Think being the best at what you do is enough? Think again. People connect with people, not titles. When you’ve stopped mocking that guy’s recent LinkedIn video, you’ll realise that you’re all talking about it, know who he is, who he works for and what he offers — just like your competitors will also know.

You’re brilliant at recruitment. But, times have changed and your old sales tricks aren’t yielding they results they used to. If this is you, or one of your billers, you NEED to get a grip of defining, nurturing and using your personal brand.

At Branded by Aquila, we know a thing or two about personal branding. Here’s what you need to know to make your brand shine.

What Is Personal Branding?

Let’s firstly address what it is not: an ego driven activity.

It is, in fact, a competitive advantage to differentiate yourself in a very noisy digital-led world. Personal branding is about building real connections, and showing your value in a way that resonates with other people. In turn, this helps you to attract clients, employees, advocates and affiliates.

Personal Branding Goals

Defining your personal brand can be a challenge, let alone knowing where to start. Through years of hands-on experience and running personal branding workshops, we’ve landed on 5 key questions that all individuals can work through to help get started.

Ask yourself:

• What am I genuinely good at in my role?
• What are my values, principles and ethics, and how do they interact with my professional self?
• What are my interests (these can be personal and professional)?
• What makes me stand out against somebody else in the same role?
• Who are my target clients (you can do this as customer types or real companies and people)?

Now, using the last question, take your responses from questions 1-4 and think, ‘How does this result in value for my target client(s)?’ — note this may vary per client type. This is a key part to the process to ensure your PB resonates with those you’re trying to connect with, and it is something we can help individuals and businesses map out under our PB packages.

Lastly, it’s important to bear in mind that your personal brand will evolve over time as you develop personally, and that’s okay. If you’re more junior in your career, or starting work in a new industry, we recommend doing the above exercise with your 12-month PB image in mind — a bit like a PB roadmap that sits alongside your professional development plan.

Consistency, Communication and Courtesy

When defining your personal brand, it’s important to consider where you’re communicating. Think of yourself as a corporate brand and where you’d see company communications; internal email, external emails, event, LinkedIn, sales documentation. Apply this logic to your personal branding communications to ensure consistent and authentic messaging.

We also recommend setting your own standard for communications, and following them. Remind yourself to maintain those standards, from working with colleagues to sending emails. Your brand needs a style guide. Keep following that guide until it becomes habitual.

It’s equally as important to be present online and join the conversation. You should be having genuine conversations with your network, sharing your view points and interacting with others. Much like a face-to-face conversation, you wouldn’t just sit there talking about yourself the whole time; you’d show courtesy by engaging with their conversation. Remember: it isn’t an ego exercise.

It’s probably worth mentioning here that your PB should be authentic and reflect the real you — unless you’re a secret agent of course. There isn’t much point presenting a different version of yourself, only for you to secure a meeting, which results in the client thinking you’ve had a personality transplant because you’re so far removed from how you've presented yourself.

Be mindful that you can actively damage your brand if you’re inauthentic, always disagreeable and only focused on your side of the conversation.

Get Noticed on LinkedIn

When it comes to personal branding, you can’t ignore the value that can be gained from LinkedIn. 67% of recruiters say that professionals hired through LinkedIn are of better quality than other platforms. As a business and employment-focused social media platform, it’s the place to engage your professional network and gain industry knowledge from your target audience.

Cue another blog, or perhaps eBook, as the LinkedIn personal branding conversation is even bigger. It’s so big that we cover it as its own section entirely without our personal branding workshops for organisations.

Begin Your PB Journey With BbA

At Branded by Aquila, we help you and your team build a personal brand that stands out, but aligns to your businesses goals. From training sessions to one-on-one support and profile reviews, we’ve got you covered. Check out this testimonial:

Jade came to our office to deliver a personal branding workshop to the team, and I was beyond impressed. She got everyone engaged from the get-go, which was crucial, and she nailed it. The session was conversational and interactive, with highly engaging visuals. We saw way more participation than in any other training workshops we’ve had. Jade went the extra mile to involve even our most introvert team members, teaching us about the relationship between company and personal branding. Part two of the session, exclusively on LinkedIn, was a great value ad! We also opted for the package with profile reviews and ongoing support, which our sales team has fully embraced. The content Jade’s provided has been spot on, with clients even messaging us about the valuable insights. I’d highly recommend both the workshop and the ongoing support to other recruitment leaders.

For those with barely five minutes to spare each day, we can offer LinkedIn social media management, which features personal branding support, for key stakeholders.

Ready to take your personal brand to the next level? Get started with BbA!