There’s a common misconception that your company’s brand is bigger and more important than your personal brand. When you’re a top-tier company like Coke, that’s completely true.
Related:How To Avoid A Huge Personal Branding Mistake
But when you’re a small or medium-sized business, your personal brand and corporate brand are basically intertwined. What you do personally will directly affect how your business is perceived.
Here’s what Jason DeMeyers had to say on Forbes:
There’s a common misconception in business that it’s the company’s brand alone that matters. In certain areas, this is true. For example, when considering small ticket items that are consumer goods such as toothbrushes or toilet paper, the vast majority of buyers are not interested in the company’s CEO. But for smaller businesses, service oriented firms, B2B companies, and artisan B2C companies, the owner’s brand is absolutely critical.
You could benefit from a personal brand. Here’s how.
Benefits Of Personal Branding
We could go into countless case studies of times personal branding issues have wrecked a small company’s hopes, but instead, let’s focus on the positive. Here’s what you and your company get from taking charge and crafting your own branding:
You control the message. When potential clients, employees, or even employers look for you, they’ll be more likely to find information you provided.
You have a focus/direction. Often, knowing how you want to professionally brand yourself will lead you to naturally pursue opportunities to deepen your branding. Your expertise and authority in your field will subsequently grow.
Your company will gain loyal customers. Remember how Steve Jobs became synonymous with Apple’s brand? The fascination with Steve led many people to become loyal lifetime customers of Apple. Strong personal branding can bring your company similar loyalty (though realistically not on the same, cultish scale as Apple).
You won’t be limited by a single business’s goals. As Shanice Cameron writes, “If my vision was to create a huge design agency that I’d eventually sell, a business name would be the best fit. But a huge design agency just isn’t my goal,” so she used her name as her brand.
Taking charge of your personal brand simply makes sense. However, you can’t simply charge into your branding efforts without planning ahead.
Know How You’ll Brand Yourself
A lot of people make the mistake of blindly making their personal brand. The purpose of personal brands isn’t to provide a social overview of every aspect of your life. It’s to establish you as a clearly identifiable leader in your field.
Can’t decide what to focus on? Start with your goals. Make a list and see what stands out. (Jacob Share has a great article that shows how to do this.)
Do Something Worth Talking About
Another way to increase your personal brand is to do something worth talking about. The fact is, we’re hired-wired as human beings to care primarily about ourselves. Great leaders inspire us because we can see some part of ourselves in them, and we believe or hope we can achieve something like them, too.
Being part of something truly worthwhile can inspire the same hope in people learning about your personal brand and make it much more effective.
Take John Noel. His personal brand focuses on two things: being the CEO of My Assist and being a philanthropist.
You don’t get to call yourself a philanthropist without being truly committed to making the world a better place, and that’s exactly what John has done with the Make A Mark Foundation. Founded by John and his wife in 1993, Make A Mark created an entire village in Kenya that houses 1,000 orphans. He is also involved with Trees 4 Children, a cooperative charitable effort between Make A Mark and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point that utilizes forestry principles and economics in an attempt to apply business solutions to Kenya’s sustainability and substance problems.
By spending so many years working with Make A Mark Foundation, John Noel has earned the right to brand himself a philanthropist.
While your personal brand doesn’t need to be based on decades of charity work, try to do something that’s worth other people in your field talking about. Then become known for doing that thing.
Begin Branding Now
Planning and executing a personal branding strategy takes time and work. Begin setting personal branding goals and developing an action plan today.
This post was originally published at an earlier date.
Is your job search turning into a grind with no end in sight? It may be time to take a step back and reevaluate your entire approach.
In cold weather climates, the beginning of spring is a time to clean the house and get organized—a practice known as spring cleaning. Through the years, spring cleaning has taken on a larger meaning with people using the time to organize and declutter things in their lives.
For professionals on the job hunt, a little spring cleaning (metaphorically speaking) could be a great way to reinvigorate your job search. Here are a few strategies your job search spring cleaning should include.
Reevaluate Your Job Search Approach
Bigstock
Make a list of the last handful of jobs you applied for and see if you can identify any positive or negative trends. Consider things like:
How did I learn about this job?
How did I apply for the job?
Did I earn an interview?
What was the ultimate result?
A lot can be learned about your job search approach just by answering these questions and identifying patterns. For example:
Negative Trends
You discovered five jobs through job boards, applied to all of them via the job boards, and never heard back from any of them.
The common pattern here is applying through job boards. This isn't to say that job boards don't serve a purpose in the job search process, but they have their limitations, and you can't run your job search entirely off of them. When you apply through a job board, there's a good chance that your materials will never get past the applicant tracking system (ATS) and never be seen by an actual person.
One simple fix is to research who the hiring manager or recruiter is that posted the position and email your materials to them directly.
The more efficient fix would be to take a proactive approach by putting together a bucket list of companies that you want to work for and start making connections on LinkedIn with people who work at those companies. You may already know some people who work there or have connections that can refer you to some individuals.
This is a great way to network your way onto a company's radar.
Positive Trends
You applied to three jobs via referral, were invited to two job interviews, and made it through multiple rounds of interviews for one of the jobs before being passed over for someone with a little more experience.
The pattern here is that getting referred to a job by a professional acquaintance is a great way to land a job interview. This indicates that you're leveraging your network well and you should continue to focus on your networking efforts.
The next step is to review the interview process and determine what went well and what needs to be improved. Sometimes the interviewer will provide feedback, and that feedback can be valuable. However, not everyone is comfortable with giving feedback.
Chances are you probably have a good idea about areas of improvement and the skills you need to gain. Put together a plan for addressing those shortfalls.
The good news in making it deep into any interview process is that it indicates that the company likes you as a potential employee (even if the timing just wasn't right) and the experience could be a roadmap to a job with that company at a later date, or another similar opportunity elsewhere.
Give Your Resume & Cover Letter Some Much-Needed Attention
Bigstock
Are you continuously sending similar resumes and cover letters to each job opening with only minor adjustments? If so, your strategy needs some serious spring cleaning.
The reason why it's so important to tailor your resume is that throughout your career, you acquire numerous skills, but the job you're applying for may only be focusing on 6-8 of those skills. In that case, those skills must rise to the top of the resume with quantifiable examples of how you successfully used those skills at previous jobs.
Remember, recruiters go through hundreds of resumes. They need to be able to tell from a quick glance whether or not you're a potential candidate for the position.
While updating your resume, you could also spruce up your LinkedIn profile by highlighting the skill sets that you want to be noticed for by recruiters.
As for writing a good cover letter, the key to success is writing a disruptive cover letter. When you write a disruptive cover letter, you're basically telling a story. The story should focus on how you connect with the particular company and job position. The story could also focus on your personal journey, and how you got to where you currently are in your career.
If your resumes and cover letters aren't unique, now is the time to clean things up and get on track.
Build Your Personal Brand
Just because you're looking for work doesn't mean that you don't have anything to offer. Use previous career experiences and passions to build your personal brand.
Ask yourself, "How do I want other professionals to view me?"
Pick an area of expertise and start sharing your knowledge and experience with your professional network by pushing out content on your LinkedIn and social media accounts. Good content can include blogs, social media posts, and videos.
By sharing content about your experiences and passions, you slowly build your personal brand, and others will start to notice. The content could lead to good discussions with others in your network. It could also lead to reconnecting with connections that you haven't spoken to in years, or making new connections.
You never know when one of these connections could turn into a job lead or referral. The trick is to get on people's radars. So, when you're cleaning up your job search, be sure to build a plan for personal branding.
Maintain Healthy Habits During Your Job Search
Bigstock
Your job search is important, but it's even more important to know when to pull back and focus on personal health and spending time with family and friends.
There are actually things that you can do for your own enjoyment that could help your job search in the long run, such as:
Grab coffee with a friend - It's good to engage in light conversation with friends during challenging times. And if your job search does come up, remember that most people have been through it themselves and you never know when a friend may provide you with a good idea or lead on a job.
Volunteer - Volunteering is a great way to get involved in the community and help others. In addition, if you develop a little bit of a career gap while looking for a job, you can always talk about how you filled that time volunteering, if you're asked about it during a job interview.
Continue to focus on other passions - Are you a fitness nut? Blogger? Crafter? Continue to do the things that bring you happiness. And if you're in a position to profit from your passion through a freelance job or side hustle, even better!
Spring is the perfect time to clean up and improve your job search so you can land the job you want. If you're struggling to find a job, follow the tips above to reinvigorate your job search—and watch your career blossom!
Need more help with your job search?
Become a member to learn how to land a job and UNLEASH your true potential to get what you want from work!
This article was originally published at an earlier date.
Bigstock
Bigstock
Bigstock
