On Personal Branding

Hot take: you DON’T need to work on your personal brand. My credentials: High School Teacher -> ecommerce -> b2b sales (+ getting executive-level job offers in my current industry). Here’s what matters more:

“Personal Brand” feels gross to me, but I have one and so do you. The easiest way to think about it is *what people say about you when you’re not in the room*.

In short, your reputation.

There are loads of people who have researched and written on personal branding, and will probably sell you a course if you’re interested. They’re experts, I’m just a random guy, so I’m going to take a different tack for folks who want to be more intentional in their career but hate buzzy hustle concepts like ‘leveling up.’

The most important thing to grasp is that your personal brand can’t be invented. To the degree that you try to create something, you’ll be putting forward a fiction that peers will easily detect as inauthentic.

Your brand is just an extension of who you are already.

“Uh, great – that helps me zero” -> What I am sure anyone who’s still reading just thought.

So if I don’t need to create a personal brand – what SHOULD I be doing?

[Interlude: I’m going to assume that you’re good at your job and not actively a jerk. If either of those things are false, fix them first before you do anything else.]

People with strong personal brands (or ‘good reputations’) all check a lot of the same boxes, and from a professional perspective we can narrow them down to three.

Competence

Point of View

Visibility

Instead of spending hours trying to craft some dynamic vision statement and pillars of your personal brand, spend some time in self-reflection AND some time asking trusted peers if you’re checking these boxes.

Competence

Does everything you say and do reinforce the idea that you know what you’re talking about?

Are you well-read in your field? Up to date on major developments? Do you know how to problem-solve in your area of expertise, or know where to look to teach yourself how to problem-solve?

The trick for most people is communicating their competence in a way that doesn’t come off as braggy or self-important.

Internally – the best way to reinforce your competence through clear communication. Emails, slack messages, presentations, and meetings all present opportunities to show that you know your stuff.

Externally – Ask good questions. Whether it’s on LinkedIn, at a conference or networking event, or some other format where you’re interacting with industry peers, QUESTIONS rather than trying to peacock and be the smartest person in the room will solidify your reputation as both ‘not a jerk’ and ‘a knower of things.’

Point of View

This is a combination of style/tone/philosophy that makes you different from your equally competent co-worker. There is a real temptation to try too hard here to be differentiated so you stand out from the crowd…resist.

Adopting an alien tone of voice or persona for the sake of ‘personal branding’ will backfire: people will sniff it out and ignore you.

Write like you speak and speak like you care. If you’re struggling in this department make a list of things/people you find yourself disagreeing with, and another list for agreements. Look for commonalities and try to distill what your philosophy of X [clinical research, accounting, marketing, sales, etc.] is.

Once you have a coherent point of view – express it as your authentic (and competent) self.

Internally – Bring a recommendation to every situation. You don’t always need to share it (although if you’re meeting with a leader, boss, supervisor I think it’s a good idea to always share your recommendation) but keep it handy.

This exercise will help refine your thinking and let people know that you have opinions. Assuming they’re GOOD ones people will eventually start proactively asking you for them.

Externally – Just be you! You don’t have to ‘try’ to have a point of view: it already exists! I generally have some sort of grounding (reason) for the things I think, so it’s worth knowing how you’ll answer the question “Oh, why do you say that?” if you come out with some sort of hot take.

Visibility

This is where personality and proclivity may come into play. I’ll acknowledge from the jump that I’ve never been afraid of the spotlight, and I don’t mind talking to strangers. (Though it’s qualified: I’m happy to strike up a convo with my Uber driver but TERRIFIED of cocktail hour at an industry event -> you can find me wide-eyed and panicked looking for someone I already know at any conference).

The unfortunate truth is that if you don’t put yourself out there – it’s unlikely that you’re going to make much of an impression on people. We’re all mostly thinking about our own lives, our own jobs, our own stuff. There are some radically humble humans out there who are constantly thinking about everyone else, but they’re rare and probably don’t work at your company.

Internally – Take every chance you’re offered (and ask for opportunities when they’re not) to present, pitch, speak, or be involved. Time with the mic is the main metric for visibility.

Externally – The shortest path is publishing good content on LinkedIn. You can try getting speaking opportunities but if you don’t have them on your resume already they’re harder to come by. If you don’t feel you’re ready to start posting your own stuff – you can still improve your visibility by contributing to the discussion in the comments on thought-provoking posts. Just remember that “Insightful post, Thanks!” does NOT count… it doesn’t demonstrate competence or a POV.

A note on Hawaiian Shirts + Visual Branding

I have worn nothing but Hawaiian shirts as my professional uniform for 7+ years. Do I think this has helped me? Yes.

Do I think it would matter at all if I wasn’t competent, or if I couldn’t bring a unique POV? No.

I’d just be the random Hawaiian shirt dude.

For me it was born out of the idea of a personal uniform that reduced mental load. I’ve always been a bit of a non-conformist, so patterned shirts + suits seemed to communicate “I can play by the rules, but I’m keeping my eye out for loopholes.”

I personally DON’T think visual branding matters that much. It’s the easiest thing to do, and also the most likely to be seen as inauthentic.

If you already have a coherent and narrow sense of personal style and feel like leaning into that: fantastic.

But please don’t start wearing a top hat to conferences or something.

One of my favorites that worked was from marketing guru Drew Neisser – who wears a hand-saw lapel pin. The first time I met him I asked if the pin had any significance to him and his answer “A reminder that good marketing can cut through all the bullshit.”

How true, Drew.

Lead with curiosity and questions rather than a desire to prove yourself, figure out what you believe about the work you do and share that authentically, and make sure to do it where people can see!

Be patient: this is the work of years, not months. I spent 2 years in the industry getting my bearings before I started posting regularly here – and a year of regular posting before getting any real traction.

^I hope that helps.?