Re-Boot Week 1: Personal Brand and Value Development for Effective Self-marketing

Personal Brand and Value Development for Effective Self-marketing

Building a personal brand is important for almost everyone today.  It’s especially important for those searching for a new or different job. Everyone has a personal brand already. It is what you are known for; the image that comes to mind when your friends, family, peers, colleagues and supervisors hear your name. The key is to effectively and deliberately develop your brand to accurately reflect your professional values and goals. There are a few steps and tips to consider along the way:

1.      Identify Your Values. Your values help define you and make up the core of who you are. If you have not defined your core values, you could very well be wasting valuable time and energy pursuing opportunities that are not a good match for you and will ultimately leave you feeling dissatisfied and unhappy. Dissatisfaction can be your sub-conscience telling you that you are not paying enough attention to who you really are. There are a number of assessment tools that can be useful in defining your values. (Reflective Journaling can also be a great way to break down what drives you.)

2.      Assess Your Value-Added Skills and Qualities. What qualities do you have that help you do your job better than anyone else? How have you been remembered by employers in the past? What do you have to offer those that you are connected to in your network? What are the three things you want someone to remember about you when they first meet you? Make sure your answers are consistent. Getting some outside perspectives can help you answer these questions. Ask for or review LinkedIn recommendations and endorsements to identify consistent trends.

  

3.      Craft Your Brand. At this stage, you should have a pretty good idea of who you are as a person and as a professional. You have identified the primary product that you are selling (your services, resources, competencies, etc.). The goal now is to boil down everything you have just learned or identified about yourself and present it in a clear, succinct manner, incorporating your core values and your passions. You should develop a personal brand statement that will serve as the baseline for all of your marketing materials and channels. Be sure to use keywords and be relevant.

EXAMPLE:

 "Experienced Career and Academic Counselor in the field of Higher Education. Provides customized experiences for students and alumni, through utilization of superb customer service and relationship building capabilities. Works tirelessly to build effective partnerships with students, colleagues and the community to serve the best interests of the institute and its invested agents."

Create a vision for where you want to go in your career and be sure that it is effectively communicated in your brand.

4.      Monitor and Modify. Monitor your success. Are you achieving results? Obtain feedback and get the opinions of outsiders to determine if you are sending the appropriate message that you THINK you are sending. If you are not hearing back from the companies you are targeting, or your actual message is different than your intended message, then it is time to take corrective action and try again.

  

Be very honest with yourself in developing your personal brand, and take the necessary time to do it effectively. Unquestionably, who we are and the attitudes we have affect where we end up in life. Our personal and career success are directly affected by the presence or absence of qualities such as honesty, loyalty, leadership, intelligence and persistence. For career fulfillment, the connection between character and destiny is clear: the more closely your career destiny aligns with your character and personal values, the more fulfillment you will find.

Share your comments; was developing your brand an easy process?  Do you feel confident that your branding statement best reflects your values, goals and strengths?  How will you use this information going forward in your search?