Chapter 4
Personal Branding 101
In This Chapter
Taking a look at the importance of personal branding
Realizing what goes into a personal brand
Figuring out who you are in order to build your brand
Delivering the right message to the right person
Obtaining feedback on your brand from others
If there’s one thing you can do to improve your chances of getting a job, developing a personal brand is it. Yet despite the importance of personal branding in a modern job search, many job seekers still don’t understand what it’s all about. This chapter is here to clue you in to what personal branding is and to relieve you of any misperceptions you may have about it.
After you have a solid understanding of what personal branding means and why it’s so valuable, you can start working on building your own. Of course, that raises two questions: Should you look at the needs of your job market first? Or should you evaluate your own personal strengths? In other words, what comes first: you or the job?
The answer is you; a job seeker must always first understand herself. Your confidence as you walk into an interview room or networking event comes from self-understanding. Knowing what room to walk into comes from understanding your market. As Tom Peters (the man who essentially coined the term personal branding) once said, “You’re not defined by your job title, and you’re not confined by your job description.”
So in this chapter, I also guide you through a series of fun self-discovery exercises, help you identify your target market, and reveal how to gather feedback that will help you refine your personal brand.
Discovering What Your Personal Brand Is and Why It’s Essential
A personal brand is the culmination of your actions; it’s an image that marks you as a specific, well-defined package of abilities, talents, and experiences. It is you, outside and inside, in the sense that you’re unique and distinguishable from others. Personal branding has a lot to do with the emotion someone feels when he or she thinks about you (something you can’t control) but is rooted in self-reflection and integrity (something you can control by regulating your behavior on- and offline and by presenting yourself conscientiously).
Although obvious differences between you, as a brand, and a tube of Crest toothpaste exist, considering yourself as a brand can help bring objectivity to your job search and continuity to your career. In other words, building a personal brand gives you the ability to make career choices easily and consistently.
Every serious professional must consider his or her personal brand for the following reasons:
When you proactively define and communicate your brand, you’re in control of it. Most people have their brand handed to them by other people’s perceptions and reactions alone. By defining your brand, you take back some control over this process.
Crafting your personal brand helps you figure out what makes you unique. The process of finding and communicating your brand can therefore be a pretty powerful tool for boosting your confidence and convincing interviewers of your value.
A personal brand helps you appear more consistent online and avoid raising any red flags with recruiters. Inconsistencies in how you appear online can put your career in jeopardy because hiring managers and HR professionals may view them as signs you aren’t being completely honest about who you are.
When you have a personal brand, you can more easily make decisions during your career. When you’re presented with options that go against your brand — against who you are — then letting them go is easier, even if they’re more lucrative.
A personal brand can even out the troughs between employment by being the one thing that doesn’t change about you. When you consider that the average time at a job in the U.S. is about two years, you may appreciate that your personal brand lets you look at your career as a whole instead of a series of jobs.
I delve further into each of these points in the following sections.
Branding yourself before someone else does
Branding is all about trying your best to manage other people’s perceptions of you. Because you can’t reach into someone else’s head and tweak how that person sees you, all you can do is change your image, your messaging, your look, and so forth to better align with who you really are. If people who don’t like you really got to know you, I’m sure their misperceptions would evaporate pretty quickly.
Instead of waiting for others to form random opinions about you that may or may not be accurate, help them out by sharing your well-crafted personal brand. Spending a few days figuring out your personal brand goes a long way in fostering understanding with other people and helps others see you for who you are.
Setting yourself apart from other job candidates
Differentiating yourself from all the other potential candidates for a job means being yourself, as in your authentic, true self — a task no one else can do for you. Personal branding allows you to let yourself shine by encouraging you to look inward and evaluate what makes you different from everyone else. Only after you complete this inner evaluation will you have enough information to say, “I’m better than anyone else going for this position because . . .”
Granted, looking inside and figuring out who you are can be very uncomfortable, which is probably why most job seekers avoid personal branding. But self-knowledge really is the key to building the confidence that helps you stand out and be unique.
I once lost a job opportunity because I didn’t display enough self-knowledge. During a high-stakes interview at the end of my MBA program, the interviewer asked, “What are some subjects or classes that you really struggle with and why?” I answered with, “I get high grades in all my classes.” So he pressed on, “What are three things you would want to change about yourself?” And I said, “I’d be a better speller, not have to use a calculator so much, and . . .” These answers were superficial and didn’t show that I had spent a lot of time reflecting on what I was really good at and what I needed to work on, which he pointed out to me as he told me not to bother coming back.
Maintaining a consistent online presence
Your online identity should be consistent no matter where someone looks for you. If you do your personal branding right, you become a single thought in the mind of a potential hiring manager. When you’re done with the branding process, your LinkedIn profile will match your other online profiles. And if you get a chance to send a résumé, your brand will be visible there, too.
When recruiters start looking for talent, they typically start with LinkedIn. If they find you on LinkedIn and your profile appeals to them, they keep digging. They do background checks and Internet searches to find out more about you. If your online image has any inconsistency, you may find yourself in the maybe pile pretty quickly.
From another point of view, your friends and family on Facebook get to know you from your daily or weekly Timeline posts. The more consistent you are with them, the easier it will be for them to articulate who you are should they decide to refer you to their professional contacts.
Why is it dangerous to have inconsistencies online? When someone’s image is incongruent with what you expect, it can make you feel uneasy. Just think about cool, alpha male Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah’s couch like a giddy schoolgirl.
Simplifying your decision-making process
Having a clearly defined personal brand can help make your career decisions easier. When career opportunities arise that you’re unsure of, you can look back at your brand for guidance. For example, if you’ve determined that you prefer small companies and don’t want to travel, then you know that turning down a job at a large, bureaucratic organization that sends its employees all over the place will contribute to your happiness, even if that job pays better.
Managing your career versus finding a job
To have an effective personal brand, you must think of yourself as the CEO of your own company. Any job you have is just a short-term contract. In the United States, where the average length of time at a job is two years, this viewpoint makes it possible for you to manage your career. Creating and maintaining a strong personal brand helps you minimize the gaps between jobs because you’re doing the following:
Continually networking, both on- and offline
Maintaining your résumé and online profiles
Setting short- and long-term goals by asking yourself where you want to be in three to five years and with what company, position, and level of responsibility
Viewing your professional life beyond the confines of any single organization, which means you’re reflecting on the personal and/or professional skills you need to further your career
Understanding How Social Media Affects Your Brand
The widespread adoption of social media has been the catalyst for personal branding’s strong comeback. In the 12 years between Tom Peters’s 1997 influential article in Fast Company that introduced the idea of personal branding and the heavy dose of personal branding literature in the early 2000s, personal branding was relegated to MBA types who had obscure notions of corporate branding, a public profile to worry about, and a budget to pay for PR. Now the playing field has leveled because of social media, where everyone has a public profile and can control it for virtually no money.
Before social media, personal branding was really just a mental shift toward a feeling that you’re a CEO in control of your professional life. The crux of the notion was that you controlled your image, position, and advancement. Personal branding was a shift from loyalty to a company to loyalty to your team, your project, your customers, and yourself. According to Tom Peters, when you had control over your brand, the ladder of advancement was what you made it. Naturally, elements of your public image were strictly relegated to your résumé, portfolio, how you dressed, and how you talked. Unless articles were written by or about you, you weren’t going to have much public visibility.
These notions remained obscure until people began to realize how easy it is to get out there and be seen. Blogs, Twitter, and personal websites have changed the way most people feel about publicity. Nowadays, everyone has an online reputation to worry about, even if you don’t think you do.
As with any overused notion, the true meaning of personal branding is sometimes lost. People misidentify that personal branding is just a matter of making them look good online. Although online reputation management is certainly a large part of personal branding, nothing is more important than actually being who you say you are and being able to effectively communicate it.
Discovering the Elements of a Personal Brand
A brand, by nature, is a very abstract thing. Even companies struggle to put their brands into concrete terms. So this section isn’t an exhaustive list of what a brand is. However, the concrete examples in this section demonstrate how your brand can manifest in your life.
In-person brand elements
How people perceive your brand when they meet you in person is based on the following elements:
The way you act: Your actions are very much part of your image. Are you late, on time, or early? Is your body language confident? Do you smile a lot? Most importantly, are you really good at what you do?
The way you talk: The tone, speed, and inflection with which you talk can tie into people’s perceptions of you. Do you speak with a soft voice? Does your tone match someone of your social status or experience? Is your pace slow and confident or fast and high energy?
The way you dress: Your attire can define you as a person. Are you casual or formal? What colors do you wear? Do you sport a handlebar mustache and thrift-store outfits or keep clean-shaven and prefer designer wear?
Who you think you are: How you perceive yourself can come across to people subtly as they interact with you. What are you most proud of in your life? What do you value most? What do you consider to be your special talents and skills?
Online brand elements
The purpose of online brand elements is to show people who don’t really know you or have never met you in person who you really are. Your online brand elements manifest themselves in
The way you act online: Your online behavior clues people in to what you may be like in person. The way you act may include the state of your LinkedIn profile, your blog, your Facebook Timeline, or the first three pages of a Google search result of your name. Do you have a story to tell? How frequently do you post messages?
The way you talk online: Your online voice reflects how people hear your offline voice. For example, are you posting status updates on your profiles? If so, do your updates add value or are they silly? Are you aware of your audience when you post?
The way you present yourself: Presentation includes the way your blog looks and how professional your pictures are. Is there a font you’re fond of? If so, what does it communicate? Also, what do the colors in your blog or online résumé communicate? Are your photos cropped or professionally taken? (More on taking great-looking photos in Chapter 11.)
Getting to Know Who You Really Are
Almost every decision anyone makes is based on emotions — yes, that includes hiring managers. If someone doesn’t like you, she’s probably not going to hire you. However, if someone does like you, she’ll justify that feeling by looking at your good qualities. When job seekers don’t show any personality, hiring managers often fill in the blanks with their imagination. So the more you can demonstrate who you are, the better off you’ll be.
Personal branding allows you to let your personality — the only part of your application that can’t be duplicated — shine in the eyes of decision makers. And it starts with self-examination. The more you know about who you are and the more gracefully you can share that knowledge with others, the easier it will be to advance and manage your career. This fact of life applies to everyone, from entry-level employees to executives. Just look at Cisco’s John Chambers, the CEO with style. His warmth and presence has literally defined an entire company in the market. Many of Cisco’s products are high-priced commodities, yet it outsells its competition every year.
If you can find the courage to venture into the world of self-analysis, you’ll have an automatic leg up on your competition, and you may even shorten your job search by several months. The following sections help you through this process of self-examination.
Defining your life’s values
Values — those fundamental principles that you believe in — are what drive your decision making, at least when it comes to the big stuff. For example, if you value sustainability, you probably aren’t going to choose to work for an oil company, even if you’re offered an impressive salary. Knowing your values makes it easier to establish goals, make career choices, and most importantly, make decisions about what you want your brand to be all about.
Spend a few days thinking about your values and what's most important to you in life. If you're a list person, you can head to www.stevepavlina.com/articles/list-of-values.htm for a list of values that you can pick and choose from. If you prefer a more hands-on approach, try your hand at one of the following exercises designed to help you identify your values.
Creating this list of your own values helps you write your value statement, which is how you differentiate yourself in the job market. I guide you through that process in Chapter 5.
Who do you admire most?
A great way of discovering your life values is to think carefully about who you admire and what values you share. This person can be famous or as close to you as a parent. Their values come out when you evaluate what they were willing to sacrifice or what motivating force led them to accomplish what they did. To figure out what values earn your admiration, simply follow these steps:
1. Make a list of five people you admire.
They can be icons, role models, or loved ones.
2. List the reasons you admire them next to their name.
Was it something they achieved, something they sacrificed their lives for, or an ideal they stand for?
3. Determine the value behind each of those accomplishments and whether you share it.
For example, say you put your grandmother on your list because of the compassion she shows others by spending a few hours a week visiting patients at a local children’s hospital. Because of her example, you feel compelled to volunteer to help care for abandoned animals. So you may make a note that compassion is a core value for you.
What are you most proud of?
Thinking about the one thing in your past that you’re the most proud of is a simple exercise that can work wonders. Many of my clients have found flashes of insight into their personalities and professional lives by doing this exercise.
I found this exercise to be the most difficult. You can read about my own journey of being able to articulate my successes and how doing so changed my career forever at http://careerenlightenment.com/when-you-ring-your-bell-someone-will-come.
Spend a few minutes writing down the whole story of your proudest moment. Then ask someone you trust to read it and give you feedback. Have that person tell you what you seem to value in that situation. Often, your deepest values emerge based on the events you choose to remember most. For example, one of my clients was most proud of a time she stood up to some bullies who made fun of her because of her skin color. Even though she was punished by her parents, she felt proud of having taken a stand. Through this story, she discovered that she very deeply cares about justice and taking personal risk in order to do what she thinks is right.
Finish the sentence
Finishing leading sentences is a fun and creative way to elicit your values. What may seem like an obvious finish for you may be totally different for someone else, and realizing that difference helps you define your uniqueness. Finish the following sentences for a flash of insight into your deepest character:
If I had 24 hours to live . . .
If I had a million dollars, I would . . .
Many people don’t agree with me about . . .
My best friends can be counted on to . . .
People who know me think I am . . .
If I could be any animal, I’d be a . . . because . . .
What do you want your 75th birthday toast to be?
Imagine you’re at your 75th birthday party, and people who know you well are toasting you. Think about what you’d want them to say based on your life up to this point and between now and age 75. Describe the setting, who’s attending, and who’s giving the toast, and then write the tribute, being as specific and detailed as possible. Consider talking about the following points:
Your heirs — your genetic legacy — and what makes you proud of them
Professional or charitable organizations you’re a member of
Various members of the audience; who you’d have at the party
Your most noteworthy accomplishment
Something you always wanted to do but never did
The impact you’ve had on the life of the person speaking, who that person is to you, and why he or she volunteered to toast you
Understanding your passions
Showing genuine passion can reassure a hiring manager that you are who you say you are and that you’ll be as enthusiastic in six months as you are now, during a job search. This means that you need to know what your passions are and find a way to channel them in a constructive way. Having a firm knowledge of your passions helps you infuse your personal brand with authenticity and energy.
To discover your passions, ask yourself the following simple questions:
What can I talk about for hours without getting bored?
What really wakes me up in the morning?
What do I do that makes me lose track of time?
Write down the answers to these questions in a notebook and then refer back to them when you write your value statement in Chapter 5.
Although you may discover that you really love to cook and can do it for hours without thinking of the time, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should be a chef. It can simply mean that you love to be creative and work at a project that pleases others. Really think about what’s behind the activity that you enjoy and use the core principle to help define your passions.
Giving yourself a sound bite
Perhaps you have a long list of words to describe yourself. That’s great, but a hiring manager doesn’t have the time (or the interest) to sit down and read through your list. You need to winnow down all those great, descriptive words into a short list of no more than three in order to create a memorable sound bite. Forcing yourself to choose three words also helps you prioritize your personal branding message. And this focus ties in to your value statement, résumé, and any other decisions about your image.
Take this opportunity to look through your list of words. Are there patterns that emerge? What, if any, are some themes you can identify? If I were to call you on the phone right now and ask for the three words that define who you are, I’d expect no hesitation as you reply, “Integrity, helping others, and courage” (or whatever three values best apply to you).
One of the best business cards I’ve ever seen was from a senior technologist who called herself a database wizard with personality. One simple phrase was really the perfect representation of her character, personality, and skill. The goal here is for you to have your own sound bite.
Looking at Your Market
A brand is only as good as its perception, which means simple self-knowledge isn’t enough. You need to understand the real needs of your target market if you want your personal brand message to really stick.
The secret to finding work that you love is to make sure that what you do and what you like to do overlap with what the company needs you to do. You achieve the second half of this by putting yourself in the shoes of a potential hiring manager, which I show you how to do in the following sections.
Identifying your niche with the blue ocean strategy
You want people calling you out of nowhere because they thought of you when a job opened up. So what can you say that really makes you stick out? Try using blue ocean strategy to figure that out. Blue ocean strategy is a way of differentiating yourself in a competitive market by changing the rules. After many years of business consulting and statistical analysis of more than 160 companies, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne wrote the seminal book on business strategy, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant (Harvard Business Review Press). Some of their insights are valuable to job seekers competing in today’s overcrowded market. Namely, they discovered that two types of markets exist:
Red ocean markets: These markets are red because of the bloody battles of competition. Competitors vie for market share by offering cheaper or better products and services. For job seekers, this market exists when 50 MBA grads go for that big-name corporate position or when an entry-level position is announced on craigslist for the first time and 300 people send in their résumé.
Blue ocean markets: These markets are blue because no one else is there to compete with you. The company’s offerings can’t be compared with anyone else’s. For a job seeker, this type of market means that you’re so different than everyone else going for the job that you’re the obvious choice.
A blue ocean strategy is simply positioning yourself so uniquely that you don’t have any competition. In other words, you separate yourself from the crowd by offering a different type of value to the hiring manager.
In real life, this blue ocean strategy played out with Southwest Airlines. The company focused on its strengths — low-cost, friendly service and access to smaller airports — and eliminated what other airlines compete on — meals, seating classes, and comfort. Then Southwest added a brand-new value to consumers by offering frequent departures. In a sense, Southwest is more competitive with automobile transportation than other airlines.
Grab a piece of paper or pop open your computer’s spreadsheet program, create an x- and y-axis like you would for a graph, and then follow these steps, which show you how to use the blue ocean strategy to differentiate yourself in the job market:
1. Think about a position you’re going for — be specific.
Use this specific position to title your chart, as shown in Figure 4-1.
2. On the x-axis, list about ten qualities, skills, traits, and other factors that may qualify a typical job candidate for that position.
Figure 4-1 uses obvious competitive factors, such as years of experience, education level, and skills.
3. On the y-axis, draw in a scale from one to ten and map out the line where a typical candidate may be for each factor listed on the x-axis.
4. Fill in the data for two typical candidates.
Lines A and B in Figure 4-1 represents these two candidates. Drawing both lines helps you better visualize how you’re different from the competition.
5. Analyze which of these factors are unnecessary and which can be downplayed.
The person creating this chart is a career changer who doesn’t have an advanced degree in the field, so he eliminates the importance of the years of experience and education level factors accordingly.
6. Determine which factors can raise you to a point where no one else can touch you.
This person knows he can get a very high number of recommendations because people love working with him so much that they’re willing to risk their reputations to support his career change. So he gives himself high marks for this factor and assumes that other job seekers have only the minimum number of recommendations.
7. Create new value to get your line looking different from that of a typical candidate.
Look at other companies or functions within a company and see whether you can bring in other factors. Or look at the hiring manager’s boss and see what he needs.
In Figure 4-1, the candidate decides that this position really needs someone with high energy who can inspire and motivate others on the team. Consequently, he adds these factors to his chart and gives himself high marks because he knows how much enthusiasm he brings to the table compared to other job seekers.
After you have your chart, you can clearly see how you’re different from your competition. Embed these differentiating factors into everything you do with your brand.
Figure 4-1: A sample blue ocean analysis for a job seeker.
Finding “ins” with target companies and managers by collecting demographics
Demographic information about target companies and potential hiring managers can help you in crafting a powerful value statement later on. When writing marketing copy, such as your value statement or even profile information, being able to visualize your target audience is often helpful. In marketing, this imagining of a target audience is called personas. On a spreadsheet or a piece of paper, list your ten target companies and fill in the following information for each:
The company’s mission or vision
Its top three goals
Its values
Its industry
Its location
One to three main competitors
The position you’re looking for
Its size (revenue or number of employees)
The top three struggles that the company or industry is facing now
If the companies you’re targeting are publicly traded, all the basic information you can possibly need is included in their annual reports. If not, explore the companies’ websites or LinkedIn profiles to find it.
Collecting these companies’ basic information not only can help you write a strong value statement (see Chapter 5) but also may give you new insights on how to position yourself in the market. For example, a client of mine was going for a position designing eLearning curriculum for corporations. He discovered that the company’s previous person wasn’t very creative and the company had some pretty serious deadlines to meet. So instead of sending over a traditional résumé, he designed an eLearning course about himself and about his experiences. It was an eLearning résumé. A critical component of this résumé was how little time it took him to do it. He addressed the company’s two primary concerns — creativity and speed to implementation.
Now you’re going to drill a little bit deeper and try to understand the hiring manager at each of your target companies. Using LinkedIn’s people search or a people directory called ZoomInfo, try to find out who the hiring managers may be at your top ten companies (for details on how to use LinkedIn’s people search feature to find hiring managers, check out Chapter 15). Look at their profiles, Google their names, and then fill out a demographic analysis on the following dimensions. (Note: Some items in this list require some speculation. That’s okay for now. Just guess or make it up. The point of the exercise is to help you step into the hiring managers’ shoes and see things from their perspective, not to pass an accuracy test.)
How old are they?
Are they male or female?
What’s their career, rank, job position, or title?
How much money do they make a year? (speculate)
What’s their education?
What do they do in their spare time? (speculate)
What websites or portals do they visit for information? (speculate)
What are their professional activities outside of work? Do they volunteer?
What problems are they facing?
How are they similar to you?
If you can answer these questions for your target hiring managers, then you have a shoo-in on making a huge lasting impression. Why? Because, like it or not, people are more comfortable with people who are like themselves. That’s just basic psychology.
Case in point: Many years ago, I was going for a job that I was totally qualified for, but the guy who ended up getting it had more in common with the hiring manager. They both worked at the same company previously, encountered the same political problems, and were pushed out for exactly the same reason. I didn’t stand a chance.
Use your demographic research not only to inform how you define your brand but also to keep track of at least one thing you can relate to about a person or company you’re targeting. Then lead with that common thing when it’s time to reach out.
Gathering Feedback for an Outside Perspective
Remaining objective about your personality and career can be a difficult task. This problem doesn’t relate only to job seekers; even long-employed professionals struggle with really knowing what they’re good at and what they need to improve on. But a tool called 360-degree feedback, or multi-source feedback, allows a subject to receive honest input from his peers and managers. Today, almost one-third of all U.S.-based companies rely on some kind of 360-degree feedback system to improve employee performance. As a job seeker, you want to take advantage of this type of feedback in order to better understand your strengths and guide your career search. After all, a brand is only as good as people perceive it to be. If you know how people perceive you, you have greater control over your branding choices later.
In the following sections, I show you how to ask your peers and colleagues for honest, constructive feedback and how to apply that feedback to your personal brand so you come out looking even better than you did before.
Getting honest feedback can be tricky
If you just go up to someone and say, “Hey, tell me what I’m bad at,” you’re not likely to get an honest answer. That’s why you have to either put some time into crafting your questions or use a tool that asks the questions for you. I describe both approaches in the next sections.
Doing it yourself
If you plan to conduct your own 360-degree feedback, be sure you know exactly what you want to get out of your colleagues’ feedback before you send out e-mails or develop survey questions. If you need this feedback to double-check your values, find out what your passions are, or see whether the next job is really going to be a fit, then be sure to ask questions that get you the information you need.
For example, if you’ve done blue ocean analysis and a values-elicitation exercise (I explain how to do both earlier in this chapter) and the results show that you’re enthusiastic and even optimistic, then you may want to make sure people really perceive you this way. So your questions may be something like this: “On a scale from one to ten, how enthusiastic would you say I am?” or “At any point, has my enthusiasm ever come across as inauthentic or annoying?”
You also need to pay special attention to the sensitivities of your friends and co-workers. They may not have the time to write feedback for you. Or they may be afraid of offending you. So before you blast an e-mail out to everyone you know, asking them what they think about you, follow some of these tips:
Frame your questions in the future tense. Asking “What can I do to be better at . . . ?” moves the focus from feelings to future processes. People find it easier to respond honestly when they don’t have to worry about offending you.
To respect people’s time, offer them a chance to respond with numerical values. “On a scale from one to ten, with ten being the highest, how passionate would you say I am about serving clients?”
Make it possible for people to provide anonymous feedback. The more anonymous the feedback format, the more accurate the answers. You may consider using Google Drive ( http://drive.google.com) to create a survey form or using SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com), which is a free online survey tool.
Keep your opinion on the feedback to yourself. If you’re receiving feedback from someone in person, the only two words you should say when they’re done are thank you.
Conducting your own 360-degree feedback is great for keeping complete control over the types of questions you want to ask and is also much more personal than the form e-mails some tools send out.
Using the 360°Reach program
William Arruda, a personal branding coach and coauthor of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), developed a very handy little tool called 360°Reach, available at www.reachcc.com/360reach. It asks you approximately 100 questions about your values, who you are, and so forth. Then you type in the names and e-mail addresses of at least 20 people you want feedback from. Reach then e-mails them and asks them the same questions. By comparing how you see yourself and the aggregate of how others see you, you gain insight about your personal brand.
Pick people who you know have time to respond to the survey and whose opinion you value. This group of people can be any combination of friends, family, and colleagues.
The response rate to Reach’s e-mails aren’t the best. Many times the e-mail lands in the spam inbox or the recipient simply doesn’t know what it’s all about or have the time to figure it out. So I strongly suggest that you give your list of 20 people a heads-up, telling them that you need their help and that they should expect an e-mail from Reach soon.
The benefit of using the 360°Reach program is that it gives the reviewer a sense of anonymity around giving you direct and candid feedback. You’ll receive answers that may not come from more personal communications. And because the program is fully automated, all you have to do is log in, answer the questions, and wait for your responses.
Putting feedback into brand action
When you begin collecting the results of your 360-degree feedback, you may notice that who you think you are isn’t exactly lining up with who other people think you are. For example, you may think you’re confident or shy, but others may see you as arrogant or aloof.
These dissonances, as they’re often called by psychologists, are painful. And not getting defensive is difficult. So keep a level head and show appreciation for this feedback. After all, you’re going to use it to get better at what you do. The following sections help you figure out how to improve negative perceptions and build on positive perceptions.
Correcting negative perceptions
Negative perceptions can really get in the way of advancing your career, so you need to be on the lookout for them. Sometimes you can’t do much to change innate parts of your personality, but as long as you’re aware of them, you can manage them effectively. Consider the following strategies when faced with negative perceptions that may be a detriment to your personal brand:
Behave in the opposite way. If you received feedback for being too cocky, then perhaps you don’t have to show your confidence quite so much. Avoid self-aggrandizing language and tone down the confidence. If your feedback was that you’re passive or indecisive, then maybe you should speak more loudly or be the first one to speak at a meeting or networking event.
Anticipate dissonance and admit it upfront. If you know what the top three misperceptions about you are and how you generally rub people the wrong way, you can anticipate situations where these dissonances may occur. The best way to dissolve any potential bad feelings is to admit your weakness upfront: “I tend to get very excited about this topic, so if I come across as impulsive or hyper, just let me know and I’ll check myself. I certainly don’t mean to offend anyone.” Or “I’m generally a quiet person, but that doesn’t mean I’m passive. If I don’t say much during this meeting, it’s because I’m the type of person who likes to think through the whole problem. I’m actually very engaged and will chime in when I can.”
Enhancing positive perceptions
Not all the feedback you receive will be negative. In fact, you may feel flattered at what some people say. If more than two people mention values, passions, or personality traits in their feedback, perhaps you have some brand perceptions you can simply augment rather than re-create. You can ride the wave, so to speak.
Ask yourself what perceptions people already have about you and what you can do to play those up. In my case, I was told by many people that I explain complex technology in an easy-to-understand way. So my brand is very much centered around making the obscure accessible through clear and practical advice.