Personal Branding

An executive brand is a widely-recognized, largely-uniform perception of an executive based on their experience, expertise, competencies, actions and/or achievements within a community, industry, or the marketplace at large.

An executive or personal brand helps to distinguish you from other highly-qualified executives and helps define the distinct role that you see for yourself in the workplace. Personal branding is in-part what people know you as the go-to person for regularly. It is similar to an impact statement, but for yourself.

It means identifying and communicating what makes you unique, relevant and compelling so that you can reach your career goals. It says that you stand for certain values and accomplishments throughout your career, and you show up in a way that is consistent with who you really are.

Your executive brand is a dynamic indication of the best you have to offer – the performance, contributions, and value your industry peers, bosses or next employer can expect from you.

Although the concept of personal branding has been debated by many authors, little empirical literature on the authentication of personal branding exist. The paper, 'Personal branding: Empirical testing of the criteria for an authentic personal brand' (Potgieter, A., Doubell, M. and Klopper, H.B., 2017. ) conceptualises the term personal branding and reports on the findings of the empirically test relating to the elements of an authentic personal brand amongst 315 respondents, representing eight different industries from the Top500 company list in South Africa.

This study is unique as the elements of an authentic personal brand claimed by Rampersad has never (as far as could be established) been empirically tested. Exploratory research design was utilised and a computer aided self-administered web-based survey was used as data collection method. The study concluded that the following elements constitute an authentic personal brand namely: authenticity; consistency; relevance; authority; distinctiveness; integrity; goodwill and persistence.

The personal brand of individuals differs depending their age, the industries they are working in and the various positions held within organisations. The elements of an authentic brand are as a result the same for all individuals, but the personal brand of each individual is unique.

Executive branding helps you competitively position yourself by highlighting your unique promise of value and creating a total impression of value worthy of employer investment..

Today’s job market is saturated with tremendous talent and because organisations have many executives from whom to choose, defining your identity, achieving visibility and heightening your attractiveness and appeal is critical to winning a well-compensated job offer.

Personal and executive branding is all about differentiation. It’s about leveraging what makes you exceptional so that you will stand out from others who offer seemingly similar qualifications, credentials and expertise.

When your brand is strong, you appear congruent in person, on your resume, within your LinkedIn profile, through your networking efforts, and in everything that you do. People learn to trust you for what you say because your actions are aligned with your image, words and actions. And trust is often cited as the most vital commodity in business and leadership.

1. Extract – identifying the best of what you have to offer, your talents, strengths, areas of expertise, passions and values.
2. Embody – giving thought and reflection on how these traits and characteristics manifest in your working life and finding ways to lead by expanding on your strengths.
3. Express – having a clear personal brand statement that guides you and keeps you on track, ensuring consistency in your practices.

1. What makes me stand out from my peers?
2. What’s my superpower – the thing I do better than anyone else?
3. What is different about my style of leadership?
4. Why am I doing great things?
5. How am I a better executive?
6. What are my values?
7. What’s my favorite way to communicate?
8. What can I do that other C-Suite leaders can't?
9. Who needs to know me so I can reach my goals?
10. What's my Why?