Creating a Personal Brand Will Boost Your Career

August 29, 2010, By Steve Thompson 0 comments

When you go to work, arrive home or visit a friend's house, the people you encounter have already formed an opinion of you. Your persona occupies a niche in their minds, and while their image might not be an accurate reflection of you, there is no stopping this from happening.

The purpose of personal branding is to take control over how people categorize you in their minds. You want to project a certain image, so you give others a reason to see your version of yourself.

Summing You Up

You are a complicated human being. You like certain things, dislike others, possess certain habits. Your life story can't fit on the back of a cereal box and your personality is the sum of your experiences.

But personal branding isn't about personality or your life story. It's about creating an emotion or association in as few words as possible.

The most obvious purpose for personal branding is to give you a boost in the business world. Whether you're an entrepreneur or a mid-level manager, your identity at work can directly influence the opportunities available to you. How your boss, colleagues and clients characterize you makes a difference in whether you are promoted or fired.

Keep this in mind when creating a personal brand. Consider how each word and nuance will translate to your workplace and other areas of your life, and how other people might interpret it. Personal branding might be about you, but it's also about how you relate to the world at large.

Qualities of a Personal Brand

Personal brands should be 20 words or less and should establish you as an expert in your field. It doesn't matter if you take care of monkeys at the local zoo or run a Fortune 500 company, you can do something better than anyone else you know.

Then link your expertise with an ambition, goal or ideology. For example, maybe you are a manager at an oil and gas company, and your strength is in helping your team work together. You believe that unity and productivity are key to success in the workplace, and that can become a brand.

Or maybe you're the monkey trainer and your skill is communicating with monkeys. Laugh all you want, but pros like Cesar Millan and Monty Roberts have established internationally recognized brands cut from this same cloth. Surely you can create a personal brand out of your affinity with chimps and orangutans.

The goal here is to identify what sets you apart from your colleagues, competitors and the rest of humanity, and to add a mission statement to it, something that represents your goals and your service to your business.

Applying Your Brand

You've identified your strongest skills, you've come up with a mission statement or ideology, and you're ready for the next step. What do you do with your personal brand?

Whatever you want. Personal branding isn't about creating a catchy slogan and printing it on letterhead; it's about harnessing your power as an individual and using it to your advantage.

Print it on your business cards and resumes, engrave it on a plaque in your office, share it with your friends. But most importantly, focus on emulating your personal brand every single day.