How To Reset Your Personal Brand
If you’ve remained employed throughout these singular times, you may feel curious about what’s next and if so, how to brand yourself. Whether you’re contemplating a new job, career, or industry, try these journalistic (and coaching) techniques for crafting a clear and authentic branding statement which stands out. (Isn’t that what we’re all going for?)
Get Strategic
To brand effectively, strive to cover the five W’s and the H well-trained journalists adhere to within the opening of their news story: What, where, who, when, (how) and why. As you cover these components, keep the language:
- Accessible and relatable to the audience you seek
- Concise and pithy
- Interesting and specific
What’s at stake in ignoring these rules? We’ll blend in too much, remain ambiguous, and your niche audience may struggle finding you. (We get more into the ‘who’ in a moment.)
Consider the What, the When, and the How
To brand specifically, contemplate (very high level) what you do — and how you do it. (Hint: Answer using crisp specifics to adhere to our best practices.) I offer below an example I’ve enjoyed reading and recommend saving your own favorites for fodder.
- Marie Kondo introduced the KonMari Method™ in her best-selling book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” Her approach to tidying is rooted in a single question: Does this item spark joy? Identifying what sparks joy leads to a home filled only with items you cherish. It’s also a path to self-discovery, mindful living and fulfillment.
Can this branding statement become crisper? Yes. (We can remove several words and combine the last two sentences for brevity.) Nonetheless, I feel clear and interested to know more from reading this statement, even without trimming a thing.
If you wanted to add a timely component to your branding statement, you might consider adding when you step in or when you serve organizations best. E.G. I’m a leadership coach who helps IT startup owners get out of their heads and into their bodies to execute before the money runs out. I use mental fitness, coaching, and training to help get them there.
Consider the Why, Where, and Who
Effective personal branding requires contemplating for a moment why we work in the first place and what change we bring to those we serve. To get there, consider answering the following questions reporters might ask entrepreneurs or leaders:
- What excites you the most about your work — and why?
- What feels urgent about your offerings, and especially now?
- Who do you feel most passionate about serving, in what kinds of regions (or life stages) and why this audience over others?
Whatever comes next helps kickstart your personal branding. In knowing your ‘why you do what you do — and for whom?’ you can isolate what you uniquely bring and what specifically motivates you. If you’re feeling stuck here, consider my own (work-in-process) statement lest it sparks something useful.
I’m a communications coach and trainer from New Zealand helping immigrant leaders cultivate an executive presence honoring their unique strengths and motherland. Together we apply journalism, mental fitness, and coaching techniques to refine their communications and to awaken their truest super power: Courage.
Feel Brave. Get Specific
Final tip! Then, I’ll leave you be. When we brand what we do, often we feel safest when staying broad vs. narrow. But experts like Bill Carmody, Head of Coaching for Positive Intelligence, caution against a broad branding statement. Your niche audience won’t find you through Google search terms, he reasons. The other risk: In remaining too broad, you’re targeting too many groups vs. one specific, well-thought-out audience aligned with your skills, passions, and values. (You risk exhausting yourself, too.)
A small personal story illustrates. When building up my coaching business, I positioned myself as a communications coach and trainer helping leaders who’ve found their choppy communication style gets in their way. This strategy yielded reasonable results; but given how many leaders struggle this way, I sensed I remained too broad. Only when committing to a subset within that demographic (i.e. immigrant leaders, like me) did I find my bullseye.
Moreso, they found me. Within months of making this tweak via LinkedIn and within my outreach, I won throngs of excellent communications clients, and mostly immigrant leaders of their own company, or immigrant leaders within large, global organizations. My more targeted branding statement helped me find my niche; I’ve grown as a coach and feel enriched personally, too.
How else might you specify your brand and niche? Through an industry, a title, a gender, or professionals who’ve experienced a similar life experience. Maybe your branding statement ties to your specific goal. For instance, if you’re a professional wanting to lead a supply chain team and diverse leadership feels vital, perhaps state so within your branding statement. A possible write up follows.
In two decades as a supply chain director for American Fortune 500 companies working across three continents, I’ve never worked for a woman leader. Nor have I worked for a leader born outside of the U.S., let alone one from my motherland of Nigeria. I aim to change that trend for all of the women behind and beside me.
Now you’ve some new ways to reset and reframe your brand — or perhaps you feel inspired to write your first branding statement? (That would feel like a win for me, too.) Either way, happy writing and may the force be with you as you prospect.
Debbi coaches and trains leaders all over the globe to become more confident and authentic communicators, and with that, more concise, too. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and is a communications specialist fellow coach with BetterUp.