How do you build your personal brand within a company without provoking jealousy among your teammates? How do you build your personal brand successfully and why should you do it? What are the benefits, the pros and cons? Well, this article will provide the insights you need.
Building your own personal brand helps you establish clarity of career goals that allows you to chart your career path by taking up tasks that help you grow and develop. Whether you are planning to start your own business later or you are planning to hold on to your day job, building your personal brand is very important.
Most companies have a corporate brand or set of guidelines that all employees are expected to act in line with and buy into. And most of the time, this brand is what attracts workers to reputable companies. For example, Google’s employees buy into the idea that the company is on the cutting edge of innovation and has a reputation for being a cool place to work.
Those who agree to work at Google make that decision because they believe they fit perfectly into Google’s corporate brand. The corporate brand of your employer notwithstanding, you need to build your own personal brand. This will stay with you and help you achieve sustainable personal improvements that you can transmit to your own business or jobs you get in the future.
However, trying to build your personal brand within the confines of another company can present many challenges. How do you put yourself out there without upstaging your boss or coming across as trying to land a better job or planning to start a business elsewhere? Here are some tips for building your personal brand within the company you are presently working with—without alienating those around you:
How to Build Your Personal Brand within a Company
1. Intertwine your brand with your company
Chances are that you chose to work with your current employer because you loved their brand. So, there will be many areas of overlap between the company’s brand and the personal brand you want to build.
As you build your personal brand, identify areas of growth that overlap with your employer’s goals. A smart approach is to look at the company’s annual report that details the mission, vision, and values. So, ask yourself if you can see how the personal brand you are trying to develop overlaps your company’s mission, vision, and values.
Employers who want to bring out the best in the workers will encourage them to align their values with company values. This will help employees find the “sweet spot” of personal buy-in, have great satisfaction with their work, and fill the employer’s need for increased job performance and greater productivity.
2. Position yourself as an expert for the company
If you really want to leverage your expertise to do media interviews and speaking engagements, talk to your supervisor or boss, and suggest that you take some things off his or her to do list and serve as a representing spokesperson on certain topics. Any boss will be happy to get help, so they will give you the nod. Mean time, you will be building up your reputation as a go-to expert.
3. Volunteer to train others
Training others is a good way to improve on your leadership skills. It goes without saying that leadership skills are part of the skill set you need to build your personal brand.
4. Blow your own trumpet
To build your personal brand, you need to instill that brand in the people around you, since what people think about you is what makes your brand. So, you need to blow your own trumpet without being too in-your-face. No doubt, everyone hates the all-about-me type of individual.
Don’t just pat yourself on the back or try to take all the credit for an important accomplishment—even if it was obvious that you played the major role. Rather, spend as much time (if not more) praising others with whom you work. If you do that, they are less likely to see you as a blatant self-promoter when you are the one to present at an important meeting. Instead, they will like act as your cheerleaders.
5. Be authentic
Being authentic is the core of personal branding. You have to be yourself. The people around you can easily tell it when you are trying to fake your brand or mimic someone. So, you have to really understand what you stand for and what you want people to instill in people about yourself.
Though trying to build a personal while working for an employer can appear to be a self-centered approach to work, it’s in fact a platform for self-empowerment. By developing a strong personal brand, you demonstrate a pro-activity that can help your career. And your dedication to self-improvement ultimately serves your employer as well as the people you work with.