Personal branding is commanding a lot of attention these days, especially from job seekers and people trying to get ahead in the workplace. The reason is simple. It’s your identity. If what you do or what you sell doesn’t match up to your identity – if you’re not passionate about it – people take notice.
But, others also take notice when you own your personal brand, when you present yourself as and prove yourself as the subject matter expert in your field.
Branding the individual is especially relevant in the professional services, where developing thought leadership is a critical tool in an expert’s rise to prominence. I’m not talking about the self-described, “empty-suit” expert. Instead, these are serious professionals who want to increase their visibility and become recognized industry experts.
To become a true subject matter expert, you need to focus your attention in the right areas.
Top Personal Branding Tips
1. Focus your expertise
Don’t try to be an expert in too many things. Why? Because people are not very good at associating an expert with more than one thing. Not to mention, it’s very difficult to master multiple disciplines. A few exceptionally gifted people have become experts in more than one field, but most are remembered for only one of them.
Whether or not you consider yourself the leading expert yet is unimportant. “Leading expert” is in the mind of the beholder. If you can state your expertise in clear, simple language, you’ve already taken a huge step forward.
Let’s say you’re an accountant and you say your expertise is in taxes. “Taxes” is just too broad a concept. A focus on “state and local taxes” would be better, but you may need to go even narrower to find an expertise platform you can “own.” How about “state and local taxes for online purchases”? It’s very specific, but still applies to a lot of businesses out there.
Once you get their business based on your narrow focus, you can always up-sell your other services.
2. Pick your issues carefully
One more advantage of a narrow focus is that it limits what you will write and speak about. No longer faced with a wide world of possibilities, you can work within a clearly defined range of issues.
When you zoom in on an area of specialty you’ll discover a whole new ecosystem of problems, challenges and ideas just waiting to be answered, explained and debated. In fact, it’s possible to become overwhelmed by the complexities of practically any niche.
The key is to focus on issues where you can shine. Ask yourself:
- Where do your interests lie?
- Where do your clients struggle most?
- Where can you deliver the greatest value?
At first, focus on just two or three issues. These will be issues that you write and/or speak about on a regular basis, so you should either understand them in depth already or be prepared to put in the research to get up to speed. Your goal is to become closely identified with these issues, so make sure they align well with the services you sell.
Choose issues that have legs. That means that they 1) don’t have an easy solution, and 2) aren’t likely to go away soon.
3. Shape your personal profiles to be consistent with your expertise
Take a look at your bio on your website and the personal profiles on your social media pages. Do they present you as a highly credible professional? Do they convey a consistent message? And do they connect you to the issues you’ve chosen to write and speak about?
In addition, professional head shot is essential if you want to convey a high-end personal brand. That doesn’t mean it has to lack personality — you can take your shot in any setting. But it needs to look great. A web cam portrait or cropped dinner party shot isn’t going to put your best foot forward.
4. Write regularly on your area of expertise
Writing on the issues you care about in small, steady increments is one of the best ways to build a loyal following. And writing on a regular schedule comes with significant added benefits, too: it helps you master new material — deepening your expertise — and it forces you to think through and refine your arguments.
Where do you publish your writing? Your company’s blog or e-newsletter are cheap to produce and flexible enough for a busy schedule. You should also look outside your firm for new opportunities to share your ideas. Seek out publications and blogs that speak to your target audience.
Many of your readers will be new or unfamiliar with the issues you cover, so it’s okay to return periodically to your most important points and apply them to different situations. Even long-time readers may appreciate looking at a familiar topic from a new angle.
The important thing is to set a schedule and stick to it. Even when you are busy. Try reserving a time on your calendar every week for writing. If you can’t find the time, or just don’t like to write, hire someone to write in your voice. Then, all you have to do is approve the piece!
5. Embrace speaking events and webinars
Public speaking is one of the most popular — and effective — ways to become a visual expert. It’s a terrific way to demonstrate your expertise and strengthen your personal brand. If you choose your speaking events carefully, you can reach groups of people who not only are in your target audience but are very receptive to your ideas. And if you can meet members of the audience face to face after the event, you can make personal connections that are just not possible online.
Webinars are another great way to expand your visibility to new audiences and build your personal brand. Like speaking events, webinars allow you to share your knowledge and express your personality. You can even field their questions at the end. And once you’ve been doing them for a while, webinars can attract hundreds of qualified and engaged prospects at a time.
Whether you choose to speak publicly or conduct webinars (or both), live events provide a unique opportunity to give your audience a taste of your personality. They can also expose you to a new set of people outside your local area who haven’t yet discovered you through your writing.
6. Network with peers and prospects
Networking can be a powerful tool with two important dimensions:
- Who you network with: You obviously should rub elbows with people who can use and buy your professional services. That’s a no brainer. But, there’s another group that might not be so obvious — experts. Network with other experts, especially those who serve an audience similar to yours but don’t directly compete with you. Their recommendations can hold a lot of clout. Associating yourself with respected authorities can place you in their league. It’s not necessarily a bad idea to network with your direct competitors, either. They can’t always handle all the work that comes their way, so they can be valuable referral sources. If you take a different angle to solving problems, it might complement their own approach.
- How you do it: The “how” is easy. While face-to-face networking has some real advantages, its reach is limited by the time you can spend on it. Social media, on the other hand, can be a faster and easier way to build your brand. To the uninitiated, social media — with its plethora of platforms and tools — can be intimidating. But most industries favor just a few. LinkedIn is the most common social platform across the professional services, and many firms use it exclusively. In higher education, Facebook is very popular. A quick review of competitors’ websites should point you to the one or two essential social media tools in your industry.
If in-person networking is working for you, by all means keep doing it. But if you haven’t yet utilized social media, it offers a lot of possibilities to increase your exposure, meet prospects and other experts, debate relevant issues and share your expertise. This is exactly how personal brands are built.
It’s Your Brand!
Establishing a true-to-you, effective personal brand will not only help you discover your true talents and passions, it will enable others to see that passion, knowledge and performance as the leader in your field. Don’t try to tackle all of the above at once. But, the more time you can devote to building your personal brand, the faster your stock will rise. If you are struggling with developing and promoting your brand, we can help! www.stonekingconsulting.com
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