After polling several well-educated young professionals about their personal brand statement, I realized that there are still many individuals who don’t understand how to use personal branding.  Your statement is not a mission statement or job title, but rather your “catchphrase” if you will about your specific expertise.  If you don’t have much experience at something, then it can be about an area that you want to become an expert in so long as you don’t exaggerate.  Limit yourself to only one sentence for your personal branding statement.  Since there are still many people who are unaware of the need to create a personal brand regardless of the industry, then having a great one may just be the edge needed to win out over the competition.

Here are seven tips to write a winning personal brand statement.

1. List your attributes.  This may seem a little bit too simple, but when you are trying to find some quality or skill that only you and a few other people have it really helps a lot.  The goal here is to find the one or two things that separate you from your competition and make you unique.
2. Choose an audience.  Creating a statement that is too broad and undirected at any particular group will most likely alienate many of your potential employers.  Since the purpose of a personal brand statement is to briefly list your primary skills, it is necessary to target the industry where those skills are most useful.
3. Be honest.  It is tempting to exaggerate about your abilities, but this is not the place to do that.  Don’t say you’re “the best” or a “leader in the field of…” unless you actually are.  Keep in mind that the brand statement is only supposed to get people interested, and not say everything about your professional career.  Hopefully, with a good sentence an employer will want to know about you.
4. Make it memorable.  Even though you want it to stand out, remember that using excessively large or technical words may alienate your audience.  The statement of your brand should be something that others can remember easily since you need to be able to use it whenever a networking opportunity arises (baseball game, elevator, social function, etc).  Try telling it to a friend or significant other one time and see if he or she can easily recall the entire sentence.  If so, you’re off to a good start.
5. Make your self-impression = other’s impression.  If you have trouble brainstorming personal skills, ask close friends or co-workers what they think your strengths are.  Even after you’ve decided on a statement, it is a good idea to check with a friend to make sure that your idea of yourself matches what others think of you.
6. Market yourself.  I cannot emphasize this fact enough, when looking for a job you have to be willing to be your own advocate.  A personal brand statement will not help you much if you are not telling people what it is.  Have a personal website, or at the very least use social networking sites like facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc to reach potential employers and use your professional statement.  Make sure to keep it consistent across platforms, however, because using the same sentence every time will help others remember it and associate it with you.  Having a short brand statement means that you will be able to market yourself quickly whenever a chance for networking arises (on the subway, for instance).
7. Be flexible.  Even though it’s time consuming, your personal branding statement should be revised at least once a year to reflect changes and advancements in your professional career.  In order to be effective, it needs to stay current.

Don’t procrastinate creating your statement.  Since it is such a powerful marketing tool, you are going to want to spend enough time on it to make it fantastic and ensure that it projects exactly the image of you that you want.  Eventually, personal branding statements will be as common as a resume or reference list, but for now, it’s a sure way to get you noticed as a competitive applicant who is capable of keeping up with current self-marketing trends and using them to advantage.

For more articles about personal branding and personal brand statements check out these posts:

1. Personal Branding Worksheet
2. Top 7 Must-Read Personal Branding Books
3. My personal brand
4. the elevator pitch – you have 6 seconds for your personal branding statement

—

Bethany Stringer is a graduate of Texas A&M University (class of ‘08) and has her B.A. in English Literature with minors in History and Psychology.  Writing her first story at the age of 5 (with help from Mom), Bethany still enjoys writing and researching about everything from business and history to travel and fiction.  Enamored with languages, she plans to teach English in Russia in 2010 as a CELTA certified teacher.  She owned her own business working horses when she was 17, and still loves riding her horse Romeo.  Always appreciating a challenge, she loves sea kayaking and prefers Rachmaninov to Bach.

Support me by sharing this post:

Guest post by Jennifer Kushell who is Co-Founder & president of YSN.com – Your Success Network, and the author of “Secrets of the Young & Successful,” a New York Times Bestseller. Called the “Career Doctor” by Cosmopolitan and a “guru” of her generation by US News & World Report, Jennifer has dedicated her life to helping young professionals and entrepreneurs in over 190 countries find success through powerful tools like the YSN Career Planner.

Remember the last time you cringed when you heard the way someone described who you are or what you do? Maybe you’ve found yourself sweating over how to describe yourself or your latest project. How about those business cards of yours, that bio, your website or that promotional reel you created? Those giving you any stress? All of these instances and elements are part of your professional branding.  How effectively you brand yourself has a lot more to do with your success than you might think.

Companies focus on branding when marketing new products or businesses to consumers because they know that public perception can make or break their success.  In your career, it’s helpful to consider yourself as a product that you have to sell or promote to clients, employers, admissions boards and colleagues. Try describing your brand out loud. How does it sound? Are you impressed or bored? What do you want other people to think of when you pop into their minds?

How you are perceived by others should of course be proportional to your success. But in reality, it often isn’t.  Far too often we see people who are painfully unknown or struggle to get the word out, even though they’re highly accomplished.  Even worse, is when some build strong compelling brands and convince others that they’re top notch, when they’re really just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.  I always like to think that integrity, honesty, substance and providing true value are the foundation of any great brand.

Here are a few tips for developing a solid brand of your own:

1. Think about the things you want to promote about yourself and start to build a list of things you need to communicate or bring to life for others to recognize why you’re worth paying attention to.
2. Start to gather a wide range of assets you have that illustrate your history, experience and success to date.
3. Create a branding statement: Include the answers to the following questions: Who am I? What am I proud of? What am I good at? How am I unique or different?
4. Gather endorsements and quotes from notable people, admirers, fans or ideally happy clients.
5. Forget your resume and build your bio, on a single sheet of paper in paragraph form, that tells your story in a compelling way.
6. Build a professional online profile (YSN.com is great for young professionals and entrepreneurs!), your own blog, or web site so you can leverage all of these great assets, elements and descriptive info, not to mention be easily found online.
7. Make sure that you have an impressive presence on the top social networking and other sites prominent in your industry.
8. Keep well designed business cards with you everywhere you go.
9. Make an effort to leave a lasting impression on most everyone you come in contact with – even the ones you don’t meet in person. Pay attention to your grammar and tone in e-mails and phone calls. (One of my favorite tips for very important calls or phone interviews: Look in a mirror when you are speaking and smile. Your smile can translate into a positive impression to the person on the other end!)
10. In person, make sure to smile often, look other people in the eye, and offer a confident handshake. Pay attention to the way you dress.  Speak loudly, confidently and with certainty. Carry yourself with your head up, shoulders back and with quiet confidence.

And lastly, be someone that you and everyone you know can be proud of.  Be the kind of person others are eager to spend time with and introduce to their friends and biggest contacts.  Keep getting the word out and building your platform too.  Follow these steps and I guarantee you and your brand will really start to shine!

For more posts related to your personal brand check out these posts:

1. The Key to Staying Competitive – Continuous Learning by YSN
   
2. 7 Tips to Get Your Personal Brand Found Online
3. How to Brand Yourself

Support me by sharing this post: