The effective personal brand

I lost something like 30kg due to lifestyle changes over the last few years. As a result. I now struggle to dress well. I don’t wear clothes. They hang off me. In the aughties the whole personal brand hovered around a pleasing appearance and that has stuck, so I still get teased and chided because I don’t present like a showroom dummy.

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The question boils down to this: do you want to be a pleasing mannequin, or do you need something more effective of a personal brand? If it’s the former, stop reading this piece. If you are still with me, here’s a guide to an effective personal brand.

It’s a subjective personal piece but it works for me, and a couple of clients, one of whom has been with me for decades.

There are four points you need to remember: expertise, content, effective values and the ability to make a difference.

Expertise seems like a logical inclusion, but I have often come across people who rely more on the ability to be pleasing than to bring expertise to the table. Yet, results are why people interact professionally. Judge your level of expertise and tailor your interaction to the results you can achieve. Don’t overpromise and do state your limitations. If you follow this path, people will be able to deploy you sensibly. As you gain experience, you and your brand will grow.

Content is closely related to expertise. There is nothing that frustrates me more than to have to listen to a long spiel that takes ages to get to a trivial or ambiguous point or reach no conclusion at all. Participants in the process assign value to their own time. Reward them with useful content. This is not just people above you in the hierarchy, but also those below you. If you can’t add succinctly to the content of the discussion and speak from your expertise, don’t speak at all. The corollary to this is to develop listening skills.

Effective values are values that are experienced by the other party in the relationship. They are nor abstracts such as integrity or accountability. These values will affect completion of the job, particularly responsiveness to requests. What is it that will speed up completion of the job, and what will make the job more accurate?

Finally, there is the ability to make a material difference. It’s easy enough to jump in feet first and begin working, but if nothing changes is it worth getting mixed up in the first place? I have often come across claims on jobs that have no discernable impact or bearing on any situation. There’s a simple way to counter this. Question the job at the outset if only to yourself. If it lacks purpose, it may be money in the bank, but can your effort be put to better use elsewhere?

Effectively, if the job is not much more than a showcase for wasted effort, you might want to subtly tailor it so that it produces some impact. One helpful technique is to allow someone else to take the credit for your idea. It might not feed into you claim to the broader task, but it will strengthen the relationship with the person who can claim the idea as their own.

In a nutshell, a personal brand is about value creation. Don’t be superficial about it. It’s more than dress sense.