A friend and I were talking last night about careers and various goals. Some people want to run a large organization, others want to go as far from an organization as possible. There is a satisfaction that many take in working with a single company and focusing for many years on efforts there, and others want to work in a very lightweight roll away from a company and not have any specific day-to-day activities with any one company.
Regardless of all of these work goals and any career paths that you might have in mind there is one goal that everyone should work on but yet few do; your personal brand.
The concept might honestly sound funny to most people. It is easy to confuse personal branding with attention seeking and a shot at stardom or at least your 15 minutes of fame. But that is simply not it, although many famous individuals do have strong personal branding.
You know you have attained strong personal branding when you are irreplaceable with someone else who has similar talents or job description and this is largely recognized in your community.
Take Jeff Pulver for example; Jeff has excellent personal branding. When you want to meet with Jeff then you want to meet with Jeff. There isn’t a substitute. Sure there are other entrepreneurial people out there, but his unique talents, social network, and success make him a one of a kind. He is not famous. He is not a household name. Yet for those that know him there is no replacement. Many of the top people on twitter could also be thought of in this way. From Robert Scoble to Chris Brogan to iJustine, they have each created their own unmistakable personal brand that could not be substituted or replaced by another person with the same ‘job title’.
The paths to getting here there are infinite. It is not a matter of only being the best at something, but being pretty good at something, a great communicator, well liked and overall respected. Getting good at something is a great start, but also doing something special is another strong starting point.
Think about getting past your job title. You are not a photographer, consultant, planner, actor, musician or business-person. You are you and the goal is for at least your larger social community to recognize that.
When you attain this you, in my opinion, have attained the best job of them all; being yourself.
Great post here, and nice to see you speak about being good at your job – and standing out! Amazing how many years we spend getting great at our jobs, and developing our skills, but we spend very little time developing ourselves, and understanding what makes us unique! Hopefully, as more people recognise the significance of their personal brand, we will see more people working on skills such as public speaking, presenting, networking, writing and communication!
Personal Branding is something on my mind.
When you are your own brand the way you approach things is just different. The thing is that everyone is in fact their own brand. It is just that some people don’t recognize it.
People make snap judgements. When a judgement is made on a first impression for example, you’ve just been “personally branded” to some extent. However if you can harness your brand and control how it gets out there, ie: become prolific – then you can transcend the immediate and doors will really open up. Everyone is a brand but few are super brands. If you can reach that level of recognition then all sorts of things can appear. It’s very important to be conscious of how you come off, i’m not saying change your ways just understand your impact on others.
Great post! Repeating the “whispers” I have heard lately, some think we are in a personal branding “gold rush.” You touched this concept and it is really relevant right now, it makes sense that things are on the individual vs. just the corporate brand—you are what you eat
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There seems to be a shift taking place or perhaps a quiet revolution where a person’s individual brand can transcend their “title.”
Bringing more than a resume into the workplace, or a “good on paper” value, is your personal brand as Dave touched upon here. Who you know and what passion you have to drive things into fruition is essentially part of a that personal brand. Please check out http://www.personalbrandingmag.com for some interesting insights and articles on how your brand shapes your life.
Great post.
I agree with Jeff that everyone is a personal brand, you just need to make yours stand out (well, in a positive way of course). I got my current job thank to personal brand. I thinkg it is a combination of your professional reputation and your personality.
Excellent post. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to explain to clients and friends that there is no more “alter-ego” or separate web identities: your ‘permanent record’ is here, it is the internet, and thinking of what value you bring to your life and making that your “personal brand” is an excellent way to handle that and to possibly find some success.
Funny that I saw the link to this on Jeff Pulver’s blog- I was speaking to my wife this weekend about how to take what I consider my particular gift and network it to add value and possibly make money. We did not come to a definate conclusion, but at least the conversation was started. Maybe this post will continue that conversation. Thanks!
I couldnt agree with you more. Everyone has a job and think it ends there, that they are defined by their title and position, end of story. But it goes way beyond that, they should be defined by what they do and how they do it. As you said, they dont need to be a superhero or be famous, they just need to be known for doing something well enough they there is “no replacement.” At http://www.Brand-Yourself.com we aim to establish a student’s personal brand early so they can get the job of their dreams and love what they do. By establishing an online presence to control what comes up in Google while staying true to their brand, they should have no problem getting the job they want and deserve. For more actionable tips to strengthen your personal brand on the web please go to our blog at http://blog.brand-yourself.com.
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