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Your Personal Brand is Your Promise

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Your personal brand is the unique and differentiating value that you bring to any given situation, team or project; however, it goes well beyond just that. Your personal brand isn’t just your greatest and unique strength. It is your promise to those with whom you interact of what specific unique and differentiating value or strength they can count on you to deliver consistently.

While presentation is undoubtedly important to your overall impression on others, whether it be how you dress or how you design and maintain your online presence, presentation simply supports your personal brand. Your promise is inevitably the backbone of your personal brand and the key to the success of your personal branding strategy.

If you’re not 100% sure what your promise is or you would like to fine-tune your current personal brand, consider asking yourself and/or your career stakeholders (family, friends, coworkers, clients, supervisors etc.) the following questions:
• Why would you choose to work with me? What would you seek from me that you couldn’t get elsewhere?
• What words would you use to describe the feeling you get when you work with me?
• What do you consider to be my greatest strengths? For which ones would you seek me out over others?
• If you had to choose one word or phrase to describe me, my contributions and/or what you consistently expect and receive from me, what would it be?

Once you have collected the answers, compile a list and identify any overlaps and similarities. Depending on your career goals, choose the unique strengths and qualities from your list that you believe you can deliver consistently and that you take pride in offering in your contributions. These will become the foundation of your promise. Based on these strengths and qualities, come up with a professional, yet creative and memorable word or phrase (i.e. your personal brand) or use one from your list that really encompasses what you have and promise to offer.

Use the following template to effectively present your promise to others:
I consider myself to be [your personal brand word or phrase] for I believe this to most effectively represent my proven ability and promise to [your list of the unique and differentiating strengths and qualities that you are promising to deliver on a consistent basis].

I offer my own as an example:
I consider myself to be a Generation Y Brand and Marketing Generator for I believe this to most effectively represent my proven ability and promise to bring endless energy and passion to my work, instill motivation in my teams as both leader and contributing member, propose new and creative ideas and solutions and deliver immediate and lasting results in diverse environments and industries.

In my case, I identified my unique strengths in creating energy, relationships and ideas and chose the word “generator” as my personal brand and promise. It has been very effective and helped me not only brand myself across all of my career outputs, including my online profiles, resume, cover letter and interviews, but also helped me get the job.

This promise statement is especially effective when answering the age-old interview question, “Why should we pick you?

Chris Perry is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

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Personal Branding Rule of One

one is the loneliest number, originally uploaded by horizontal.integration.

If you’re like most ambitious careerists and entrepreneurs, you’re probably involved in many activities that span both the professional and personal areas of your life. It is tempting to take on a host of responsibilities as you attempt to enhance your reputation.

However, spreading yourself too thin poses a threat not only to your mental and physical health, but also to the health of your personal brand.

Your personal brand is the unique differentiating value that you bring to the table in any situation and should reflect the strengths and contributions for which you are best known. If you are not careful and focused in your project selection process, you may risk diluting your personal brand as you become more and more involved in your own and others’ ventures and activities.

One way to tell if your personal brand is being diluted is to ask your family members or friends to describe what it is you do in just a few words or sentences. While every case will be different, their responses should give you a relatively clear picture of how your personal brand is coming across to others. If they find this request challenging, or their descriptions don’t accurately express or align with your personal brand, then you may not be communicating your personal brand effectively.

How do you avoid the ‘kiss of death” that is brand dilution? Your best bet is to stick to the Personal Branding Rule of One. Consider the following principles of this Rule of One:

Identify your strengths – Write down your strengths and areas of contribution and then ask your family members, friends, co-workers etc. to do the same. Compare them and find the crossroads of your and their perceptions.

Create one brand – Choose your greatest strength or find a creative way to combine or link your top two or three into one communicable and differentiating value. You can be many things to many people across multiple areas of your life and still communicate one distinct brand message.

Don’t pigeon-hole – While it’s important to select one unique and differentiating value in order to stand out from the crowd, don’t go overboard in over-specifying/narrowing down your niche. Make sure that your personal brand can still effectively encompass the activities that are most central to your personal and professional life.

Be consistent – When taking on new projects, be mindful of how they align with your personal brand and whether they reinforce your communication of that brand. If you believe you are currently over-extended or unfocused, consider scaling back to emphasis only those activities or projects that comprise the core of your career.

Whether you are creating your personal brand for the first time or giving your current one an overhaul, by observing the principles of the Personal Branding Rule of One, you are helping to ensure that your personal brand is both powerful and sustainable.

Chris Perry is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

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Your Personal Brand is like Your Passport

Passport, originally uploaded by gravitywave.

Personal branding has become increasingly popular for professionals in today’s job market. Job seekers have especially found personal branding to be an effective strategy in their pursuit of job opportunities. However, in the last few months, several job seekers and professionals have said to me: “I understand why personal branding is important in my career search, but what is the value of personal branding once I get a job?”

I definitely see where they’re coming from. Here’s a great way to look at it.

Personal branding is the process of:
o Identifying the unique and differentiating value that you can bring to an organization, team and/or project

o Communicating it in a professionally memorable and consistent manner in all of your actions and outputs, both online and offline, to all current and prospective stakeholders in your career.

Everyone has a unique personal brand (a.k.a. the unique and differentiating value), and you communicate your own whether you know it or not in everything you do, both when you are looking for a job and when you have one. Personal branding is so much more than what you put on your social networks or what you write on your blog. It’s who you are inside and out, online and offline. Your personal brand is essentially your overall lifestyle.

Obviously, when you have a job, you won’t have to talk about your personal brand like you would when “selling” yourself in an interview or at a career fair or event; however, you are still communicating your unique and differentiating value to those with whom you interact each and every day.


I would compare your personal brand to your passport for four reasons:

1. Identity: Passports certify your identity, telling others who you are, where you’re from and where you’ve been when you are traveling. Throughout your career, your personal brand captures the essence of your identity, reinforcing to others who you are, the experiences you’ve had and the value you bring to the table.

2. Access: Your passport is the premier, internationally-accepted travel document. You don’t have to have a passport, but you will be limited as to where you can go without it. This is the same for your personal brand. You are not required to develop your personal brand; however, you will be limited as to where you can go in your career without it.

3. Investment: Passports are not free, for they do cost you time, patience and money to acquire. Personal brands are not “free” in that same right, for you must be patient and commit your time (and sometimes a little money) to effectively establish your personal brand consistently online and offline.

4. Renewal: Passports are periodically upgraded with new identification technologies; however, regardless, you have to renew your passport every few years or you cannot continue to venture abroad. Similarly, every so often in your career, you must review and “upgrade” or “renew” your personal brand using any new more effective technologies and media available so you will be able and ready to take advantage of new opportunities (i.e. new projects, promotions, jobs) knocking on your door.

So, no matter where you are in your career travels, don’t forget your personal brand! It’s your passport to career success!

Chris Perry (@CareerRocketeer) is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

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Keep Polishing Your Personal Brand

polish away, originally uploaded by Darwin Bell.

Personal branding has always been out there, but it has become a better defined and an increasingly popular concept over the past decade.

It is the essential first step in your career search process, helping you identify your own unique and differentiating value and communicate it memorably and consistently online and offline to employers and recruiters. Today’s economic recession and job market have opened many professionals’ eyes to the importance and effectiveness of personal branding throughout their whole career as an ongoing part of their continuous professional development.

Just like with interviews, when you’re seeking job opportunities, you begin to get increasingly better at presenting yourself and effectively answering questions posed to you by the interviewers; however, upon employment, your stop practicing and your interview skills become rusty.  This is why career experts suggest that you schedule periodic informational interviews with fellow professionals both within and outside of your organization as part of your career development in order to stay prepared for future interview opportunities should they arise. Maintaining and updating your personal brand online and offline are not only healthy and necessary for effective self-understanding and self-presentation, but also set you up well whether you are seeking employment or you are positioning yourself for promotions or other opportunities within your organization.

So how do you stay on top of your brand and keep it polished?

1.    Develop or redevelop your own one-or-two-word personal brand and supporting personal brand pitch and practice saying it as the answer to questions like “Why should we pick you?” so that it is flows naturally and confidently and effectively presents yourself.

2.    Update all of your online profiles/websites and career outputs, including your resume, cover letter, email signature etc. with recent professional experience, education and achievements and most importantly your personal brand.

3.    Make sure that your actions and achievements are consistent and support your personal brand claim both inside and outside of work.

4.    Seek formal and informal feedback from fellow co-workers, family members and friends on how you and your actions are being perceived by others.  Compare that to your own perception of your performance, as well as your personal branding goals and make adjustments or updates as necessary.

5.    Stay alert and aware of new technological changes with respect to how you present yourself, how you engage in networking and how you search for and pursue new career opportunities and set time aside to learn about and take advantage of new professional networks, platforms and tools.

By periodically polishing your personal brand, you will come across more confident, more professional and more memorable to those with whom you interact and work on a consistent basis.  More importantly, you and your personal brand will be ready to “shine” when the need or opportunity present itself to pursue another job or more responsibility.

Chris Perry (@CareerRocketeer) is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

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