Transcript
If I talk about the definition of Personal Brand, the first thing I usually do is tell people what it’s not. For example, the first thing that I always tell people is especially Personal Branding, it’s not about branding your professional image separate from who you are as a private person. So people think that they have like separate images. But if you go to work or visit a client, you always bring your whole self. But of course you decide which parts of yourself you like to show and you would like to show not. But there is not such a thing as two different versions of you. The second thing that I do not think Personal Branding is is creating a fake image. Nowadays we are so used to looking at people on screens. Like you look at me now, if I would tell you a lie, you would immediately notice it. So, please, do not try to create a fake image around yourself.
Also Personal Branding is not only visual branding. So it’s not just a logo or a website, it’s part of your whole branding process. But it’s more than that. Branding is about showing who you are and what you know and how you can help people, not about boasting, telling things that you are not. Another thing when people think about branding, they think they have to become famous. They have to be on television, they have to be in the newspaper. Of course it can help. I always tell people it’s a great goal, but the best goal is to try to become famous in your own field of expertise. And that makes people more comfortable. And it’s even like I think even a better goal. And the last thing, it has a little bit to do about, with what I told you earlier.
What Personal Branding is not, it’s always just talking about yourself. And that’s when women usually are a little bit hesitant because they just don’t know what to talk about. Should I talk about myself all the time? Should I tell people what I had for dinner or what I did, no? If you share a lot about what you know, so your knowledge and your expertise and your struggles, that is also talking about yourself but in a different way. And the difference is that you always think about, the people that you are talking to. So, you want to provide them value. Personal Branding is what people say about you when you are not in the room. The problem is you don’t know what people say about you because you’re not in the room. But Personal Branding is a great way to influence the things that people say about you so at least be a little bit more intentional about it.
Having a Personal Brand is important because of two things. The first one is a word of mouth and the second one is Google. So let me tell you a little bit more about Google. So I would like to ask you as a viewer, when was the last time that you googled somebody’s first and last name? Probably not that long ago, right? And when was the last time that you Googled your own name? Usually that’s a little bit longer. And what I want to say with this is your online reputation is very important. So make sure that you Google your own name at least once every three months. Google created a manual for people who have to assess the quality of websites. And what we found out is that the way that we assess if we want to work with somebody in real life, is not very far of the way that Google does this.
Google focuses on three things and I’m going to share them with you which are important for their quality guidelines and these three things are expertise, authority and trustworthiness. And the first one is expertise. What does Google know, and what do we also do is if we want to find out if we want to work with somebody, what does this person know? In which area of expertise is this person specialized? People want to do business with people who want to know what they’re talking about, right? So the second one is authority. Google wants to know if a website speaks about a certain topic, if other people think that this website is an authority in this field, same goes for people. I want to know, if I speak to somebody or I hire somebody to this person is an authority in this field. And the third one, of course, is trustworthiness. So can I trust you? Are there other people who work with you successfully? Are you a trustworthy source? Where do you get your information? What is your background? What is your study? Stuff like that is what you say true. Do you have a good reputation?
So all these three things are important to decide if we want to work with someone and, you know, trusting someone, especially the last one, trusting someone takes time. Building an online and offline brand also takes time. So it’s important to take the time to build this. And especially in this day of age where everybody thinks, shares quick fixes and quick tips to build brands. Of course it’s a good way to start but branding is never done. Sometimes I meet people who say “well, I don’t really do anything online. People kind of find anything about me and I’m okay with that”. And then I always say “well, if you don’t tell your story yourself, Google will do it for you”. You can even find if somebody Googles your name, find your family tree or things that are online that you don’t even know or are aware of, that are out there. So you already have some kind of reputation, even though you’re maybe not aware of it.