Executives – Ask This Before Building Your Personal Brand

In Blog by A. Lee JudgeLeave a Comment

There are clear and consistent considerations that have to be discussed and understood before an Executive begins their personal brand journey. Building an executive personal brand goes far beyond maintaining a reputation. It is the purposeful creation and distribution of content into the universe that creates exposure, value, and demand for the individual.

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Before developing a content strategy, these are questions that you want to be able to answer:

    1. Decide what you want to be known for. You can begin to clarify this purpose by asking yourself these questions.
      • What professional achievement describes me the most? We are not talking about titles here, but accomplishments. Like “turning failing companies around”, “developed winning sales method”, “published best selling book”, “recognized for expertise in a subject.”
      • What topic of value could you talk about for hours and still be interesting to your audience? This is probably something you are either passionate about or something that you have done so long that you could do it in your sleep. It may be a field of knowledge in which people are actively seeking to learn.
      • What unusually unique or different angle does your expertise comes from? Are you an Athlete turned CEO? A DJ who formed a successful finance company? An authority on an emerging technology? A world traveler with an unseen perspective? A man in a female dominated industry? Did you work for an extremely well-known brand? – What is your unique angle?
    2. Goals – When that big opportunity knocks, what do you want them to ask of you?
      • Give Speaking Engagement
      • Take a high-level position at their company
      • Book signing
      • Appearance
      • Perform your skill
      • Endorse their product
      • Consult
    3. Who is your audience? Do you want to be known as the best among the peers in your industry? Do you want to sell your knowledge or availability to the masses (books/speaking)? What is the persona of the person that you would want to write you a check (individual, business executive, publisher, event planner, agent, publication, television producer, brand, event planner, corporate buyer, etc.?) If you where to hold a conference or speaking engagement, what kind of people do you want your executive personal brand to attract?
    4. How much of the personal “you” are you comfortable sharing? People love to learn about people, and although you want to build an executive personal brand, this brand is not a “company brand” it is “personal brand,” therefore letting people know the real you is a major boost in the effort to connect as a personal brand. The emotional connection that the personal you provides is what absolutely makes your story uniquely you.
    5. What are your media strengths and weaknesses? While we produce and amplify content for you, often individuals have notable content creation abilities themselves that just need to be put to professional amplification. Do you have a media talent that would benefit or supplement the content creation process? Perhaps you love to converse (podcasts), you are comfortable in front of a camera (vlogs, interviews, thought leadership clips), you are a writer (blogs, books, articles, papers). Effective amplification of content that you generate can bring new audience and opportunity.

Now for the Content Strategy! Here is how you can utilize content to establish yourself as a successful brand.

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