Building Your Professional Brand
How do others see us? Even in 1786, Scottish poet Robert Burns understood that the world "sees us" within a certain frame — a frame that more than 200 years later we might call a personal brand.
What's a personal brand? In the marketing world, a brand is the collective characteristics that the market attributes to a given product or service. Think of Ben and Jerry's, Apple, Nike, Target, Estee Lauder. Whether or not we use their products, we associate specific brand characteristics with each.
Those brand characteristics are communicated through language, actions, visuals, and advertising. In her article "Brand Touchpoints" (Information Outlook, November 2003), SLA branding guru Chris Olson describes these points of influence, defining them as "all of the physical, communication, and human interactions" that our audiences or constituencies have with us. Explaining how SLA manages its branding initiatives for its various markets, she further elaborates:
The concept of a brand touchpoint is key to understanding and managing the brand experience and its impact on memories and perceptions.... Touchpoints can include websites, newsletters, phone conversations with staff members, conferences, press releases, division initiatives, advertisements, networking introductions, sponsorships, awards, publications, announcements, mentoring chats, presentations, chapter meetings, referrals, seminars, exhibit displays, promotion items, interviews, communities — to name a few. Each touchpoint offers us the opportunity to establish and build our brand into a positive experience and memory."
A personal brand is basically the same concept: you are presenting the strengths for which you want to be known to the world. And, in fact, creating your personal brand will entail many of the same types of touchpoints described by Olson. You communicate your brand every day through:
- your language — is it hesitant or confident, friendly or cold, arrogant or supportive, professional or careless? If you want to be known as someone who's energetic and takes initiative, passive or hesitant language will undermine that perception.
- your dress — does your clothing reinforce the way you want your potential patron, employer or client to think of you? This differs radically from constituency to constituency, but it helps to look like the person you want to connect with, which may either be the employer or the employer's constituency (e.g., students, if you're an academic librarian).
- your contributions — do the projects you work on/volunteer for demonstrate the professional characteristics you want to be known for? For example, your brand may include a commitment to community service, or a passion for outdoor sports, or innovative thinking.
- your public communications — if you blog, post to electronic discussion lists, have a website, write articles, contribute to newsletters, or give presentations, you are creating the public's perceptions of your brand by the topics on which you focus, the language and writing style you use, the values you espouse and the issues you champion.
- if you're a student, your grad-school participation — are you known for bringing energy and intellectual engagement to the class, or do you make it clear you're uninterested; do you find ways to support your student colleagues, or avoid unnecessary contact; do you organize dynamic student programs or let others do all the work?
- increasing, your social networking entry — services such as LinkedIn enable you to post a profile that showcases who you are as a professional, including not only your current and past jobs but also a summary of your career accomplishments and engagements, plus list "specialties" for which you are (or would like to be) known. Additionally, you can note interests, groups and associations with which you are affiliated, honors and awards, and websites you may have.
How you present yourself to your professional world will signify to others what to expect of you and how to treat you. Are you sending a consistent message that says "I expect to be treated as someone with substantial value to contribute?"
As Harvard Business School professor Laura Morgan Roberts noted in "Creating a Positive Professional Image" (Working Knowledge, June 20, 2005),
...you must realize that if you aren't managing your own professional image, someone else is. People are constantly observing your behavior and forming theories about your competence, character, and commitment, which are rapidly disseminated throughout your workplace. It is only wise to add your voice in framing others' theories about who you are and what you can accomplish.
Robin Fisher Roffer, author of Make a Name for Yourself (Broadway, 2002), suggests the "holy trinity" of a great brand are consistency, clarity, and authenticity. (And who would argue with a branding expert who cites as one of her examples the librarian at CNN who "refers to herself as the ‘Information Goddess of popular culture?'")
But Roffer makes an important point, i.e., that branding is not representing yourself to be something you're not. It's simply making sure that the world has an opportunity to see all the terrific things you are. Are you creative, enthusiastic, reliable, a "go-to" person? Do you want to be known as a change agent, a social activist, a decisive leader? Do you want potential employers and/or clients to think of you as a smart and savvy strategist who can also execute effectively? Whatever you are at your authentic core, this is what you want to make visible to your professional environment.
Think of branding as simply taking the initiative to shape others' perceptions of your skills and abilities before they form opinions based on faulty assumptions that will limit your ability to contribute. We all have a brand; the only question is whether or not you will consciously shape it. So why not take the opportunity to showcase your strengths?
A quote that I saved from some unknown source says "Think of yourself as an undervalued asset that's about to go public." What professional assets and attributes do you want to go public with? Some questions that might help you focus your thinking here:
- What core values do you want to define your professional persona?
- What passions?
- What talents do you want others to associate with you?
- Are there areas of specialization for which you want to be known?
- Equally important, what actions over the course of your career demonstrate these brand attributes?
And if you're just starting out and don't have any accomplishments yet that document your distinct value? Then this simply gives you a goal to shoot for as you grow your career. In the meantime, you might want to focus on the following key brand elements, which will help ensure your ongoing employability so you can start building that impressive career:
- Easy to work with, plays well with others
- Strong team participant, whether as leader or member
- Excited about new, but understand and respect value of established
- Enthusiastic
- Someone whose judgment can be trusted
- Confident enough in your own knowledge and skills to understand and respect the value of others'
Becoming known as the person who is great to work with, who focuses on solutions, who values collaborative efforts but can also take direction, is a great beginning from which to start building the brand the world will know you by.