“If you create a genuinely strong personal brand, you’ll get a nod the next time an opportunity opens up.”
Your personal brand is everything.
I’ve seen it cut people at knees without them every realizing it. As they reach for higher positions and better pay, they have this unseen force keeping them from everything they want.
See, the hard part about a personal brand is that it’s made up of how people perceive all the things you say and do, inside and outside the office. Anything these people see will affect how they see you, whether it’s feeding the homeless, helping a teammate, doing 9 Vegas Bombs, or sleeping around the office. The good news is that you can change your brand, but it takes time.
So, where to start? Before you build the brand you want, you need to know where you’re at right now. Ask a handful of trusted people to give it to ya straight. What are people saying about you around the office? What message does your social media say? If you really want to get real here, have 5 strangers scroll through your social media and tell you what impression they get.
Once you know where you are, it’s time to get to work. You can easily find some quick wins in figuring out where you are. If people say you seem really young, maybe stop eating hot pockets for lunch every day and start dressing above average. If people say you’re an asshole, maybe get out of the office with the team every once in awhile.
Here’s the crappy things to remember:
- It takes a lot of time, and it never happens as fast as you want.
- It can turn good-to-bad much faster than bad-to-good.
- You’ll never control it 100%. Just accept that some of it will be wrong and you can’t do a thing about it.
Just remember that this is about building toward the individual that you want to be and that those around you see as ideal. If you create a genuinely strong personal brand, you’ll get a nod the next time an opportunity opens up. If you have a crappy brand, you won’t get that chance.
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Photo by Ander Burdain on Unsplash
