Want to Land Consulting Jobs? Build Your Personal Brand
As a solo consultant/contractor, the biggest asset you have isn’t your 20 years of experience, remarkable expertise, or your willingness to work long hours for a client.
It’s your personal brand.
Your personal brand influences whether new clients will pick up the phone to call or submit a “let’s talk” request on your website. It’s the difference between getting selected from over a dozen other consultants. And it’s often the reason you land the gig.
So, what exactly is your personal brand?
A personal brand is a combination of how you promote yourself and how others see you. It’s a blend of your skills and values, and the things that make you different from others. It is a calling card that reflects how you define yourself, what you deliver, and your strengths.
It’s strategic and intentional.
At the same time, a personal brand shapes how others perceive you and often whether they want to engage with you.
Look around – personal brands are everywhere
Think about folks you may follow on social media, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, or elsewhere.
You may regard them as knowledgeable about a broad topic (like the law) or entertaining because they consistently create witty parodies or provide insightful comments about the sports team you follow.
That didn’t happen magically. They have built their personal brands by focusing on what they do they best or would like others to think they do best. And they consistently promoted content that reinforces this brand.
Of course, you don’t have to be a social media genius to have a personal brand. You can create your own personal brand and then promote it your own way – build a website, attend meetings in your industry, network, etc. But writing content online does help a lot.
How do you develop your personal brand?
Building a personal brand starts with introspection.
- Identify what it is that makes you different and valuable (especially from a career perspective?)
For example, are you a growth marketer that loves driving revenue for start-up companies? Or a change agent that likes to transform sales teams? Or an accountant that thrives on creating efficient day-to-day processes? - Think about the experiences, credentials, activities that support that idea.
For example, if you are a growth marketer, create a through line that shows how you developed that expertise. (i.e. I learned digital marketing to promote my family business, using my own money, and have since deployed those crucial lessons for three start-ups which were eventually sold for 10x earnings).
You may even want to write a personal brand statement. - Bounce your brand off trusted peers.
Asking your mother for guidance on your personal brand may work, if she’s in the same industry and has hired folks like you. But if she hasn’t, it’s best to get feedback on your brand from people who are close to your target audience. How would they describe you (especially if they were to recommend you for a job?)
Use that input to guide your branding. - Promote your brand your way
Writing blogs online, posting on LinkedIn and other social media forums is a good start. But it’s not the only way. You can network offline too.
It’s wise, though, to have online profiles, like a website and LinkedIn presence, that fully showcase your brand immediately.
Show a different personal brand to different audiences.
Sometimes, though, you may have a different brand for different target markets.
Say you’re a buttoned-down executive at an insurance company by day. And a blogger about a minor league baseball team at night. You may have two different personal brands.
That’s ok!
People are multi-faceted, and they often have different interests. Remember the guy who was president of the math club in high school but also was the top wrestler in the state? It’s the same thing.
You just need to be able to be able to articulate – and backup – both brands.
Fine tuning your brand
Importantly, you’re not stuck with your personal brand. You can revise it. As the Harvard Business Review notes,
Personal branding is an ongoing process. So, you will need to regularly assess how your value proposition and narratives fit into your current professional and personal context and how they’re being received, and then tweak them accordingly.