Creating and maintaining a personal brand is important for everyone. But it's especially important for freelancers and independent workers - their brand is crucial to securing and keeping customers.
Harvard Business Review's A New Approach to Building Your Personal Brand provides the best overview of the steps needed to create a personal brand we've seen.
It also nicely describes why you need one. Key quote:
For better or worse, in today's world everyone is a brand. Whether you're applying for a job, asking for a promotion, or writing a dating profile, your success will depend on getting others to recognize your value. So you need to get comfortable marketing yourself.
The article covers a seven-step process for personal branding. The steps are:
- Define your purpose by exploring your mission, passion, and strengths, and thinking about whom you want to make a difference to and how.
- Audit your personal brand equity by cataloging your credentials, doing a self-assessment, and researching how other people view you.
- Construct your personal narrative by identifying memorable, resonant stories that will best convey your brand.
- Embody your brand by paying attention to the message you're sending in every social interaction.
- Communicate your brand story through speeches, social media, the press, and other channels.
- Socialize your brand by getting influential people to share your stories.
- Reevaluate and adjust your brand by doing an annual audit to find deficits to fix and strengths to build on.
The article goes into greater detail on how to accomplish each of the seven steps.
We've used a similar approach since we started our business over two decades ago. For example, we started this blog in 2007 to help communicate and socialize our brand.
And we completely agree with the article's conclusion and believe it's particularly true for small businesses and independent workers:
The personal branding process takes work. But we know from research and experience that it will allow you to better control your professional and personal image and thus the success and impact that you can have in the world.