Just like your body needs a health check every so often to keep you in tip top running order, so does your Personal Brand. A healthy Personal Brand creates a buzz, a favourable perception in the minds of your audience and ultimately attracts exciting career opportunities. A strong, clear and compelling brand is one of the most important assets you can have on the road to achieving a successful and rewarding career.

So, why should you measure your Personal Brand health?

Simply put, a poorly performing brand can stunt or even damage your career, which can be quite costly. The results are lost opportunities for career progression and the chance to really increase your salary and get paid what you truly deserve.

We all know that the job market is a fierce and highly competitive battle ground. So, think of your brand as your secret weapon that super charges your career, differentiates you from your competitors and attracts exciting opportunities.

But how do you know if your brand is healthy or not?

If you are looking to do a Brand heath check, then here are the 6 indicators of a healthy Personal Brand.

1: It Clearly Communicates Your Professional Identity.

Word-of-Mouth is one of the best tactics you can use to raise your brand profile. Your brand message must be clear enough for your brand ambassadors to spread the word though.

Remember, it’s not what you want to say that it important in your brand message as much as what your target audience needs to year.

So, if you want to attract career opportunities, and you know the organisations you want to target, then your message needs to resonate with them. This is about positioning and creating a great experience for your target audience when they engage with your brand. It speaks to them.

2. It Clearly Differentiates You From Your Competition.

I realised in my time as a recruitment consultant that it wasn’t always the person with the most skills and experience who won the job. It’s the one who had the strongest Personal Brand!

Many people struggle to effectively answer the question, ‘so, tell me about yourself’. But this can be used to your advantage.

Understanding your skills, capabilities and the value you bring and then learning how to communicate this as part of you brand, instantly puts you ahead of the competition as most people are in the dark on how to talk about themselves.

3. It Effectively Positions You In The Market As A Subject Matter Expert Or Thought Leader.

Positioning yourself basically means knowing where you fit.

Understanding where the main gaps in your industry are in terms of skills, experience and capabilities as well as knowing the most commons problems and challenges that organisations in your industry face and then presenting yourself as the solution, is a great way to effectively position yourself.

4. A Healthy Personal Brand Creates Strong Awareness Through Effective Communication Strategies.

Part of having a strong, healthy brand, means having a visible presence.

All that knowledge in your head and your opinions have value to people in your industry.

Creating and publishing content on platforms such as LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube as well as blogging, podcasting and delivering presentations, raises your visibility and creates brand awareness.

Additionally, being seen as a subject matter expert or thought leader in your field enables you to build credibility and makes it easier for people to trust in what you say.

Remember, when you become visible, you become valuable.

5. It Has a Great Reputation and is Favourably Perceived By Others in Your Industry.

Personal Branding is about reputation and perception management.

Creating a positive reputation takes times. It’s consciously, carefully and strategically constructed, managed and maintained.

People with a healthy brand are always asking, ‘are my actions, interactions and the words I say, enhancing or detracting from my reputation or brand’?

6. A Healthy Personal Brand is Engaging, Inspiring and Promotes Recommendations.

People will tend to promote and recommend you to others if you have credibility and they trust you.

Understanding your target audience (i.e. the key companies and people you want to work for and be associated with) and then building strategies to better engage and resonate with them, will put you in a good position to be sought out for career opportunities.

Share your success stories, things that worked for you, lessons you have learnt along the way and insights that you have gathered. If that spurs others into action because they desire the same results that you have achieved, then your brand becomes inspiring and they are likely to tell others.

Personal Brand health check-up sum up

 

Regularly evaluating your brand message, checking how well you are communicating it and where you sit in the market, will help you get ahead of the competition and attract great career opportunities.

That’s why performing Personal Brand health check on a regular basis is so important!

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