Malcolm Levene and I ran our Personal Branding from the Inside Out workshop again last month in central London. It was a success and judging by the feedback it was very valuable and enjoyable for everyone in the room.
This time around we had a more corporate audience than last time, with a number of managers from City of London financial institutions, law firms and property companies.
The question
When we started in the morning, Malcolm and I introduced ourselves and the day as per normal. Then when the turn came to the attendees to introduce themselves, I asked them all this question: How Can Personal Branding Serve You?
What I wanted to drill down to was the real purpose for everyone to think about their personal brand. It's all well and good to work on it but I say it's vital to define exactly what the end result will be. What is the purpose of all of this for you, in other words. As you can guess, this wasn't entirely straightforward for everyone but we helped each other to get to each person's main objective.
Personal branding for corporate employees
Corporate citizens tended to want to achieve career boosting effects such as gaining more gravitas internally (with colleagues) and externally (with customers). Having worked in large and small companies myself, I know the importance of office culture in big organisations and of market reputation for smaller ones. Not to mention office politics of course.
Personal branding for company owners
Company owners and entrepreneurs wanted to grow their business by turnover and employees. By having a strong personal brand they can get more word-of-mouth referrals and ultimately more clients. Recruitment is easier when a company is run by a strong personal brand – it attracts talent.
And for workshop presenters?
I have to admit that I stole my line from Malcolm that day, only because he went before me of course! The end result of personal branding for Malcolm is that it allows him to get paid for doing what he loves. I couldn't agree more, I love the work I do (both social media and personal branding) and to make a good living out of it is fantastic. I would say that I get money for it as a result of working on my personal brand every day, so I'm living proof of the power of personal branding – and so is Malcolm.
How does personal branding serve you? What is the end result of your personal brand activities?
A great way of branding yourself is blogging, more at How To Blog for Your Personal Brand.