Build Your Personal Brand
If you want to have a successful career, you need to build your personal brand. The words McDonald’s or Disney conjure certain images.
A brand is valuable to a company. According to Forbes magazine, the McDonald’s brand is worth $40.3 billion and Disney is worth $43.9 billion.
You as a leader also have a brand. It’s important you know how to build it.
As a leader you have a brand, even if you are unaware of it.
Everyone else knows your brand. It’s what people say about you when you are not in the room, their expectations of you, high or low. It’s these discussions that form your brand and it’s the quality of your brand that determines how people interact with you and whether you get that promotion or pay rise or they look elsewhere. You need to build your personal brand to become successful.
Step One: Find out what your brand actually is
How would the people you work with describe you?
Is it different to how you would describe yourself.
If so, in what way would the two perspectives differ?
These are the first questions you need answered if you want to build your brand.
Ask yourself who do you know whose opinion you would respect and in turn would they respect you enough in order to tell you the truth.
To become a better leader, you need to hear about the person people
perceive you to be and that person will be different to whom you actually are.
Some feedback will be difficult to hear which is why you need to give people permission to tell you the truth and embrace that truth even if it’s the truth you didn’t want to hear.
Step Two: Have clear values
Every successful leader I have met have one thing in common; they all have clear values.
They stand for something.
Values need to be a lens through which all decision making is seen through.
People will judge you based on what you do rather than what you
say.
If you want your values to become clear, they can’t remain with just words, you have to back them up with action.
Step Three: Do what you say you will
A brand is built on the simple principle of clarity.
Ask a group of people to tell you about some of the world’s greatest brands and the chances are that the comments you get back are very similar because you know what you are going to get.
To build you own personal brand you have to say what you are going to do and then do it, and not just the big things but the small things as well.
If you say you will get back to someone by a certain time, make sure you do.
This is the only way to establish clarity; trust is built and that forms the foundation of your personal brand.
Step Four: Promote your brand
This may seem an awkward task for many people as self promotion is not always a desirable quality but a brand means nothing unless people know about it.
McDonald’s and Disney spend over $3 billion every year advertising and promoting their brand. Personally, you need to navigate the line between bragging and humility.
The best way to do this is to put yourself in a position where you are needed and then allow your actions and results to speak for you. If people need help, don’t wait to be asked, just go ahead and help. If there’s work to be done or a problem to be solved be proactive and find the solution.
If you can become the type of person that others can rely on then your personal brand will become valuable.
The key thing to remember is that your brand exists no matter what you do.
People will always have an impression of you.
Some may be accurate and some may not be but these impressions are important because it influences how people interact with you, how they judge you and how they value you.
If you want more out of your career, you need to follow the lead of many successful companies and to take control of your brand, make it clear what you stand for.
Once you become the leader you want to be then others will value you as such.