Do this to unleash your Professional Personal Brand! 3 Keys to success

Do this to unleash your Professional Personal Brand! 3 Keys to success

In today’s highly competitive career market, your personal professional brand is key to standing out & making real strides towards your career end goals.

Your personal brand is the combination of your skills, experiences, and values that sets you apart from others in the industry. It is how you present yourself to the professional world and how they see you. 

In this article, we will explore the art of developing a professional personal brand while looking at some influential individuals who have mastered this to great effect.

With these 3 key tips, I hope you too can leverage this to great success!

Define Your Value:

To develop a strong personal brand, you need to know what your value proposition is.

What are your strengths & skills that make you stand out? To do this well, I would recommend reflecting on your accomplishments & experiences, along with any topics you are genuinely passionate about. What are the problems you can solve and the value / solutions you can bring to those that might need your help. This process of examining your skills will help lay the foundations for building your personal brand as you move forward.

Let’s take Elon Musk…

Elon Musk, (the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – in case you have been living under a rock), has successfully developed a personal brand built on his visionary thinking & leading innovations. His value proposition revolves around his ability to disrupt industries and solve complex problems. By consistently delivering on his promises while pushing the boundaries of technology he has become the face of forward-thinking and pushing what is possible.

Now while I don’t expect you will be putting cars into space or developing personal flamethrowers anytime soon, the message holds true. What do you want to be known for? What makes you stand out? What are the problems you can solve?

Developing your story:

We all know that stories have the power to captivate and inspire so storytelling is something you need to practice and develop.

Developing a captivating description of your journey is incredibly important, how do you talk about your experiences and motivations? Sharing stories that highlight your achievements, times that you have faced adversity and overcome them and all the lessons along the way. Storytelling should be factual but interesting and if you can add some humour at the right times that can help too. People buy from people, we are social creatures, we like to know what makes others tick, storytelling is the art of making your professional life …come to life!

Practically you can use this to your advantage in interviews, practising your narrative so that you highlight your achievements and motivations in a engaging way is a real skill, do not under estimate its importance.

Having the technical skills but not then able to communicate them articulately is a common issue many people face, take time to invest in your storytelling and you will notice a huge difference in your brand, your interview style and then successes in your career.

Take Richard Branson

Branson's personal brand is built on his adventures, from the fastest ever Atlantic Ocean crossing, a series of oceanic balloon journeys and then kitesurfing across the Channel he has done some pretty interesting and exciting challenges that capture people’s attention. Through his engaging storytelling and taking risks, he is able to communicate his businesses and values directly to a wider audience who are already engaged.....the ultimate PR!

The key takeaway from Branson's personal brand is the importance of aligning your brand with your passions & values!

Using your digital presence to the max:

In today’s world your digital presence is incredibly important, and whether you like it or not as a professional your LinkedIn page needs to be up to date, relevant, fully populated and utilised. Your LinkedIn page is often the very first professional impression you will make with external clients, hirers and people you will work with. As such it is so important to make it look as good as it can, LinkedIn makes this easy for you too, it will talk you through the steps to make your profile look great.

A detailed LinkedIn Profile masterclass might be one for a later article but in the meantime utilise the wealth of blogs, videos and step by step guides to ensure your profile is not left lacking.

Conclusion:

Developing a professional personal brand requires self-reflection, storytelling, and a good active online presence. By defining your value proposition from the start, creating a compelling narrative and then leveraging the various digital platforms at your fingertips you can build a personal brand that elevates your professional image.

Take inspiration from individuals like Elon Musk and many others who have successfully harnessed the power of personal branding, and while I don’t expect you to sail the ocean or attempt to get to Mars, taking quality calculated steps relevant to your sector will give you that added 1% over the people around you.

Remember, your personal brand is your competitive advantage in an ever increasingly crowded market!

I hope that helps and if you can add these tips together from each article, I have no doubt you will reap the rewards.

Richard