By While personal brand and the value of investing time in crafting, shaping and maintaining your personal reputation is not new…it is now a mission-critical activity for professionals.
The mission? Having a career that lasts past 2030, and doing work that other people value enough to buy into.
Let me explain.
‘Personal Brand’ back in Churchill’s day
Historically (80 to 90 years ago), in order to gain momentum and get your voice heard there were some very specific, large-scale, heavy effort things you had to do:
- Gain clarity about what your core message is
- Match that core message with the right audience who will listen and engage.
- Do everything you can to grow that audience by:
- Gaining advocates that can speak on your behalf to those you don’t know yet
- Being connected to individuals and businesses who can advocate for you, throw their name behind you to add credibility
- Address that audience as frequently and persistently as you can by:
- Presenting or attending at as many one-to-many opportunities as you can (rallies, parties, private gatherings, charity events, etc)
- Paying for advertising in large scale press and media (more eyeballs = more attention = grow audience)
Let’s be clear – you did have to have something to say that was compelling, and you had to have the personality and fortitude to go the extra mile to deliver the message and stick to it.
Magnetism was a character trait that came out in many different ways – but drawing people to you was a practised skill and talent. Holding people’s attention was also a skill, because it was hard work to gain the attention in the first place.
‘Personal Brand’ in today’s world
Fast forward to today, and while some corner stones of what was true in Churchill’s time is still true today – a lot has changed to democratise who gets to gain, and hold, attention.
Unfortunately, there is not always a guarantee that the person gaining the attention is worthy of it, but there we are. This is one of things you are up against in building your reputation and becoming the right sort of magnet that can hold attention.
While you have less of the obstacles that people would have had in Churchill’s time, you do have an issue with everyone having the same tools and technically the same resources (give or take some heavier hitting tactics of ad expenditure for example).
This means the world has more people, more noise and more distractions pulling on your audience’s attention.
Hence why I feel the reflective, thoughtful practice of carving your personal brand strategy is key to overcome where our work world is headed.
Personal branding vs our work world
There is compelling data and insights from a cross section of research companies into what the ‘future of work’ looks like.
Some of the most interesting outcomes centre around the bigger impact of post-covid times and of the advances of technology – in particular Artificial Intelligence.
Here are some of my thoughts on some of the data / insights:
#1 The CIPD’s Future of Work report shows us that, in reality, 85% of us will have to reinvent our jobs in the next 5 years (so 2025 to 2030).
To me this says: “wake up and smell the advancement flowers”. We can’t be scared of change. Let’s not be “that guy” who didn’t believe that the light bulb could change the world, or that the internet would be a “big deal”.
All signs are pointing to us being toes-first into the fifth stage of the world’s industrial revolution. This is where we’ve moved from machines and tech being tools, into a time of collaboration between humans, machines and tech to carve out solution-focussed services, products and life styles.
What this means for personal branding: taking reflection time to work out what your human talents are, that can work alongside AI, is mission-critical work. (Part of the positioning work in personal brand strategy.)
#2 What happens to the people holding the remaining 15% of human roles that won’t be made redundant or be replaced by AI?
Good question. The remaining humans in “play” so to speak will have to learn how to differentiate themselves from their competition and FAST. Not only do they have to consider what makes their skills / talents different and special – but they also have to think about what kind of human they are. Why should someone invest their trust and money in you?
What this means for personal branding: bringing personality into your every day is going to make a huge difference. No more jargon and hiding behind work-y things. Growing braver and being adventurous in being more of yourself is going to be the gold standard. (Part of ‘personality’ work in personal brand strategy.
#3 Artificial Intelligence is advancing daily on doing things FOR YOU, faster and smarter.
This is great. However, the only thing AI can do is MIMIC you, your style and follow your instructions. It has no context and it doesn’t know how to build trust or rapport – you are still going to have to do that.
What this means for personal branding: the work into what your driving values and principles are behind why you do the work you do, and why you are passionate about it – has to still come from you. You have to share these and engage in meaningful content and conversations. (Part of the ‘core purpose’ work in personal brand strategy.)
The future of personal branding is here
You are it. Setting aside time to work on your personal brand strategy and then making it happen on a daily basis – is the best use of your time in securing the FUTURE of your work, and your ability to contribute economically in society.
Doing this work means that you can double down on leveraging your human characteristics and attributes like critical thinking, creativity, empathy, and story-telling.
What you also have to look at, in tandem, is how you fit into this “new” world where AI is going to be the backbone to everything. How do you work with it? There’s no hiding from it – so embrace it.
Trust and human decision making
We have a tornado of distrust in the world right now.
This has a ripple effect on the average Joe losing faith in brands who are doing things that are misaligned with what they say they believe in, where ‘influencer’ personal brands are famous for just being famous, and traditional advertising routes are becoming less effective, because business brands have lost their way.
People want to look at a person who does something they need help with, and feel like they can put their faith into them.
They want to know that that person will appreciate the support and will give back by doing what they say they will do. People do still buy into people – but only if those chosen people take care with the loyalty they are given with that buying decision.
I ask you to not take that decision lightly. Attention is hard to get these days, once you have it – nurture it and treasure it for what it is – someone has chosen you over someone else.
Book a discovery call with me if you’d like to chat about working on your personal brand strategy.
