We all try our best to ensure that the companies that we work for align with our values and that are of interest to us personally. This not only makes doing our jobs easier because of our vested interests but also allows us to represent the company’s brand. 

While it’s important to represent the brands and companies you work for, it’s also important to create your own personal branding that is transferable and remains with you throughout your career. 

What Is It

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies and distinguishes a product or service from another. 

Personal branding is the effort of creating a public perception of an individual which portrays them as an authority in their industry. This elevates their credibility and differentiates them from the competition, which can help to advance their career as well as increase their influence and impact on their community. 

Why Is It Important

• Creating a personal brand is incredibly valuable in the business world and beyond! It allows you to distinguish yourself from other professionals in your industry. 

• Personal branding creates credibility, which is essential for making connections, establishing yourself within your industry and growing your business. An important thing to keep in mind is that your personal brand should not be a facade, it should be authentic to you! 

• It also helps build and establish confidence! Having personal branding that is authentically you allows you to put your best foot forward and be your true self. Being able to confidently speak and act to your own personal branding will not only speak to your credibility but will also create ease in difficult situations such as networking, connecting with industry experts, or even taking the leap to really start focusing on and growing your business so much easier. 

Once you’ve established and built your personal branding, it becomes easier to put yourself out there and offer your goods and/or services to the world. 

How Do You Create It

• Establishing and building your personal branding can be challenging if you don’t know where to start! It’s important to first work on determining who you are and what you want to be known for. 

• Once you have that, you need to figure out who your audience is and understand them. Who are they? Where do they live? What do they do? How do they like to receive information? Where do they spend their time? Etc. 

• Another important factor to establishing your personal branding is to look to the experts and how they’re doing it. Think about some of the experts in your industry, what are they doing or saying that differentiates them from other experts in their field and how could you authentically incorporate some of these things into your personal branding…?