7 Steps to Build Your Personal Brand - Part I

Professional and personal success relies heavily on convincing others to recognize your value. You need to do this when applying for jobs, seeking promotions, or competing for leadership positions. Everyone is a brand in today's world, so you must build and promote yours.

Personal branding is adopting a strategy to define and express your value proposition. While people always strive to carefully cultivate their personalities and public reputations, online research and social media have expanded the potential audience and the risks and rewards associated with these efforts.

Unfortunately, we rarely have total control over our personal brands, even though it would be ideal. As Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says, “Your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room.” Personal branding represents a combination of associations, beliefs, feelings, attitudes, and expectations that people collectively hold about you. Your goal should be to ensure that everything said about you is accurate, coherent, compelling, and unique.

A strong personal brand helps you in many ways. It makes you more visible, especially to the people who are important to you and the goals you want to achieve. Also, it might help you expand your network and attract new opportunities. Deeper down, personal branding can help you discover, celebrate, and share the unique capabilities you offer to the world.

7 steps for building a personal brand

1. Define Your Purpose

First, you need a long-term vision and mission. What impact do you want to have on the different audiences that are important to you personally and professionally, and what values do you want to embody while doing so?

Consider your importance to others, as this is an integral part of your past experiences, decisions, and actions. Examine your life's purpose and how you live it, and note any recurring passions, skills, or personality qualities that may help you reach your long-term objectives. Next, consider how they align with your goals, mission, and passion by creating a personal value proposition, which is a four-part statement that includes your target audience, your intended offer, a list of rivals, and your special skills. Here’s a template:

"To [a specific person or group], I will make a difference by providing [the unique, distinctive, and important value you want to offer]. Among all [others who are also competing to make this difference, whom you wish to resonate with and stand out from], given [the skill sets, personal traits, habits and tendencies, past experiences, social capital, cultural capital, and credentials that will allow you to deliver your services credibly]."

For example, an IT specialist's value proposition might be: "To a potential employer, I am the best cybersecurity manager that can be hired among all applicants due to my multiple certifications and strong leadership skills developed through my perseverance as a Division I collegiate athlete."

2. Audit Your Personal Brand Value

You must identify and analyze the brand you currently represent so you can enhance or adjust it to remain aligned with your personal value proposition. Consider the resources you have to work with, including awareness (what people know about you), associations (their thoughts, feelings, and attitudes about you), and meaning (the stories they know and tell about you).

First, list your qualifications, such as your education, noteworthy professional or personal experiences, and achievements. This helps you assess, understand, and leverage your current social capital. Next, analyze your cultural capital: the experiences you've gained from your upbringing, interactions, hobbies, and interests that allow you to navigate different environments smoothly.

Then, write a list of traits or descriptive phrases that you believe represent you, including both positive and negative traits. Be as specific as possible and avoid simplistic descriptions like "graduate of X university" or "financial analyst." Be creative and use descriptive language that sets you apart. For example: "detail-oriented financial analyst" or "financial analyst who sees beyond the numbers." Ensure that all your traits are distinctive. Instead of "smart," try "cultured," "well-informed," "knowledgeable," or "cost accounting expert." Similarly, instead of "funny," use "quick-witted" or "adept at lightening the mood and delivering timely jokes."

Finally, ensure that your self-assessment aligns with your desired brand identity. For example, if your personal value proposition is centered around being a powerful, empathetic leader capable of delivering results, you'll need to use words like "compassionate" and "results-focused." How do you effectively showcase and highlight these traits?

Doing some market research will help you determine whether your self-perception is consistent with others' perceptions. Start by identifying your primary audience (coworkers, managers, instructors, family, friends, partners, etc.). Then, choose a few "truth-tellers" from each group—people you can rely on to give you objective feedback. Choose some people who know you well and some who barely know you. Be brave enough to include someone who has rejected hiring you, for example.

Invite each person to spend some time with you discussing your strengths and weaknesses candidly. Then, ask open-ended questions like, "How would you describe me to a stranger if I weren't with you?" or "What traits or phrases do you think describe me well professionally and personally?" Don't narrow the answer, such as "Do you think I have a good sense of humor?" Ask instead, "Is there anything that distinguishes my personality, interests, experiences, or skills from others' conversational styles?"

Then, you can seek further precision. Ask your truth-tellers to evaluate you based on the traits you desire. Compare their opinions with yours. What are the areas of agreement and disagreement? What gaps have you identified, and how can you bridge them?

Also, remember to assess yourself against competitors both independently and with the help of your advisors. What skill sets, certifications, social capital, cultural capital, and personal traits do these people have?

What special qualities and advantages do you offer? These are your distinguishing points. What elements are missing from your profile? These are the improvement areas.

3. Build Your Personal Story

A brand is more than a collection of descriptions in others' minds; it is based on compelling stories that you have shared and that impact your target audience. You need to identify, create, and refine the stories that express your brand. Consider the moments when you felt most authentic, vibrant, positive, and productive. Also, consider when you stood out from the crowd, when your individuality brought you success, and when you completely personified the brand that you aspired to own.

In job interviews, don’t just recite your resume or even describe your brand traits in response to the question, "Tell me about yourself." Instead, you should narrate illustrative stories about your experiences and yourself. For example: “In all the positions you see on my resume, I played one role: problem solver. Recently, my team was struggling with an outdated review process, so I worked with an IT colleague for the past month to redesign it. As a result, our on-time completion rates have increased by 100%.” Similarly, answering 'Where are you from?' can shift from “New Jersey” to “I’m from a rural part of New Jersey, where I spent my childhood hiking in the mountains and building campfires. How about you?” This is a covert method of demonstrating your resourcefulness and adventure.

Telling stories about your personal value proposition makes it more memorable and convincing.

In Conclusion

This part of the article discusses 3 steps to building a personal brand, and Part II will cover the remaining ones.