Personal Brand
Building a personal
brand
Having a strong CV and doing a great job is no longer enough to ensure your career is on track, in today’s professional landscape you need to build your personal brand too.
Personal Brand
Building a personal
brand
Having a strong CV and doing a great job is no longer enough to ensure your career is on track, in today’s professional landscape you need to build your personal brand too
Personal Brand
Building a personal brand
Having a strong CV and doing a great job is no longer enough to ensure your career is on track, in today’s professional landscape you need to build your personal brand too.
Creating your personal brand
1. Ask a group of people who know you well professionally and who you trust for the top three words they associate with you – for both your work and for your style.
Is this what you are trying to project? Extend the exercise by downloading a word cloud app and putting those words into it. Look at the words that stand out and ask yourself if that is the image you want to promote.
2. Get comfortable with public speaking, presenting or holding an audience, whether at a Ted Talk or just in a staff meeting room.
Listen to comedian Viv Groskop’s podcast, How To Own The Room in which she asks inspirational women ranging from Hillary Clinton to Margaret Atwood and Sandi Toksvig for their tips on presenting.
3. No excuses, no delays – time spent regularly on your LinkedIn profile is essential.
Start today by updating it, remembering to make sure you don’t share every change with your network unless you want to. Build your network by connecting with as many people as you can, don’t wait to be discovered. Regularly looking at what you’ve achieved will stop you taking yourself for granted.
Creating your personal brand
1. Ask a group of people who know you well professionally and who you trust for the top three words they associate with you – for both your work and for your style.
Is this what you are trying to project? Extend the exercise by downloading a word cloud app and putting those words into it. Look at the words that stand out and ask yourself if that is the image you want to promote.
2. Get comfortable with public speaking, presenting or holding an audience, whether at a Ted Talk or just in a staff meeting room.
Listen to comedian Viv Groskop’s podcast, How To Own The Room in which she asks inspirational women ranging from Hillary Clinton to Margaret Atwood and Sandi Toksvig for their tips on presenting.
3. No excuses, no delays – time spent regularly on your LinkedIn profile is essential.
Start today by updating it, remembering to make sure you don’t share every change with your network unless you want to. Build your network by connecting with as many people as you can, don’t wait to be discovered. Regularly looking at what you’ve achieved will stop you taking yourself for granted.
Here’s a reality check: recruiters and clients will look at your digital footprint – what you have posted on social media, or whatever has been written about you online – before they ever meet you, so you want to be able to control that narrative. By building your own brand, you are defining what you want to be recognised for within your company and externally. According to Forbes, this is what differentiates you from the opposition, whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur.
For many women, however, this can be a challenge. “Women find it harder than men to discover their personal brand,’ says brand strategist and coach Aarti Parmar. ‘It can be imposter syndrome or they can be too modest and find it hard to say “Look at me”.’ Aarti suggests starting by defining your purpose, your ‘Why’. What is it about your industry or role that really fires your passion? What are the conversations you want to start? The next step is to evidence your expertise, your journey and credibility using social media like LinkedIn and Twitter. “People connect with people they feel they know and trust with aligned values,’ says Aarti. ‘It’s important to post regularly, at least twice a week, but the quality of what you post is crucial too, be consistent and stay on message. Think about your target audience and then write a post like you are writing to a single person. Using hashtags ensures the right people can find you.’ If you’re not sure how to do this, follow people you admire who you think have a strong brand, and not just in your own industry. Start commenting on people’s posts if they inspire you.
‘Think of Michelle Obama or Richard Branson,’ says Aarti. ‘They both have strong personal brands. You know their values, what they stand for, their professional backgrounds. They showcase what they want people to notice. They have an image from the way they connect, to the clothes they wear. They are authentic to who they are but it is edited. Your personal brand needs to be created too.’
Carrying your personal brand over into the way you dress shouldn’t be underestimated. In our ‘Workwear Matters’ survey of 1,300 businesswomen, 98% of respondents said how they dressed helped them achieve certain objectives at work. Nearly 80% said the right outfit was crucial to creating a knock-out first impression in meetings and boosting credibility – especially in environments where women are in the minority.
Think about what you want your clothes to say about you – it might be that you want to look polished and relaxed at the same time in a statement blouse paired with black or navy trousers. Or feel feminine and powerful in a smart dress and heels. Or convey strength and confidence in a trouser suit and bold necklace. Fashion can do all of these things for you and help to create a really positive mindset as well.
Here’s a reality check: recruiters and clients will look at your digital footprint – what you have posted on social media, or whatever has been written about you online – before they ever meet you, so you want to be able to control that narrative. By building your own brand, you are defining what you want to be recognised for within your company and externally. According to Forbes, this is what differentiates you from the opposition, whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur.
For many women, however, this can be a challenge. “Women find it harder than men to discover their personal brand,’ says brand strategist and coach Aarti Parmar. ‘It can be imposter syndrome or they can be too modest and find it hard to say “Look at me”.’ Aarti suggests starting by defining your purpose, your ‘Why’. What is it about your industry or role that really fires your passion? What are the conversations you want to start? The next step is to evidence your expertise, your journey and credibility using social media like LinkedIn and Twitter. “People connect with people they feel they know and trust with aligned values,’ says Aarti. ‘It’s important to post regularly, at least twice a week, but the quality of what you post is crucial too, be consistent and stay on message. Think about your target audience and then write a post like you are writing to a single person. Using hashtags ensures the right people can find you.’ If you’re not sure how to do this, follow people you admire who you think have a strong brand, and not just in your own industry. Start commenting on people’s posts if they inspire you.
‘Think of Michelle Obama or Richard Branson,’ says Aarti. ‘They both have strong personal brands. You know their values, what they stand for, their professional backgrounds. They showcase what they want people to notice. They have an image from the way they connect, to the clothes they wear. They are authentic to who they are but it is edited. Your personal brand needs to be created too.’
Carrying your personal brand over into the way you dress shouldn’t be underestimated. In our ‘Workwear Matters’ survey of 1,300 businesswomen, 98% of respondents said how they dressed helped them achieve certain objectives at work. Nearly 80% said the right outfit was crucial to creating a knock-out first impression in meetings and boosting credibility – especially in environments where women are in the minority.
Think about what you want your clothes to say about you – it might be that you want to look polished and relaxed at the same time in a statement blouse paired with black or navy trousers. Or feel feminine and powerful in a smart dress and heels. Or convey strength and confidence in a trouser suit and bold necklace. Fashion can do all of these things for you and help to create a really positive mindset as well.
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Zoe Gomez has worked in advertising and marketing in both London and New York and saw that her American colleagues presented themselves very differently. “In London I made my way through sheer grit and hard work and I didn’t pay too much attention to how I looked. But when I went to New York I noticed the Americans were amazing at presenting themselves. Everything was about the way they were perceived, they were so polished and groomed. Also, their presentation skills were excellent and they were even considered about their choice of language. I would talk about plans, they would talk about strategy. I knew I could do the work but I wondered if I needed to adapt my image in order for people to see I could do it.”
Zoe set about updating her work wardrobe and refreshing her LinkedIn profile using business terminology that will get picked up by search engines. ‘I’m not trying to be a different person, I’m unique and that’s what I want the world to see.’
Zoe Gomez has worked in advertising and marketing in both London and New York and saw that her American colleagues presented themselves very differently. “In London I made my way through sheer grit and hard work and I didn’t pay too much attention to how I looked. But when I went to New York I noticed the Americans were amazing at presenting themselves. Everything was about the way they were perceived, they were so polished and groomed. Also, their presentation skills were excellent and they were even considered about their choice of language. I would talk about plans, they would talk about strategy. I knew I could do the work but I wondered if I needed to adapt my image in order for people to see I could do it.”
Zoe set about updating her work wardrobe and refreshing her LinkedIn profile using business terminology that will get picked up by search engines. ‘I’m not trying to be a different person, I’m unique and that’s what I want the world to see.’
