The Time is Now for Building Your Personal Brand

Attention is earned.

Just like in marketing, building your personal brand is important to becoming visible.

People don’t know you exist until you show up. People won’t give you their attention until you prove you’re worth it.

Showing up - drip-by-drip, day-by-day. Gets you in front of people. It shares what you know., how you think, with other people.

That’s how you connect with the people like you. People that have the same values as you. People you can build and form long-term, productive, mutually-beneficial professional (and personal) relationships with.

Keep in mind, it’s also just as important to realize not only who you’re for, but who you’re not for.

For example, why are you interested in working at the companies you’re interested in? Would it be cool to tell your friends and strangers you work for a giant Fortune 500 company or that killer startup?

Or does that company offer you a platform to do better work? A platform to enable your strengths and help you make a mark on the world, even if a small one. Remember, it may be a small mark to you or your company, but it could leave a lasting impression with someone else.

The bottom line is it's vitally important, in today's world of limited attention and information overload, that you create a personal brand (or it could be considered a professional brand) for yourself.

The network you build, the relationships you nurture, those are what will open unimaginable doors in your future. Not the resume you send to the overworked, stressed out, numbers-oriented recruiter scanning for keywords and applying unconscious bias.

If that latter is your strategy, prepare yourself now to be extremely disappointed.

Photo by Fabrizio Conti on Unsplash