How a personal brand boosts your (consulting) career
By: South Coast Consultant
Tags: Consulting, Career Advice, Personal Branding, Personal Development, Mindset

What is a personal brand? Although you may have heard the term many times during your career, have you thought about what it means for consultants?

In my definition, a personal brand is:

How people feel about you.

Intangible, an aura that follows you.

Words that come to mind immediately when someone mentions your name.

A shortcut for making decisions whether to include you or not. For example, whether to give you the business, promote you, or select you for a role.

Perception of your abilities.

What it is not:

Always a reflection of your true abilities and competencies (in fact its most likely not).

What you think your abilities are.

A product.

Something that you should leave to chance.

Why building a personal brand is so important?

Throughout your career, others will decide whether to include you based on your brand. This is especially true of people who are ahead of you and have influence over your career trajectory.

Some questions that may go through someone’s mind when forming your personal brand:

What types of engagements are you suitable for?

Is he/she ready for the next level up?

Are you:

A leader?

An execution person or an innovator?

An operational person, or can you grow the brand and innovate?

How good are you with clients? Can I leave you alone to manage your own client engagement without causing things to fail?

Can I trust you to not be territorial and selfish?

Are you a person of integrity, who will do the right thing, and give credit where it is due?

Clients and practice leadership have too many choices to make and too little time. Your brand is a shortcut on how others make decisions about you. Many of the decisions are consensus driven, and not based on your true and actual competency. You have to prove it and gain visibility with the right people at the right time. It is about your perceived competency and your personal brand.

Every action you take will either add to or subtract from your brand. Every meeting that you attend and your behavior and (in)actions in the meeting will shape your brand.

What you can do to build a personal brand (Offense):

Knowing WHO can make an impact on your career, and who your target audience is for your personal brand. I label these as “persons of influence”. These include:

Your direct supervisor

The review committee who makes promotion decisions such as counseling leaders, counselors, your engagement manager.

Client sponsors who can provide feedback about your work.

Knowing WHEN your personal brand is on the line. This can happen in any of the following:

Internal meetings

Informal interactions

Presentations

Dinners

Conferences

Instant messages / email exchanges

Know WHAT your personal brand is and what you’re known for. See post about Why you need a fastball?

The WHERE of making an impression is important but often overlooked as well. This is more compelling than going somewhere to do your meeting. It allows your visitors to see and observe your surroundings. These could include others’ interactions with you, how you have set up your workspace and how good of a host you are. Suggestions:

Sponsoring a visit (e.g., for your practice lead) or hosting an event in your home location.

Inviting a person of influence to your client site, engagement, home location.

Being on point during the meeting. Don’t let others catch you off-guard. This is usually true. Having a bad brand is worse than not having a brand at all.

Watch out for “trolls”. These are people who are insincere and out to upset and throw you off. Short response to this is to keep cool and take the high road. Correct any factual mistakes that the trolls are claiming. Trolls are a fact of life.

Getting others to chime in for you. Others can help build your brand. These are your sponsors. A client or someone more senior saying something positive about you goes much further than you saying something yourself.

Know where you want to go with your brand and how to re-invent it with the times.

What you can do avoid damage to a personal brand (Defense):

Push out or cancel meetings if you have not had enough time to prepare.

Saying no when you are not in a position to do an effective job. This is an art.

Getting a good night’s rest before an important meeting

Avoiding distractions before an important meeting. E.g., staying focused on a client orals and pushing out other meetings until the orals are over.

Learning to let the little bad things happen (letting go)

Over to you. Do you know what your personal brand is? Was there a time that you felt that your personal brand did not reflect your abilities? What suggestions do you have for managing your personal brand? What are your thoughts?

TL;DR:

Personal brand is how people feel about you.

There are many qualified consultants looking to move up. Develop your personal brand to enable others use it to make decisions that can impact your career trajectory.

It is not always a true reflection of your abilities.

Suggestions:

Take an active role in managing your brand.

Understand and know who the persons of influence are.

Have adequate prep to make a good impression when it counts.

Play defense to avoid damaging your brand. Knowing when to say no helps protect your brand.

Originally published at https://southcoastconsultant.com/personal-brand/ October 23, 2020