Tag Branding

Yes, You Do Have a Personal Brand

Steve Keating Leave a comment

Every word you speak matters. Every choice you make matters. Every decision you make matters. Every action you take matters. It all matters. Every word, every action, every choice, every decision, and even every thought contributes to the development of your personal brand.

A strong personal brand can set you up for success. It can “grease the skids” for work promotions and meaningful relationships in business and your personal life.

Building a strong personal brand requires consistent effort. It requires an awareness that people are always watching you. That they are also always forming opinions about who and what you are. It involves aligning your unique skills, values, and personality with a consistent and memorable image that resonates with others.

Here’s a step-by-step approach to creating a brand that is both impactful and sustainable.

1. Define Your Unique Value Proposition

Identify Your Strengths and Skills: Pinpoint what you excel at, be it technical skills, leadership qualities, or creativity. Think about what distinguishes you professionally and personally. This is “what” you are.

Know Your Values and Passions: Consider what matters most to you—this might be a cause, a belief, or a mission that guides your decisions. This is “who” you are.

Determine Your Audience: Identify the people who would benefit most from your work, including industries, communities, or individuals that align with your goals. This is your “mission in life.”

2. Craft a Clear Brand Message

Create an Introduction: Condense who you are and what you offer into a concise, memorable sentence or two.

Use Consistent Language: Develop a tone and style that represents your personality. Never attempt to change your accent or how you speak to match who you’re speaking with. They will quickly determine exactly what you’re doing and label you a fake.

Define Your Visual Style: Pick a consistent look and feel for visual elements (photos, colors, graphics) across your profiles, websites, and presentations.

3. Develop an Online Presence

Build a Website or Portfolio: A professional site can serve as the central hub of your brand, showcasing your bio, work, and any relevant content.

Leverage Social Media: Use platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, or X to engage with your audience and share valuable content. Keep your messaging consistent across platforms.

Create Content to Showcase Expertise: Post articles, videos, or tutorials relevant to your field. Consistent content sharing demonstrates your knowledge and builds trust.

4. Engage Authentically

Network and Collaborate: Attend industry events, participate in online forums, and reach out to others in your field. Genuine relationships help your brand feel relatable.

Offer Value Before Asking: Share insights, advice, or resources without expecting anything in return to establish goodwill and credibility.

Respond and Interact: Engaging with your audience through comments, replies, and direct messages makes your brand approachable and memorable.

5. Stay Consistent and Evolve

Maintain Consistency: Keep your messaging and visual elements aligned. Consistency builds recognition and trust.

Seek Feedback and Improve: Ask for feedback on your brand’s perception, then tweak as needed.

Adapt Over Time: As you grow professionally, your brand might need updating. Make adjustments to stay relevant while maintaining core values.

Whether you make an effort to build a strong personal brand or not, you do need to understand that YOU DO have a personal brand. Being intentional about developing it in a manner that highlights your strengths allows you a measure of control over it. The alternative is letting your personal brand be shaped by whoever and whatever happens along.

In building your personal brand, always aim for authenticity. You can attempt to fake your personal brand, but people figure out you’re faking it pretty quickly. That’s almost worse than not trying to build it at all. Your brand must feel like a natural extension of who you are rather than a persona you’re trying to project.

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Are You an Ambassador? 

Steve Keating 1 Comment

The short answer to that question is yes. Whether you know it or not. At a minimum you are the ambassador for your personal brand. Your words and actions create the impression you make on the people who you hang around with. You might know that but did you also know that sometimes those people talk about you with others you may have never even met? They are passing along their impressions of you. Then those people you have never met are forming an opinion of you…based on what the people you do know have said. 

What you should also know it that those “second hand” first impressions are as hard to change as first hand first impressions. So it’s a good idea to ask yourself from time to time how effective a Brand Ambassador you are for your personal brand. 

But you should also keep in mind that you likely represent a second brand. That is the brand of the company, firm, or organization that employs you. That’s true whether you’re self employed or work for a company that has thousands of employees. That’s true whether you hold an entry level position or you’re the head of the company. 

Think of it like this. You’re out after work one night with some friends having a few sodas. You’re wearing something with your company’s logo on it. Let’s say you’re not exactly on your best behavior, especially after your 5th or 6th beverage. People could get the impression that you’re some kind of jerk.

It’s a fair assumption for other people to make that you work for the company whose logo you’re wearing. Someone may even ask you to be sure. Even if your company employs thousands of people, you may be the only person from your company that person has even interacted with. You at that point represent the entire company and every one of it’s employees.

He now believes your company hires jerks. We all “know” that if a company hires one jerk then they likely hire more than one. It’s not too much of a stretch for many people to decide, even subconsciously, that the company you work for is made up of a bunch of jerks. 

And it’s entirely possible you will never know you sent that kind of message to people when you were just out having a good time. 

Maybe it’s possible that you don’t care what people think of the place you work. But the place you work is made up of everyone else who works there. It’s more than possible that you’re causing them to be thought of as jerks too…you know that whole “guilt by association” thing. 

So if you don’t what to be a good Brand Ambassador for your company you may want to consider being a good Brand Ambassador for your friends who work there.

On a side note, if you’re at a company event, especially in the presence of customers, and you think drinking even a little too much is a good idea then your drinking is most definitely clouding your judgment. You are absolutely killing your brand, whether anyone tells you that or not. It’s simply not acceptable these days. It shows poor judgment, a lack of discipline and a total lack of professionalism. 

I don’t want to be a party pooper but I’d hate to see all your hard work during the day be discounted by one too many drinks at night. 

Building Your Personal Brand

Steve Keating 6 Comments

The Missouri Agriculture Department Website says that Branding is one of the oldest and best ways to permanently identify livestock. It serves as an excellent safeguard against livestock theft, loss or dispute. In fact, the International Livestock Identification Association considers livestock brands to be as important as return addresses on mail.

Once applied the Brand is very difficult to remove. It is intended to be permanent. 

You have a brand too, it is your personal brand. Once applied, it is very difficult to remove. You may not intend for it to be permanent but it just might be.

Now here’s a scary thought… everything, yes everything, you say and do either adds to or subtracts from, your personal brand. People think stuff about you, they either think good stuff or bad stuff. Before you get upset with people who think stuff about you remember that you think stuff about other people too. It’s what we humans do.

What someone thinks of you will be determined by how you build your brand. It is determined by what you say and do. But this is the interesting part, what you “say” doesn’t build your brand and what you “do” doesn’t build it either. That would just be too easy.

Your brand is built by what you say AND do. When you’re trying to build a strong, trusted brand then those two things had better match, or at least be very, very close.  

I give out lots of advice, both online and in person. If I must say so myself most of the advice I give is pretty darn good. It’s tried, tested and true. Online the “LeadToday” brand is strong and growing stronger everyday because the advice found there truly helps people. 

In life the “Steve Keating” brand isn’t as strong and it’s not as strong for one simple reason; I don’t always do as I say to do. In other words, what I say and what I do don’t always match. There are lots of reasons, or perhaps I should say excuses, for why what I say and do don’t always match but this much is certain: it does not help make my personal brand stronger.

So I work on it. I’m aware of it. I try to get better at it everyday. Everyday!

Are you aware of your brand? Do you realize you have one? Do you know what adds to and subtracts from your personal brand? Are you even interested in having a strong personal brand?

If your answer to any of those questions is yes then you may want to check in on yourself from time to time just to make sure your “says and does” match up. You may want to evaluate your brand once in a while to determine if it’s getting stronger or starting to fade a bit. 

Your honest evaluation will inform you about what you need to do next. 

One last point. Our biggest obstacle to building a strong brand is called living life. We’re going to screw up cause that’s another thing we humans do. Never let what you’ve done keep you from doing what you can. Even if you’ve put a dent in your brand by doing something wrong you can still polish the dent by doing what’s right.   

Your Personal Brand

Steve Keating Leave a comment

Backyard-Branding-lgIn the American west cattle ranchers “brand” each head of cattle to mark it as their own. The “brand” is literally burned into the hide of each animal and once branded it is permanent.

We, you and me and everyone we know, have a brand too. It’s our personal brand. It’s not burned into us but it does tend to get burned into the minds of those we deal with. Now here’s something that ought to make you think a bit, it might even scare you a little: Everything you say and everything you do either adds to or subtracts from your brand image.

Everything!

When you’re really good at something, say speaking for instance, you are recognized (branded) as a good speaker. Many things, how you speak, what you say, what you do and how you do it not only affect your personal brand but can actually become your personal brand.

Not all parts of a personal brand however are created equal. There is one part that stands out above all others. It’s called integrity.

When you do what you say you will do your brand becomes stronger. When you commit to doing something and then don’t do it your brand is weakened. You can excel in any other area but if you lack integrity your personal brand will never be as strong as it could be.

Now, if you’re like me you don’t spend much time each time thinking about how your actions (or lack of actions) are going to affect your brand. But perhaps you should.

I know it’s not possible to spend every minute of every day building your brand, but if you’ll commit even a few minutes a day to consider strategies to better develop your personal brand it will make a positive difference in almost everything you do.

Whether you know it or not you have a personal brand, it precedes you everywhere you go and it hangs around after you’ve left the scene. As long as you have to have a brand, why not do what you can to make it a strong one?