between you and your brand, they will feel misled and you will lose credibility, which may damage your brand permanently.
Deception may seem advantageous in the short-term, especially if you lack the skills or abilities to achieve your career goals, however as time passes it will become more difficult to keep up with the contradictions between yourself and your brand.
So if you run a vegan cooking blog but enjoy going hunting on the weekends, or run a travel agency but you’ve never left your hometown, expect your audience to notice that you don’t practice what you preach.
"Maybe you tried to market yourself as one thing and it didn’t work out. Or you might be a retiree reentering the workforce, or trying to add new skills to stay relevant. Now, who or what are you? How do you want to reinvent yourself?"- Getting to Like, page 180-181
Whether you’re changing positions at your current workplace, starting your own business, or looking for a new job, people change and with that, careers change.
As your career progresses through time, you may reach various points where aspects of your personal brand are no longer relevant to you, or you may want to reinvent your brand completely.
While transitioning a personal brand can come with many challenges, Goldman and Zagat highlight a range of ways you can revise your brand over time, including:
These activities can help shift your focus, and can help you examine other areas that you may be interested in or skilled at. These new discoveries can help you add a new spin to your current brand or even identify a new direction for your career.
Ali B. Zagat is a seasoned writer, editor, and content strategist. She has more than 10 years of experience creating digital and social media content and campaigns for mainstream and niche brands alike, including Creed, Dwell, Rodale’s, Birchbox, Anthropologie, and many others. Ali’s extensive experience telling the stories of independent and established brands has given her valuable insights into how to help entrepreneurs, freelancers, and professionals who want to successfully reach a wider audience. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
