I’m writing this after delivering a session on personal brand, which was part of a week-long leadership academy.
One of the first questions I asked the group was, ‘what would you think if someone said to you ‘I’m currently working on building my personal brand’? Their pained facial contortions whilst thinking about the answer were hilarious. Responses included: ‘I’d think they were cheesy, a corporate robot, egotistical or auditioning as a contestant on The Apprentice’.
I’m with them on this, such people have me lacing up my trainers, ready for a 5km run in the opposite direction.
The thing is, you have a personal brand whether you realise it or not. People are making judgments about you all the time based on your: work, behaviours, communication style, appearance etc. And it matters because it will be a key factor in whether: opportunities come your way, people want to help you on projects and whether people buy your products/services.
People’s perceptions of your brand may be spot on and exactly what you want to convey, but they may also not be.
So how do you know what perception people have of your brand? Time to grab a pipe and put on a deerstalker, because detective work is needed.
To find out people’s perceptions of your brand, try any of the following:
360-degree feedback
If you receive 360 feedback as part of your review process, look for themes and common phrases in people’s comments about you. These are clues to your personal brand. If you don’t have a 360 process, why not ask for one?
I do understand that receiving 360 feedback isn’t always comfortable, but it’s so valuable, besides people are thinking these things anyway. Isn’t it better to know and do something about it?
Ask
Ask friends and family for the three words they’d use to describe you.
Reflect
• What have people said about you in speeches and cards when you’ve left a job?
• What did they all panic about having to do without you?
• What do people come to you for advice on?
• What comes naturally to you?
Look at all this information together, what key words, phrases, themes can you see? Try and slim these down to three or four points. These are other people’s perceptions of your personal brand.
Looking at these three or four points, do they really reflect who you are and how you want to come across? If so, that’s wonderful, you now need to keep communicating your brand and raising your visibility (I’ll cover this in a future blog).
If it doesn’t reflect who you really are, then roll up your sleeves, you’ve got work to do.
You can do this in a number of ways. Of course, as a coach, the first thing I’d recommend is enlisting the help of a coach, but there are other ways too.
Honing your personal brand
Ask trusted friends and colleagues for more detail on why they chose particular words to describe you.
You could also complete an Everything DiSC Workplace® questionnaire. It will help you understand how you communicate with people, plus how they like to be communicated with. This is important as miscommunication may be a factor in why your brand isn’t landing with them as you intend.
Also, ask yourself whether you are giving yourself the best foundation to communicate your brand. For example, a client of mine always put her colleagues and team before herself. This meant she had no space to prepare for meetings, racing from one to the next.
The impact on her brand? ‘Oh, she’s the one who is always in a flap. She doesn’t seem to be in control, I don’t think she could take on any new projects’.
This was so far from the real her. She was really on top of her sales targets and her team always delivered, but because she wasn’t giving herself the chance to communicate her real personal brand, it looked as though her department’s successes were in spite of her, not because of her.
We worked on a plan to carve out preparation time before meetings. This required a mind-shift to view preparation as a high priority, and to say ‘no’ to some requests from colleagues. We also worked on: pausing before speaking, following the ‘less can be more’ rule in terms of what she said, and stopping using minimising words and statements, such as ‘It’s just a little idea I had’.
All of which made her feel calmer in meetings, giving her gravitas and a platform to demonstrate her true brand of: a reliable, senior leader, who always meets or exceeds sales target.
So, spend a few moments reflecting on the following questions:
• What is your personal brand?
• What are other people’s perceptions of your personal brand?
• Do the two match?
You can find out more about these powerful tools and how they can improve workplace performance here.
