Develop your personal brand statement

A personal brand statement sounds like something invented to sell workshops, and much of that industry is. Underneath sits a real question: when your name comes up in a room you are not in, what do people say? An hour is enough to answer that deliberately rather than letting your last project decide it.

Why develop your personal brand statement is worth an hour

Opportunities arrive through other people's compressed mental summary of you. That summary exists whether or not you shape it, and it is usually a single phrase. Choosing which phrase you want, then consistently doing work that supports it, is the whole exercise. It is closer to positioning than to marketing, which is why the honest version does not feel cringeworthy.

How to develop your personal brand statement step by step

1. 1

   Collect what people already say

   Pull phrases from feedback, reviews and recommendations. Your existing reputation is data and it is usually more accurate than self-assessment.

2. 2

   Find the overlap that matters

   Where does what you are good at meet what people need and what you actually want more of? The intersection is the statement.

3. 3

   Write it as a sentence you would say

   "I make complicated data understandable to people who hate spreadsheets" beats any formulation containing the phrase results-driven professional.

4. 4

   Test it against your last year

   Does your recent work support the claim? If not, either the statement is aspirational or your work needs redirecting.

5. 5

   Put it in three places

   LinkedIn headline, resume summary, how you answer at events. Consistency across those three is what makes it stick.

Tips to get more out of it

• Narrow beats broad. Being known for one specific thing generates more inbound interest than being known as generally competent.
• It should exclude things. A statement that no reasonable colleague would disagree with is not saying anything.
• Revisit it when your work changes direction. A stale statement is worse than none because it misdirects people.

Ways to mix it up

If the whole idea makes you uncomfortable, reframe it as "what problem do I want people to bring me?" and answer that instead; it produces the same output with less marketing vocabulary. If you are early in your career, write it about the direction you are heading rather than what you have proven.

Develop your personal brand statement: frequently asked questions