” Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room.” - Jeff Bezos

Last month, I was asked by the Illinois CPA Society to speak to their Women’s group about Personal Branding. I love speaking to groups and personal branding is one of my favorite topics.

I talked about what personal brand is and why it so important for professionals to have one, and I shared my three-step approach to crafting a personal brand statement. After the presentation, one of the attendees told me that she was motivated to craft her own brand statement, something she’d never done before or knew how to do. And once she has it done, she plans on using it to “toot her horn” at work and to confidently talk about the value she brings to her department and company. She’s also going to update her LinkedIn profile so that nothing about her information can be misinterpreted.

Hearing this from her reinforced for me why I do what I do. I love it when I can have that type of an impact on someone and with this month’s newsletter I’m hoping to motivate you to craft or update your brand.

What is a personal brand?

Personal brand is one of those illusive terms that can trip us up. I like author and content strategist Elizabeth Smithson’s definition of personal brand. She says:

• “It’s a marketing practice used by professionals and business to differentiate themselves from the competition and clarify the services and products they offer that makes them the better choice.”

• “It should make a memorable impression on peers, clients, prospects and allow them to know what they can expect from you.”

• “It’s a true representation of who you are as a professional, business and how you want to be known.”

Read that last statement again – “It’s a true representation of who you are as a professional, business and how you want to be known.”

What Smithson is saying is that if you don’t create your brand, others will do it for you and it will be based on their perceptions of you. Do you really want someone other than yourself to define your brand, especially when they don’t know you as well as you know yourself? I think not.

How, then do you create a brand statement? An effective brand statement should be one to three sentences long, easily understood, memorable and benefit-driven. It also needs to answer the following three questions:

What tangible value do you provide the organization?

What sets you apart from the competition? (This includes your strengths, skills, experiences, motivations, etc.)

What is the position you are seeking or who is your target audience?

If given the critical thinking that your brand statement deserves, creating your statement will take time and what I call “heavy lifting”. Start by writing down everything you can think of for each of the three key questions listed above. Next, edit your responses and begin to form a statement. You’ll probably repeat this process of brainstorming and editing several times before you arrive at a statement that works for you.

Here is an example of an effective brand statement:

I am a tenacious problem solver who brings innovative digital communication solutions (sets her apart) to lead marketing organizations (target audience) to create stronger brands (value).

The choice is yours: know and exemplify your brand or let others do it for you. Which do you prefer?

Drop me a note if you’d like to talk about working together to create and leverage your own personal brand.