Personal branding
Recently I’ve noticed a lot of articles and blog posts appearing on the subject of ‘personal branding’. The concept of ‘personal branding’ has been around since the late 1990’s, but now seems to be making something of a comeback. This could be due to a whole host of reasons but the increasingly tough job market has no doubt got a lot to do with it.
A while ago I attended an event organised by FreshIdeas, where one of the speakers was Margot Katz. Margot is an author, speaker & executive coach whose clients include Coca-Cola, Reuters and Standard Chartered Bank. She gave a presentation about personal branding and how gender should act as an enabler rather than a barrier to your personal brand. If you’re interested in learning more, then she has also written a book on the subject, ‘How to thrive in the new corporate jungle.’
At first, it may seem as if ‘personal branding’ is just about creating a whole lot of spin about yourself. But, as anyone in the world of branding knows, a successful and powerful brand is not just compelling but has to be true as well. In other words, if you’re just all talk and no action then you’ll quickly be found out and people will stop 'buying' you.
Whilst I think that the concept of personal branding is interesting, and that it may be a useful framework to use to think about personal development and career progression, I can’t help but be slightly put off by the terminology. Sometimes I feel that people are increasingly being ‘productised’ and terms like this just add to that.
Ultimately though I guess the idea of personal branding is just to be the best version of you that you can be. And there’s nothing wrong with that.



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