A personal brand is one of the most potent ways to create career progression, yet few know how to create one. Emmy and AACTA Award-winning producer turned screen sector executive coach Ellenor Cox provides tips on how to harness the power of personal branding.
If you asked five people who know you what they think you’re good at or what makes you unique, what would they say? Would they give you the same answer that you might say about yourself?
Potentially not. That’s where the power of personal branding comes into play.
Your personal brand is the way you’re perceived by others. It doesn’t matter what you think about yourself, what matters is what your target audience thinks of you.
Creating intentionality around our personal brand takes the randomness out of our career progression. It provides a game plan and strategy for making smart career decisions, but critically it ensures that other people see us the way that we want to be seen.
Why is branding so important?
Your personal brand is more than simply your IMDB credit list, it’s your reputation. It’s your legacy. See it as not about what you do but rather who you are.
It tells people what they can expect from you, what you what you stand for, what you believe in, and how you can offer them value.
Most importantly it helps others understand what they will feel if they’re working with you. Do you want to be known as a safe pair of hands, a creative visionary, a goal kicker, or a technical wizard?
The process of personal branding is deceptively simple but nevertheless a challenging one. If you’re not clear on your personal brand, then persevere with the strategy tips below to learn how you can positively influence those people making decisions about giving you your next job or resources.
Creating a personal brand strategy
To develop your personal brand, here are five questions to ask yourself to establish a solid foundation.
What am I passionate about?
There should always be a key focus behind your personal brand that you genuinely feel passionate about. Identify both personal and professional passions, as your personal brand should be a blend of your current expertise infused with stories and lessons learned from your real-life experience.
When laying the foundation of your personal brand, be sure to focus on using your strength to your advantage. Define what areas you know you’re strong in and don’t try to be something you’re not. Authenticity is key in personal branding; you want to showcase your genuine true self to your target audience.
What gives me credibility?
There’s a saying, “Brand yourself before others do.” Think about what skills you have acquired throughout your life experiences. What training, credentials, certifications, awards or proven success stories do you have to help establish your credibility?
No personal brand is worth anything unless you have credibility. Start thinking about where you’re already credible or what you need to do to become credible. The formula for building credibility has no short cut. It involves combining your values with action.
Your values are what you believe in. What is so core to your moral fibre and your DNA, that if it wasn’t there, you wouldn’t be you? Ask yourself what do you believe in that you would fight for? And then, how are you showing up? How are you behaving that’s consistent with those values? Credibility is the ‘walk the talk’ idea of being able to tell people what you stand for and then showing action.
Moving from just being credible to influential, however, takes one further crucial step. Many of you might be doing good work, making good decisions, and living a life of integrity, but if you’re not telling people why you’re doing it, then you’re not attaching that action to value, and you’re not capitalising on enhancing your credibility.
Who are my target audience and how do I want them to feel working with me?
When you’re thinking about your target audience, it’s really important to understand: what do they need me to deliver? Maybe they need you to be on time and on budget and have certain technical skills, but what do they need to feel from you? What emotional connection can you make with them to be able to build a relationship and to be able to build influence?
Most of the time people just want to feel safe and able to trust you. Ideally, they also want to feel a sense of collaboration or affinity with you. Ask yourself: How do I make myself attractive to them? How do I put myself in the best light, in the best situation to start that relationship?
If you don’t have a clear and strong value proposition, then it’s really difficult to positively influence those people who are making those decisions about giving you that next job.
What are my personal brand goals?
Your specific goals will help your personal brand mission and strategy take shape. Examples of popular personal brand goals are to get your project financed, to secure a career-progressing role on a great film, or to increase media exposure for your completed project.
As you start to put pen to paper to answer all of these questions, your brand foundation will start to take shape.
When you’re clear about your value proposition, about your target audience, and the goals that you have, then you’re able to build influence.
Building influence with decision makers and collaborators means you’re not only able to identify and respond to their needs, but you also have a strategy for how you want to be known.
Networking your personal brand
Oftentimes when we think about networking, we look to connect with people we call ‘decision makers’. These are the people who can transact with us and hire us but there’s other types of people that we want in our network who are going to add value to our strategy. I call them ‘second category information sources’. These are people who may or may not be decision makers, but they have insights and industry information. A third type of person to focus your networking on are supportive people who are going to be your allies and your advocates. It takes a lot to build a personal brand and getting a support system in place is really important.
When we look at networking as a concept, it’s all about win-win. The networking relationship has to be mutually beneficial. It’s not just about what I can do for you or how you can help me, it has to be reciprocal. When you identify who you need to know and where they are, then your networking strategy allows you to build relationships to connect you to those people or those communities.
Networking is a relationship tool as it allows you to highlight your value proposition and stand apart from competition in a way you design. Here’s three tips for building an intentional networking strategy.
Be a resource. Focus on building the relationship and meeting your contacts where they are, not just by focusing on what you need. Build up your credits in the emotional bank accounts of as many people as possible so you can call on their help in the future.
Stay in touch. Don’t just think of networking as a onetime thing that you use to get something. This is about building a relationship and it will come back to reward you over time as your career grows and you find additional ways of building synergy with those contacts.
Always be genuine. Authenticity and genuineness is critical for networking. If you show that you’re real and human and you have hopes and dreams and you have questions, people are going to want to help. If they suspect that there are ulterior motives, or somehow you’re not being genuine, then this puts their guard up.
Creating a perfect elevator pitch
You’ve got about 60 seconds in the first few moments of meeting someone to shine a light on your personal brand and grab somebody’s attention.
Importantly, introduce yourself with your first and last name. Take the mystery out of the conversation by succinctly telling them what you do. Then tell them what makes you unique. What is your spin on it, or your secret sauce, or that twist that you do differently? This is your personal brand!
Thirdly, tell a quick story to paint a picture of who you are and what you stand for. People remember stories and experiences far more than names and statistics. Ideally your story provides a clear understanding of who you are, what you’ve overcome, and what your current mission is. This is what makes you credible and memorable.
Finally, here’s a little-known secret about people. Your favourite topic is you. My favourite topic is me. If all we’re doing is talking about your career, history and story and what you’re looking for, then I didn’t get to talk about my favourite topic. It’s really important in an elevator pitch that you always throw the ball back in the other person’s court so they get to introduce themselves too. See your elevator pitch as a way to start the conversation.
Take control over your story
Everyone has a personal brand by design or by default but don’t leave it to chance to have people see you as you want to be seen.
You can build influence and direct your reputation by taking control over your personal brand using the simple steps outlined above. Use your personal brand to help you make critical decisions and filter everything through this question, will it get me closer to my desired reputation and my legacy?
Ellenor has a range of free resources available to the screen sector at www.ellenorcox.com and provides bespoke coaching and consultancy on brand and strategy for the creative sector.
This story appears in IF Magazine #207 August-September. Subscribe to the magazine here.