Enhance Career by Being a Personal Brand

by Ron Kurtus (updated 17 December 2021)

Your personal brand is how others identify you when they hear your name or see your work. It is a combination of your name, your skillset, and your reputation. To a degree, it is similar to the identification given to the name Donald Trump, but of course on a smaller scale.

Friends, relatives, and people in your work area should be able to associate your name with the type of work you do. The next level of personal branding is being known within your company by upper management. The third level is being known outside your company for your expertise.

The fourth level of personal branding is to be known nationally or internationally, similar to someone like Donald Trump. Although possible, it is not likely unless you have attributes that would make you a celebrity.

Being identifed as a personal brand can enhance your career at each lelve.

Questions you may have include:

How can you be known by associates?
What is your personal brand to management?
How can you be identified to upper management?

This lesson will answer those questions.

Known by work associates

Typcially, those with whom you work know your job description and what you do. Within this environment, you should try to get a reputation as a good worker and an expert in some specific area of work. Often you get to be known as an expert by volunteering to take on jobs that others don't want to do or are incapabile of doing.

This type of personal branding should be recongnized by your supervisor and may be reflected during the performance evaluations.

Known by management

If the work you do in your area of expertise is deemed valuable to your company, the word may get to upper management. Note that some supervisors can get jealous and not tell those above about your skills. In such a case, you may need to be creative in letting others know about your acoomplishments.

Having a personal brand of doing excellent and difficult work to upper management can lead to promotions within the company.

Known in the industry

It is good to be iinvolved in professional organizations within your field. This is were you can meet others who are doing similar work. You can then tell them about your expertise, as well as learn about their expertise and the needs of their companies.

By giving presentations or writing articles in the trade blogs, you can build up your reputation and personal brand outside your company. This can make you more valuable to your company, as well as possibly receiving offers from other companies.

Of course, if making presentations or writing articles is not your thing, you can still build your personal brand by talking to others and building relationships.

Summary

By emphasizing special features and style, your name can be identified as similar to a brand by those in your field. This could very well enhance the advancement of your career.

You need to know who you are before you can tell others