Are you managing your Personal Brand? Is it worth more today than it was a year ago?
Your brand value (alternatively - credibility, or reputation) is the incremental compensation you should be receiving over and above candidates in the same professional arena. Sometimes the “value” is cash. Often it’s opportunity.
Your brand should be distinctive in the minds of your customers or employer. Something that can’t be readily duplicated and stuck on a shelf in the local mall. Rick has been writing about PRStore over at hypocritical. Rick asks some tough questions about this new franchise, questions that would be applicable to any new market entrant or alternative low-cost service provider. Reading comments from franchise holders and others spawned this question from me:
Don’t get me wrong, we all “buy” credibility. Enhance our personal brand through development.
- We tough it out through undergrad. We develop a base of understanding, and learn how to learn.
- We do it again in grad studies, or in obtaining advanced credentials. We develop a base of expertise.
- We work for employers with high standards, making (hopefully) unreasonable demands on our skills that force us to grow.
- We take tough assignments, and sometime fail, but hopefully more often succeed.
- We engage in tough conversations, inside and outside our organizations. We learn to listen, and equally, to articulate and influence.
That’s quite an investment in our personal brand, from my perspective. Unlike stocks, we each carry with us our implied guarantee that
“past results ARE IN FACT a strong indication of future performance”.
I’ve done it before. I will do it again. I can make [insert deliverable or task] happen for you.
When you love what you do, and feel a sense of purpose and commitment to your work, it resonates. Your peers feel it. Your clients see it in your work. Your passion increases the volume of your message. When your brand echoes with your passions, the value is a consequence.
But what has all this effort added up to for you? Value can turn in several directions, including compensation and opportunity noted above. It can also mean
- Security in your present role, or in the knowledge that you can re-apply your expertise in a new setting if things get dicey.
- Influence with your peers, both inside and outside your respective organization.
- Flexibility to manage your work/life commitments in a way that is best suited to your unique situation.
When you’re feeling a little burned out, take a breather and evaluate your brand value.
- Have you been hitting the bullets above, working hard to be distinctive in your space?
- Are opportunities coming your way? Do you bring new ideas to those you work with?
- If you were to visit salary.com, are you recieving a premium to the market for your title and responsibilities?
- If you were to walk out the door today, can you take your skillset and build a business around it?
Before you plunk down your payment on a new franchise and hit the eject button, consider the investments you’ve already made in your personal brand. A bit more work in your chair today could yield much greater rewards in the not so distant future.
10 responses so far ↓
Pablo Picasso anecdote or apocrypha or whatever; it’s still a valuable lesson | More than a living // Mar 20, 2007 at 12:32 pm
[…] ← Personal Brand? Where’s the Value? […]
Product or a Brand? Yes. | More than a living // Mar 26, 2007 at 3:55 pm
[…] So Rick thinks everything is a Product Management problem, and now I’ve been rambling on the Personal Brand issue. Are we just off base? Are the two perspectives exclusive of one another? […]
Job Search or Career Management? There’s a difference | More than a living // Mar 27, 2007 at 6:34 pm
[…] Just stumbled upon a great post over on the JibberJobber blog, entitled “Paradigm Shifting: Job Search vs. Career Management.” It hits upon the same points about which we’ve been carping recently. […]
Intel’s ‘Hard Knocks’ Performance Reviews | More than a living // Mar 29, 2007 at 12:28 pm
[…] I have to ask the obvious question here: Whose review is it anyway? With all the apparent mumbling and groaning, you would think that time spent at Intel had no impact on enhancing one’s personal brand. It strikes me as interesting that people would knowingly seek out a competitive employer and then get wound up that they are being measured against one another. Were you looking to land a job, or build a career (important point of view)? […]
Will Past Co-Workers become Current Again? | More than a living // Apr 13, 2007 at 4:30 pm
[…] Is this hire so good that they really grow your brand? […]
Hello, Crazy | More than a living // Apr 16, 2007 at 12:57 pm
[…] Expect to see greater breadth in the pay scale as individual brands become more pronounced - inside and outside corporations. Flat pay rates exist in commodity markets, assuming the same quality of work, timely delivery, and customer service. But I think these assumptions presume too much. Your brand value will say more about your worth in the future than your job title does today. […]
Dan Schawbel // May 23, 2007 at 11:58 am
See I agree with most of this, but I think Personal Branding is all about perception.
I define it as “an individuals total perceived value, relative to competitors, as viewed by their audience.”
I say this because when your perceived value increases, so does your compensation.
Toby Lucich // May 23, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Curious.
How does perception vary from credibility or reputation?
Dan Schawbel // May 25, 2007 at 8:35 am
People perceive you according to credibility and reputation, from word-of-mouth or from content that was previously written by you or others.
Valuing Consulting Services versus Contractor Labor | More than a living // Aug 31, 2007 at 3:36 pm
[…] This coincides with a tale I had just heard of a woman that is going into consulting for her first time, and has decided that her rate will be $500/hr, based on encouragement and discussion with a life coach. (She has not yet secured a contracted engagement at this rate, but this is the rate she is quoting). I know nothing about this woman otherwise, but can imagine what I would expect of her performance at this rate. Without having met her or knowing anything about her ability, I find this rate to be astonishing - but maybe I shouldn’t. Is she a widely recognized expert in her field, with a track record for successful execution? Is she a dynamic speaker that can inspire and motivate the most burned out personnel? Depending on how your consulting story begins to get around, decisions will be made about the value your can deliver, even before you get your chance to begin bidding projects. How much is an hour of your time worth? What should a client expect of a professional at different price points? Will you likely get referrals from people that know you at this rate? […]
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