Even Finance People Need Personal Branding

I made last week Personal Branding Week with the aim of helping people in my network to better understand the power of personal branding and how they can improve their own personal brand. It was also a great way to connect with my network of finance people. It's not the first time I've been talking about personal branding yet I find that while most people understand the concept they still don't truly grasp the potential of improving their brand. Let's just repeat what personal branding is.

Personal branding is conscious activities aimed at improving your personal brand

When you create a LinkedIn profile it's a conscious activity that affects your personal brand but it might not be personal branding. It depends on what your primary purpose is. If it's to be contacted about job opportunities, then it's not personal branding. On the other hand, if it's an activity to tell a story about who you are and what you want to be then absolutely it's personal branding. That's the main difference. All your activities affect your personal brand but it's only when you're actively trying to improve your personal brand that it's personal branding. This is something that finance people is typically not very good at since they don't really like to promote themselves. That's also why I was very happy to get a chance to connect with so many people about what they can do to improve their chances of making a difference with their personal brand.

So what were the main findings?

It should be said that your personal brand is a lot more than your LinkedIn Profile, yet that's often the first thing that people will see. That's why in my review of people's brand I tend to just look through their profile.

Most people have realized that the headline is a good place to advertise your skills and career goals yet they find it hard to put a clear and compelling story together in the summary and back it up with achievements from their job roles. People tend to use many fluffy words that really don't mean anything. Result-oriented. Attention for details. Proven leader. Anyone can say this but can they also prove it? If you can put the story together with achievements in each of your job roles, then I'll believe it. Otherwise not and you're disqualified.

In addition, many people focus on the past and not the future. Your personal brand should be forward looking towards what you want to achieve in your career i.e. what's the next role you're targeting, what's your career purpose and so on. The reason for this being important is simple. People don't want to know what you have done but what you can do for them. That's forward looking. Sure, it needs to be backed up by past activities but rarely you want to do what you have done. Often you want to try something new and more challenging. Your personal brand should reflect that.

Finally, you don't get far in this world if people don't like you. People don't like pompous and pretentious people hence you always need to balance your personal branding activities. Deliver a strong statement about what you want to do with your career and how you can help people. Then you’ll rarely go wrong but don’t state how good you are and how many great things you have done. It’s not about you. It’s about them.

Personal branding is not rocket science

To conclude, personal branding is quite straightforward (but not necessarily easy). You tell a good story about yourself and how you can help people. That’s it. No, it’s not that easy but the good news is that with relatively little effort you can jump ahead of your competitors who are also struggling to put a compelling personal brand together. Just focus on doing these three things well.

1. Have a clear and compelling profile headline
2. Deliver a strong statement in the summary about who you are and what you want to achieve in your career
3. Back up the statement with achievements from your current and previous job roles

Once you have done this you can revert back to me and we can start to talk about the advanced stuff (it’s really not that advanced) and depending on how much effort you want to put into it you can start with my article “7 Steps To Improve Your Personal Brand”.

I hope you took advantage of Personal Branding Week but if not my offer still stands for another week as I publish this article. Let’s stay in touch and always remember it doesn’t require a lot of effort to stand out from the crowd! Let me know what you think about the article by liking, commenting and sharing. You can also follow me on Twitter or continue reading below for previous articles about personal branding.

How To Master Your Personal Brand

How To Use Social Media For Career Building

Personal Branding Is Like Building A Business

How Finance People Can Be More Successful

Basically, You’re The Weakest Word

Hi, My Name Is. The Powerful Self-Introduction

How To Become A Better Public Speaker

Anders Liu-Lindberg is the Head of Global Finance PMO for Maersk Transport & Logistics and is working with the transformation of Finance and business daily. I have participated in several transformation processes such as a (business) finance transformation at Maersk Line, going Beyond Budgeting at Maersk Drilling and transformed a finance team from Bean-counters to Business Partners. I would love the chance to collaborate with you on your own transformation processes to help you stay out of disruption. Don’t be shy! Let’s get in touch and start helping each other.