Skip to content

UXL Blog

“Creating Successful Leaders”

Tag Archives: Improve Personal Branding

April 3, 2024 How to Spring Clean Your Personal Brand

With spring in the air, the time is right for a little refresh. For many people, that means deep cleaning your house, getting rid of rarely used items, or reorganizing the cupboards…but what about spring cleaning your personal brand?

A personal brand is a reflection of who you are professionally, how you present yourself online and offline, and how you are perceived by others. It’s about ensuring your values, skills, and personality shine through consistently in all your interactions.

However, a personal brand can go stale. You might change your goals, perspectives, or outlooks, which necessitates a change in personal brand. But it may be a challenge to get people to stop seeing the old you and start seeing the present version of yourself. How do you overhaul your personal brand and start putting forward the new you?

Here are 6 suggestions for spring cleaning your personal brand:

Clarify Your Goals

To begin reworking your personal brand, it is essential to have a good understanding of your goals and aspirations. Where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve? A personal brand can help get you there by aligning your values, skills, and personality with your objectives. By clarifying your goals, you can tailor your personal brand to reflect who you are now and where you want to be in the future, ensuring consistency and authenticity across all interactions.

Be Your Best Authentic Self

Revamping your personal brand does not mean you’re inauthentic or flighty. Rather, it is simply a way to step into a different version of yourself—a version that reflects your growth, goals, and values at this moment. Embrace your authenticity and let it shine through in your personal brand.

Update Your Profiles

Ensuring that your online presence aligns with your current personal brand is crucial. Make sure to update your profiles (LinkedIn and other professional networking platforms) and website with fresh content, new achievements, and any changes to reflect your updated goals and values. This will help reinforce your professional image and showcase the most current version of yourself. Regularly reviewing and revising your online presence is a key step in maintaining a relevant and consistent personal brand.

Update Your Responsibilities

If certain aspects of your work match your goals better than others, it’s prudent to ask for responsibilities or projects that align more closely with your objectives. By taking on new tasks that better reflect your current goals and values, you can strengthen your personal brand and demonstrate your commitment to growth and development.

Communicate

You do not have to undergo your brand revamp in secret. In fact, it’s a good idea to talk with your boss, mentor/sponsor, or even your co-workers (if appropriate) about the changes you’d like to make to support and reinforce the vision for your new personal brand. Remember to be tactful when asking for new responsibilities or aligning your roles to better match your evolving personal brand. By communicating openly with your colleagues and superiors about your goals and desired changes, you can foster understanding and support for your professional growth.

Own It

Although it may not come naturally at first, it is crucial that you “own” your new personal brand and be confident in its representation. Stand tall in your values, skills, and personality, and let them shine through in your day-to-day interactions. Consistency and authenticity in your personal brand will help others see and recognize the new you. Embrace the growth, the change, and the evolution that come with refreshing your personal brand.

Remember, your personal brand is a powerful tool that showcases your unique strengths and qualities. It’s about being true to yourself while also adapting and evolving as needed. Allow your personal brand to be a dynamic representation of who you are today, constantly aligning with your current aspirations and values.

MARGARET SMITH IS A CAREER COACH, AUTHOR, INSIGHTS® DISCOVERY (AND DEEPER DISCOVERY) LICENSED PRACTITIONER, AND FOUNDER OF UXL. SHE HOSTS WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED CAREER OR PERSONAL GUIDANCE. 
CHECK OUT MARGARET’S ONLINE LEADERSHIP COURSE. 

Tags: , , , , ,

March 25, 2020 Better Personal Branding to Land a Promotion

Business woman at meeting
Image by Anastasia Gepp from Pixabay

If you’re looking to land a promotion, it’s a good idea to start with YOU. At the end of the day, the decision makers will dole out promotions to people and personalities they like, in addition to recognizing accomplishments. You’ll want to stand out (in a good way!) and be consistent in your behavior. You’ll want to build and master your personal brand.

How do you develop a personal brand that will help you stand out?

Start with thinking about your end goals. Where do you want to be? What skills and personal attributes do you need to get you there? These are the building blocks of your personal brand.

Once you have your big-picture goals identified, consider how you’ll need to act and what you’ll need to accomplish in a realistic sense. What will your day-to-day look like? Your actions matter, and they are the most important part of your personal brand.

Your appearance and your words pale in comparison to what you DO. You might be the sharpest dresser in the office, but if you fail to turn in your work on time, you’ll be perceived in a negative light.

So what does make a quality brand? What are some of the factors you can put into place to elevate your personal brand in the eyes of others?

Consider these four…

1. Be authentic

As you begin developing your personal brand, being authentic should be your number one priority. Others can see right through a faux personality. Let your best self shine!

2. Check your ego

As much as you’d like to take credit for the success of an entire project, be sure to give credit where credit is due. Acknowledge the achievements of your team members and be sure to tell them you appreciate their contributions.

Additionally, keep in mind that your ideas are not the only ideas. Build a positive personal brand by being inclusive of others and open to their thoughts and opinions.

3. Genuinely care about others

Whether co-workers or clients, make sure you consistently pause and consider others. What are their needs? How can you best help them? Listen carefully to others’ concerns and frustrations, as well as positive experiences. Constantly ask questions and begin to develop an understanding of those with whom you work (be they your customers, team members, or boss).

4. Be bold with your ideas

Individuals are more likely to be successful if they are innovators. If you have a bold new idea, talk about it! Create action. Present your idea to your boss and ask permission to pursue it. This kind of bold, self-starter behavior is what many bosses look for when considering who to promote. Just make sure to present your ideas in a respectful way that opens the door to a discourse…not a “my way or the highway” speech.

5. Focus on the day-to-day

How you act, what you say, and what you do every day can either build or detract from your personal brand. Don’t underestimate the importance of your daily interactions. Your consistent, positive presence is important for building and maintaining your brand.

Make sure your daily actions are, in general, supporting your big-picture goals. If you’d like to, for example, rise to a leadership position, think about how your typical to-do list offers opportunities to achieve that goal. What can you do to put your big-picture goals in the center of your day?

As you work on building your personal brand, remember: success doesn’t usually come over night. Focus on small actions and interactions. Everything matters.

MARGARET SMITH IS A CAREER COACH, AUTHOR, INSIGHTS® DISCOVERY (AND DEEPER DISCOVERY) LICENSED PRACTITIONER, AND FOUNDER OF UXL. SHE HOSTS WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED CAREER OR PERSONAL GUIDANCE. 
NOW LIVE: CHECK OUT MARGARET’S NEW ONLINE LEADERSHIP COURSE.

Tags: , , , , ,

November 30, 2016 Life as a Web (don’t blow your connections!)

life as a web

When I talk to clients about building up their personal brands, I remind them that a personal brand should be consistent and reliable. This is your reputation, the overall traits that people see in you. If you behave one way with a certain group of people and then modify your behavior drastically with another group, people will pick up on that. They will begin to question your integrity and authenticity, and your personal brand will mostly likely take a hit.

Of course, it’s a good idea to modify your actions slightly (you might have a more casual approach with co-workers than clients, for instance), but your true self should remain consistent. I talk about this concept quite a bit in my chapter on authenticity in the Ten-Minute Leadership Challenge and in various blog posts about authenticity and authentic leadership.

One thing to keep in mind when you’re focusing on your personal brand is that we live in a web. You aren’t just spinning in your own orbit, having one-off conversations with a manager here, a prospective client there. Your actions and your words can have a far-reaching effect.

I’ve personally experienced this effect during my time at 3M. People would know my reputation as a go-getter and an”idea person” before I even introduced myself. Word has a way of spreading and, because of that, the people at 3M entrusted me to take on new, experimental projects, knowing I had built up a reputation of innovation and ambition.

In your own world, your reputation might either be built or shattered by the things you say on social media, your replies (or lack of replies) to emails, your courteousness or curtness, your ability to meet deadlines (or ignore them). And you know what? The web is getting smaller. We are all linked through digital channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, email records) and our actions can be easily monitored (browser history, time stamps on email messages). Why not be transparent?

Putting your best, genuine self forward is the surest way to develop a personal brand that is consistent, trustworthy, and YOU.

FURTHER READING:

The 5 Minute Personal Branding Pep Talk

Better Personal Branding

MARGARET SMITH IS A CAREER COACH, AUTHOR, INSIGHTS®DISCOVERY LICENSED PRACTITIONER, FOUNDER OF UXL, AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE TAG TEAM. SHE HOSTS WORKSHOPS FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED CAREER OR PERSONAL GUIDANCE. YOU CAN VISIT HER WEBSITE AT WWW.YOUEXCELNOW.COM

Go back

Your message has been sent

Tags: , , , , , , , ,