personal brandHave you ever thought about your personal brand? If not, or you’ve never even heard of it, please read on!

I recently saw a fantastic interview with Diana YK Chan, MBA. She’s a Personal Branding and Job Interview Expert who recommends we all develop our brand based on 5Ps.

You may think that personal branding is only necessary for entrepreneurs who need to ‘sell’ themselves and their business to the world, but we can all benefit from this exercise, especially if you’re looking for a new role or to advance your career.

In this blog, I’d like to talk you through each of these areas and demonstrate how to apply them.

1. Defining who you are (Product)

We all have unique qualities that make us who we are. To define your ‘product’, think about your personality, character, strengths, interests, and skills. I recommend grabbing a piece of paper and a pen and jotting these down to help you get a little clarity. Don’t just think about how you see yourself. Think about how others would describe you too. For example, are you confident, enthusiastic, passionate, motivated, credible?

2. How do others see you? (Perception)

The next area to consider is how others perceive you in terms of your expertise. What are you known for? For example, your reputation could be delivering when you say you will. Or perhaps your strengths lie in bringing a team together to work on a shared vision or solve a problem. To complete this section, it may help to get some feedback from close co-workers or friends.

3. Credibility (Potential)

Our performance, accomplishments and results give us credibility. Think about your qualifications, achievements and experiences and how these define your potential. If you’re thinking of making a big leap in your career, you may need additional qualifications or to complete courses to get the credibility you need to take that step up.

4. What are your USPs? (Positioning)

Once you’ve defined who you are, how others see you and your accomplishments, it’s time to look at what sets you apart (your USP or Unique Selling Point). In other words, what are the benefits of hiring you over Joe Bloggs?!

5. How do you want the world to see you? (Packaging)

The final P is how you want to present yourself to the world. This could be through your energy, presence, image or confidence. Basically, it’s how you ‘show up’. If you know who you are and what you stand for, it’s a darn sight easier for others to see it too!

personal brand

Using your personal brand

There are several ways your personal branding could help you in securing a new role or to advance your career within your current organisation.

LinkedIn profile. Once you’ve defined your personal brand, review your LinkedIn profile to make sure it contains all the relevant keywords to convey this to a wider audience. Creating a short statement to highlight who you are or what you’re hoping to achieve through your presence on LinkedIn may help you with this.

CV. The initial, personal profile section of your CV is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your positioning and show a recruiter or hiring manager why you are the best fit for their role and organisation. You can read more about how to create an eye-catching CV in my previous blog post.

Cover letter. A perfect opportunity to highlight two or three of your personal USPs.

Interviews. Make sure you do plenty of research to ensure you understand the role you’re interviewing for and the organisation you’re applying to. This will help you shape your key messages, deliver them clearly during an interview and ensure you sprinkle plenty of your USPs about!

Your interactions with others. Knowing who you are, what sets you apart and how you can benefit a team will help you to feel more confident. This, in turn, will make other people feel more confident in you and your abilities.

Would you like to find out more about how building your personal brand can help you in your career?

I hope you’ve found this blog helpful and that you’ve learnt about some new areas to explore. To find out more about how I can support you to secure your next role or to advance in your current career, contact me to book a free, no-obligation 30-minute consultation.

It would also be great to connect with you on LinkedIn and Facebook!