Brand Yourself
Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 10:26AM 
"To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You." - Tom Peters in Fast Company, 1997
Wouldn’t it be nice at the end of the day to be able to sit back, decompress and have oodles of praise and recognition for our hard day’s work come flooding in? Unfortunately, that is not the name of the game in today’s business environment where emotion and psychology have a large influence on economic success. Enter personal branding.
Your personal brand is your reputation and a platform to which you market yourself to the public. It is crucial to have a brand that is both focused and presented stylistically in your unique point of view. Remember, it is easier to be remembered as outstanding in a few key areas than meeting expectations in several.
When crafting your personal brand, think about the following:
• What value do you add? And, more importantly, want value do you want to be associated with?
• What are your areas of expertise?
• What areas do you have credibility in?
• What is unique about you and sizzles compared to your peers?
• What personal flair and style can you use to present your brand?
Once you have established your personal brand, own it. Live by your brand in how you respond to emails, interact with your office colleagues, dress, etc. Like anything, personal branding requires both maintenance and updating. As such, make sure to consistently:
1) Seek Feedback: Ask your peers, take 360 Degree feedback review, etc. to ensure that others’ perception of you is aligned with the mission of your personal brand.
2) Reinvent yourself: Continue to update your domain knowledge and expertise by seeking professional licenses, taking courses in new areas of business or technology, learning new languages, etc. Keep your brand fresh and reinvent yourself every once in a while. For example, a first year banking analyst most likely does not want to be known as the best at making a killer pitch book for the rest of her life. Take the advice of an RSP fav Ralph Lauren: "I am not looking like Armani today and somebody else tomorrow. I look like Ralph Lauren. And my goal is to constantly move in fashion and move in style without giving up what I am."
3) Build out your network: Network like crazy. The more people that you meet and introduce to your brand, the larger influence your personal brand can have. Make sure to have a perfected elevator pitch where you can concisely describe your personal brand in 30 seconds or less.
4) Document your successes: Arm yourself with quantitative metrics that you can use to reinforce your personal brand. For example, if you are in sales, keep track of the number of cold calls that you make each week, leads that you are pursuing, etc.
5) Establish visibility: Get yourself out there! Join professional organizations where your brand can make an impact and be noticed. E.g. 85 Broads, 100 Women in Hedge Funds, etc. Additionally, join LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, ZoomInfo, and other networking sites to share your brand with the online community. Make sure that the message you are presenting is consistent and professional across all networks. Ensure that you use the same name format for each site to maximize Search Engine Optimization. For example, don’t have your LinkedIn account be under Jane A. Doe and your ZoomInfo account be under Jane Doe.
RSP readers: Comment below on examples of your personal brand! We can't wait to see what you savvy ladies are up to.
Reader Comments (4)
Great article! I will put it to usse.
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