Rebranding Yourself

They got the promotion, you didn’t. Your looking for a new job but can’t quite break in. You are looking to shift career but need to tweak your persona. You know what you’re good at, you know you have the power and capability to excel but you are the only one seeing it. You need to rebrand.

Personal reinvention occurs all the time. All of us do it, whether to take on new individual challenges, to shift to a different career type or a new role within a field or to challenge perceptions that are somehow hindering our career progression.

Understanding the relationship between how you view yourself and how others view you is a crucial business lesson as well as a fundamental life lesson. As Henry Longfellow noted, “We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.” Taking control of your personal brand may mean the difference between an unfulfilling job and a rewarding career.

Capri works with businesses to enhance their brand and to articulate their story well, on the right stage, to the right audience. We work with a wide variety of organisations from major non-profits, to law firms, investment banks, financial firms, hi-tech and real estate developers among many others. We have advised advised scores of organsiations and institutions who were looking to enhance their profile, boost their image and amplify their profit. We approach our work with a four step process: Understand, Articulate, Create, Deliver. Here’s how it can work for you in your personal career

Understand

Rebranding isn’t easy, it requires large amounts of thought and must be research based. Upon this research we can build a strategy. If your plan is poorly thought out, you’ll end up wasting a lot of time and resources and ultimately confusing yourself and others. Start with you: understand who you are and what key skills you currently have or are lacking and who you are as a person. Assess your strengths and weaknesses in an open and thorough manner. The internet is replete with all manner of easily accessible options to assist you. Check this article out by Riley Guide, a prominent job search engine.

What is your personal story? Research is the foundation – the more information you have, the stronger your base and upon that we can start building a path towards your rebranding.

The research stage is not just inward looking but must look outwards too. Determining where you really want to invest your energy will save you a lot of time, effort and stress. Check out LinkedIn, trade periodicals, do informational interviews, or get check out something like Pivot Planet  and get advice from a professional in your desired field. If you’re looking to advance or shift laterally within your company seek out a mentor who can guide you or see if a sabbatical is available or a short term shadowing opportunity.

Articulate

The articulation phase is about the formation and cultivation of the identity which fits the roles you are pursuing, using your research which identified your individual traits and specialist skills and ultimately leading to building your profile in the next stage. What’s your unique selling proposition? That’s what people will remember, and you can use it to your advantage. Start to bring the package together and don’t be afraid of thinking laterally, considering how your previous experience and distinguishing characteristic can distinctively colour your new brand and help you stand out… even if some of them don’t fit strictly into the professional narrative. However, a warning: don’t be loud and garish. Good branding isn’t so much about attention grabbing as it is about being memorable. There is a fine line between the two.

It’s human nature to have many interests, to seek new experiences, and to want to develop new skills and in 2015 regular job shifting is increasingly normal but you don’t want to risk being seen as ‘the jack of all trades and master of none’ or worse yet some kind of wandering commercial nomad. To protect your personal brand, you need to develop a coherent narrative that explains exactly how your past fits into your present. It’s like a job interview: You’re turning what could be perceived as a weakness into a compelling strength that people will remember .The key is not to explain your transition in terms of your own interests but to focus on the value your prior experience brings. One caveat is that your narrative must be consistent with your past. Especially in the internet era, traces of your old brand will never completely disappear—and as long as you’re thoughtful about what you’ve learned along the way, that’s OK. The challenge is to be strategic about identifying how you wish to be perceived, developing a compelling story that explains your evolution, and then spreading that message. In an information savvy age, it is far too easy to be called out fast if you’re seen as shading the truth or not acknowledging your history. Successful rebranding is less about inventing a new persona and more about a shift in emphasis. Your burger flipping MacDonalds experience may not be prime resume content, but you could get credit for learning valuable skills on the front line of a customer service organization.:

Create

Your research, thoughts and ideas may remain just that without the appropriate platforms upon which to launch them. The stage for the story. And even then, there’s a wide gulf between looking and sounding the part and providing your current and potential contacts with the confidence in your ability to deliver.

That’s where website, blogs, podcasts, videocasts and other forms of social media come in. What is most important is ensuring that your material offers real value. You can quickly establish your expertise if you help people solve a problem or do something better. Put your money where your mouth is and start delivering. Sharing the content you’ve created allows potential customers or employers to test-drive your approach before making a large commitment. Capri has a portfolio of work on our website which showcases our diverse abilities.

Once you’ve embraced your rebrand, start networking and remember: it’s a marathon not a sprint. You have to be consistent and committed as you move forward. Networking requires constant long-term effort and input. Consider it SEO for your life: The more connections you make, and the more value and content you regularly add, the more likely it is that your new brand will be known, recognised, and sought out.

Making new contacts is the easy part—they’ll take the new you at face value. The harder work is in reintroducing yourself to your existing network. We have to strategically reeducate our friends and acquaintances—because they’re going to be our buyers, recommenders, or leads for new jobs. Don’t forget to reach out by phone or e-mail to all the people on your list—individually—to let them know about your new direction and, where appropriate, to ask for help, advice, or business. Don't rely on mass emails, they are impersonal and often go unread. 

Deliver

A great part of Apple’s success is their ability to synergise phenomenal branding with world class products. Capri believes in the power of branding and its ability to amplify success but it can only go so far, ultimately it comes down to you. The story has been written, the stage is set and now the curtain goes up; what you deliver will ultimately be the key ingredient to your success, as Pablo Picasso said “What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.”