What’s Your (Personal) Brand? Jacqueline Biollo, MBA, ICD.D
Recently, after work one day, on a restaurant patio, not quite sheltered from the wind and pending rainstorm, I met with a businesswoman who simply exuded confidence and success that some only aspire to realize for themselves. Although the conversation was pleasant, she was focused and intentional. We were there to talk business, not pleasure.
After a brief overview of her experience, business endeavours, and successes to date, she turned the conversation to (personal) branding. Her expertise clearly aligned with the matter at hand. She wanted to know how my experiences aligned as well. A personal brand is a uniform perception or impression of an individual based on their experience, expertise, competencies, actions, and/or achievements. It’s an important process of developing a well-defined and consistent look, message and presence.
What I learned from our brief encounter was that I still have lots of opportunity to fine-tune my personal brand. Although I feel my tagline, catchphrase, or slogan (People | Possibility | Potential), developed in the early years of my foray into government relations consulting, still works – I realize I need to explore how others associate this branding statement with me and if it is a defining factor as to whether they want to learn more about me or not.
There are numerous factors to consider when considering your personal brand. By example:,
1. Focus and be consistent. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. Decide what your key message is and stick to it.
2. Be genuine and authentic. This will make it much easier to manage your personal brand on a daily basis. Be your brand. Your personal brand should follow you everywhere you go.
3. Tell a story. The most effective personal branding strategy is to create a story around your brand that others can engage with.
4. Embrace failure. Timothy Hoang, CEO of Stories by Tim, Inc. says “You’ll never achieve the best branding until you fail a couple times while pushing past your comfort zone.”
5. Create a positive impact. Remember, you are your brand. Always keep in mind the impact you leave on others.
6. Be someone someone else looks up to. Market yourself like the celebrities and influential people do, but with a personal and relatable twist.
7. Leave a legacy. Once you’ve built your personal brand with a positive reputation, people will start to tell others about you when you’re not in the room – and that should be a good thing if you’ve executed your personal brand effectively.
As I contemplate my next steps in further developing my personal brand, I’ve come to realize that this is a lifelong project that will constantly evolve and change and that there are no hard-set rules for succeeding just because you have a personal brand.
Creating a personal brand will not only help you define and differentiate ‘who you are’ but open opportunities that align with ‘where you want to go’ or ‘who you want to be’ in the not to distant future.
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Jacqueline Biollo is a strategic consultant. Her focus is on government relations, strategic thinking, and developing innovative solutions to problem statements. She uses her success as an actress/model, and her experience as a politician and C-Suite Executive to help individuals and businesses become more
