Why Your Personal Brand Must Evolve with Your Career

Your personal brand reflects your values, goals, and achievements as a professional. Maintaining a strong personal brand is key to sparking career growth and staying ahead of trends in your industry. 

Updating your personal brand is particularly important if you’re a leader. Regularly revising your professional persona helps you lead by example, as you’ll show the folks who follow you that you’ve invested in your professional development.

Investing in yourself and your brand can be deeply motivating. A quick brand audit can show you where your weaknesses lie and may help you identify areas for growth and improvement in your professional portfolio. Doing so can push you to take advantage of developmental opportunities in your area and will ensure that your CV is well-rounded when you apply for a promotion or new position. 

Creating a Brand

If you’re an ambitious professional with lofty ambitions, you need a clearly defined personal leadership brand to bolster your credibility and aid your career progression. A clearly defined brand is particularly important if you’re a leader in your business and need to create a clear vision for your employees to follow. You can create a personal brand today by doing the following.

• Audit: All good brands are well based on internal reflection. A personal audit helps you figure out who you are and gives you a clearer sense of direction in the coming weeks and months. When auditing, take stock of your achievements and ask trusted peers for feedback. 
• Create Consistently: The best way to build a memorable brand is to constantly create fresh content for your audiences. As a business leader, you might post a range of content — like interviews or behind-the-scenes videos — straight to your professional social media pages. 
• Listen: Paying attention to industry trends is a great way to generate content ideas while remaining relevant. Active listening in your workplace can also help you adapt your leadership style and find opportunities for growth. 

When you create your personal brand, consider how you’d like to position yourself within the wider context of your industry. For example, if you’re a personal trainer in the fitness industry, you may want to adopt a more laid-back, conversational approach to content creation. This will help you stand out in the “loud” fitness world and could be the key to sparking a period of growth. 

Taking the effort to build a personal brand is particularly important if you’re self-employed and want to land more clients. Refining your professional image shows you’re serious about your career and want to connect with like-minded individuals. Even simple steps — like regularly updating your blog or creating a professional social page — can meaningfully enhance your efforts to land new clients. 

Mentorship and Coaching 

Professional development is crucial if you want your personal brand to evolve in step with your career. However, it can be difficult to grow if you’re already an established leader in a business and don’t have anyone to mentor you. This is a surprisingly common situation in the world of commerce, as many leaders who graduate from mid-level management are left to work without any oversight. 

Invest in yourself and continue to grow as a professional by asking for help from a well-regarded mentor in your industry. Seeking assistance is a strategic method that many business leaders use to ensure they remain at the cutting edge of innovation and expertise in their field.

Asking for help is innately powerful, as it helps you build professional relationships based on trust and authenticity. Finding a trusted mentor can bolster your emotional well-being, as voicing your concerns to another person can help you work through complex challenges. When searching for a mentor: 

• Be specific about the type of help you need;   
• Foreground gratitude and thank your mentor for their time;
• Offer to pay mentors for their time or search for a professional mentor who offers a fixed rate; 
• Lean on your network if you aren’t sure of who to ask when looking for a mentor. 

Paying for professional mentorship may seem like a stretch at first. However, experienced coaches or mentors are sure to offer benefits that informal mentoring can’t. This can be particularly powerful if you’re undergoing a career change and want to improve your chances of landing a new position. 

Hobbies and Personal Branding

Developing your professional skill set is a sure-fire way to achieve your career goals. However, this doesn’t mean you should overlook the importance of personal development away from work. Taking measures to improve your quality of life can aid your career aspirations, too, as getting in shape or publishing a short story can build confidence to make you a better employee. If you’re looking for a hobby or activity to boost your personal brand, consider: 

• Couch to 5K; 
• Join an arts and crafts group in your town; 
• Participate in book clubs;
• Create a podcast or blog to share your personal brand with a wider audience.

These hobbies will bolster your wellness and help you connect with like-minded people. This can help you achieve your professional goals sooner and improve your resilience when your work life throws up unexpected challenges. 

Finding hobbies that you love can give you much-needed stress relief, too. This can be a real boon when you're under pressure at work and need to take your mind off upcoming deadlines. Research from the University of Surrey shows that people who engage in creative hobbies benefit from increased happiness, improved mental health, and enhanced brain function. 

Conclusion 

Creating a strong personal brand can help you land more clients and will communicate your leadership vision to your team. Regularly updating your brand can also help you stay up to date with emerging trends in your industry, too. This is key, as you’ll need to remain relevant if you want to achieve promotions and acquire higher-paying customers. Just be sure to invest in yourself when refining your personal brand, as improving your health and finding a trusted mentor will aid your efforts to achieve long-term, sustainable professional growth.