3 Ways to Build your Personal Brand

Lots of people don’t like talking about themselves, but if you don’t do it for you, others will. Personal branding, it’s a lifelong journey. It has always been a thing, but it has become a “thing thing” unfortunately with social media.

First, LinkedIn has actually grown so much and now they have a billion users or more. And secondly, with all the influencer marketing thing, people have seen how you can actually obtain ROI – return on investment – on building your own personal brand. When using a product or service, they started realizing, okay, so building my personal brand, it’s actually really important.

Personal branding is what others say about you when you’re not in the room. It’s that combination of skills and experiences that makes you unique. So even the fact that you have studied at a specific university, or that you work for a company, there are other hundreds or thousands of people that have done the same. So what really, truly makes you different?

And there you should start writing down, the set of skills, the personal and also professional experiences that make you very unique and also your personality traits. I think that once you dig in into your uniqueness to define your personal brand, this really helps you to win confidence. Because when you start talking a lot about that uniqueness and about your strengths, you end up believing those strengths.

And something very important that we’ve seen over time over the last years is that there should be authenticity by sharing real experiences, by sharing things that really happen to you. It’s very important that there’s an alignment between your self-perception and being very honest about it, and what others think or perceive about yourself to build this personal brand.

A great exercise to do is to ask yourself if you would have to write a book about yourself, what title would you give to this book? But then you should also ask the same question to your family or friends, and ask them if they would have to write a book about yourself, what title would they give to this book? If there’s a big discrepancy about it, then there’s something you should work on or be very honest about it.

Once you have identified all of that at the same time, you’re able to define what’s next. What are you going to do around your personal brand to achieve those goals? Right. Work on your online presence because recruiters are constantly seeking for talent like you out there, right? So, creating relevant content around that uniqueness that we’ve already talked and that you have already defined.

Number two, and this is something that has worked really well for me, having a career mentor, someone that is a reference for you and that can guide you throughout your journey and the main decisions. I would always suggest you have two mentors, one within the organization that you either study or work for. And the second one is an external mentor that can give you a bigger and broader perspective.

So the first thing you should do is to choose someone that you really look up to. Number two, it should be someone that is approachable and that has some time allocated for you at least once a month. And number three, it should be someone very critical that makes you the right questions to challenge yourself and to help you get out of your comfort zone.

And companies talk a lot about this, but I do believe that we don’t give enough relevance to it, which is networking. It’s not just going to events having a drink with relevant context, but also online networking. Many of the opportunities that I’ve had throughout my career has been because literally, I’ve asked for a coffee chat to a person through LinkedIn.

Many people will say no, but out of ten no’s you get a yes, and that yes will open you doors towards different opportunities that you haven’t even considered in the past. I believe that personal branding is a lifelong journey. You might be not pursuing for a different job or role, or maybe you’re about to retire. You never know what opportunities arise out there.

Once you have a strong personal brand, it helps you to build other generations their own personal brand, right? By being a mentor and helping them leverage their personal brand, or by also being an inspiration to others. Your personal brand, it’s part of who you are and it’s part of who you are also in your personal life. The best way to go is to actually work on your personal brand and create your own story.