Why is personal branding important?
Whether you are a thought leader, an author, a consultant, a service provider, or building your career within an organisation, developing your personal brand opens the door to so many things.
Far from being something that is only for celebrity chefs, models, or Instagram "influencers", (inverted commas intentional), a personal brand is something that you can take as a concept and integrate into your life and work right now, today.
Yes, YOU.
Personal branding is important because it consolidates who you are, how you work, and what your values are.
Just like any brand, a set of values and a viewpoint are established - and you don't need to have an MBA to create your own personal brand. Good news, hey?
So let's dig in.
"If you don't have a powerful and visible personal brand, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage in almost every aspect of your professional, business and personal life. Matt Sweetwood, Entrepreneur Magazine
Why is personal branding important: Confidence
There is a HUGE, increase in confidence when you have developed and articulated your set of values, and taken ownership with your skills and who you are as an individual.
(to use the international superstar confidence scale, we are talking from Britney 2007 to Beyonce at the Superbowl).
I often witness a real, tangible lift of confidence when my clients have gone through this process; when people get really clear on what they have to offer, you really feel and start to embody your own brilliance and difference right from the start.
Simply put, being clear on your brilliance makes you strut your stuff.
We've all seen established brands flounder when they lose the ability to innovate; it's exactly the same for individuals. Confidence, knowledge and expertise need to be continually developed and updated for momentum to be maintained.
Michelle Wright in The Guardian //
Why is personal branding important:
Articulate what you do with ease
This part is the foundation of personal branding; who are you, and what do you have to offer?
You might feel that at first glance this is really obvious, but being laser clear on your unique insights and skills reaps so many rewards.
It begins with assessing your values, checking in with who you are, interrogating how you work, and what you bring into what you do in life.
When you get all this information together and see in one place all that you stand for right no, at THIS point in time, you can begin to feel a sense of freedom around being able to language and articulate what you do that is of value - whether to your employers, your family, to your business, or your clients.
Just within that sense of ownership of your value alone, there is incredible power.
Why is personal branding important: Know your values + embody them
All brands have values, so let's uncover yours.
Whilst many of you might have experience exercises similar to this - perhaps for clients or in your organisation - doing it for yourself is something that we so often forget to do.
So take a moment to consider:
- What is important to you?
- What are your values?
- How do you see and experience the world?
For me, my values right now are creativity, family, freedom and brilliance.
Those for me express how I live and work, how I apply it within my home life, within my personal life, within my business life. As a framework, they help me to decide whether or not to say yes or no to projects or to personal invitations.
By keeping the values in my mind to guide myself, I already have a matrix with which to check against, just by noting down for myself what I value, and how I live and work.
It can be useful to have a list of words when you are really honing down on your values. Although some words may feel very similar and some may feel as if they overlap, you'll find that a handful has a particular resonance and a particular nuance that is important to you.
[This list of over 200 will get you started].
With the noise of the online space, it becomes so easy to lose ourselves in the homogony of what other people are offering, and how they present themselves.
But really, you already know inherently what's important to you.
Choose between 4 and 6 values to give you a firm foundation to really get clear on your personal brand.
Our own values can so easily be lost and forgotten, either within the culture of an organisation or by getting sucked into what other people are doing, (FOMO, anyone?!).
With the noise of the online space, it becomes so easy to lose ourselves in the homogony of what other people are offering, and how they present themselves.
But really, you already know inherently what's important to you.
You already know your values.
Even if you aren't fully living them right now, you can embody them much, much faster by taking the time to identify what is important.
Why is personal branding important: Knowing how to communicate online + off
Once you discover your values, (or at least reacquaint yourself with them), it's then important to communicate those to the world, to show how they apply to everything that you do and say, both online and off, in your personal life and your work life.
Once you're clear on what your values are, they also give a platform with which to build language, imagery, and all the stuff that goes into a brand and a cohesive presentation of it develops from this point.
A personal brand is NOT about making up an alter-ego and a false persona.
It's about aligning and embodying who you are, and what you do, and presenting it to the world.
Take some time to look at your values.
Take some time to look around at the people whose work you admire, at the personal brands that you see, and see what their values are, and how you can articulate yours
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How to prepare for a personal brand photoshoot
Your personal brand USP is never that you think it is
A personal brand is NOT about making up an alter-ego and a false persona.
It's about aligning and embodying who you are, and what you do, and presenting it to the world.