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“Creating Successful Leaders”

Tag Archives: 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. 

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December 3, 2014 5 Minutes to Better Personal Branding

Your personal brand is more than your company logo or the colors you choose for your website. Your personal brand is, to put it simply, you. How you act, what you say, how you dress, and how you address others all contributes to your personal brand. It’s what you’re showcasing to the world and, consequently, how others see you.

No empire is built overnight, just as no brand is transformed in a day. It takes time to build a reputation around yourself that others will respect.  But you CAN get started today by writing down some of the key goals you have for your personal brand and how you will go about achieving those goals. Start by thinking about a few key things:

1. Your brand should be consistent.

If you want to make yourself known as the reliable, go-to person for any project, then be reliable! If you want to be known as the employee who goes out of their way to include others, then focus on being inclusive! Don’t try to fake it and be something you’re not, but DO try to capitalize on your assets and be consistent with your behaviors. And remember: the office pool can be quite small. If you act one way with one group of people and act completely different with others, that behavior will be noticed…and that’s frankly not the kind of attention you want.

2. Review your daily activities.

Do your day-to-day activities support your personal brand? If you’re trying to promote your writing skills, but are constantly working on research projects or editing, then you’re not being true to yourself or your abilities and it’s probably time to reevaluate your daily work. Talk to a manager about getting more writing projects or volunteer for additional writing opportunities (like the monthly company newsletter).

Or maybe your goal is to rise to a leadership position. Think about your typical daily to-do list and ask yourself if your activities are contributing to the bigger picture. If not, how can you go about changing them?

3. Stay rooted.

Yes, personal brands evolve. You might change your career goals or you might even switch positions within the company. That doesn’t mean your personal brand should be scrapped and you should start from scratch. Stay true to who you are and never lose sight of that. You might consider saying an affirmation to yourself every morning like, “I am a positive, optimistic person who always gets things done on time” or “I enjoy working with customers and go out of my way to make them happy.”

The best way to start working on improving or honing your personal brand is to have a plan. Do not approach it haphazardly and let others decide how they see you. YOU decide how you’d like to be seen. YOU have the power to build a strong, respected personal brand, brick-by-brick.

Need help getting started? Contact me today for guidance with strategic career planning.

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July 31, 2014 Worried You’re Not A Born Leader? No Problem, Neither Are Most Of Us

What comes to mind when you hear the word “leader”? The captain of a team, perhaps? The lead soloist in an orchestra, or the director of a play?

I’d say these are all classic examples, as leaders like these inspire others to follow, thrive in the spotlight, and break new ground with their achievements. When we witness such leaders in action, it’s only natural to wonder: how did they get like that? Are great leaders born naturals, or did they learn and cultivate their skills?

To answer this, we must first dispel the myth that all leaders fit into the same cookie-cutter outlines. The examples I listed above, while all good ones, leave out many other kinds of influential leaders. Mentors, tutors, coaches, and other one-on-one roles are examples of leadership conducted behind the scenes. Similarly, parenting is a type of constant leadership that rarely gets awards or praise. There are scores of leaders who make their mark quietly, without any fanfare.

Once we see that leaders are a large, diverse group of people with all sorts of natural gifts and skills, it’s easier to see where our talents could apply to a leadership capacity. Undoubtedly, some people are naturally better equipped to fill many types of leadership roles, but no leader becomes great without dedicating time and effort into becoming better. And the biggest asset a leader has? Self-awareness.

In her article on Forbes’ website, author and coach Erika Anderson says her experience has shown the best leaders are self-aware: “Without exception, the more self-aware someone is, the easier he or she is to coach; the more improvable and better able to accept what they need in order to improve.”  I wholeheartedly agree. In my coaching experience, there’s not much you can do to help someone who is unwilling or unable to see themselves in a realistic light. I’ve had much more success coaching someone of modest skills who is self-aware.

Know your strengths, know your weaknesses, and know where you plug in to the world around you. This is the big idea behind self-awareness. You may possess amazing speaking skills, or a gift for innovative ideas, but if you cannot even accurately see who you are, and where you fit in, you’ll never be able to lead others.

That’s my thought for this week, and can you believe that next week is already August? I hope you’ve gotten a chance to get outdoors!

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