Building and Broadcasting Your Professional Brand

Building and Broadcasting Your Professional Brand workshop at the Chief of Staff Summit with Jully Kim.

Note: please see the following summary of the core ideas from this conversation at the Summit. We did our best to clarify the ideas for you. Please refer to the video for specific details, ideas, and context.

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On branding: 

When we think of professional branding, we want to consider what makes us unique from all others in our field, our market or our competition. 

The journey of defining my professional brand has helped me tremendously clarify what I value, what my unique qualities are, what I appreciate about my current role and where I see myself In the future

Your branding has to be qualities that are already true about you, but that you want to amplify. 

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How to build your brand: 

Building a professional brand is highlighting your uniqueness, your personal story, your strengths, but how do you figure out what that is? Ask your friends and peers, your colleagues, the ones who will really tell you the truth — ask “what three words they would use to describe you?”

Do the five why's until you get to an outcome related statement.

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On how to introduce yourself:‍

Another trick that I've used here is, once you have a picture of what your professional brand is, you need to be able to explain it.

Create 30 second, 2 minute version, and 10 minute versions. 

A few areas and strategies to take advantage of for professional branding. 

- First is the recency effect.

- The second thing to consider here is the proximity effect. 

- Third, leverage your network

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Are there any challenges see for Chief of Staff building their brand? 

Yes. People have no idea what a Chief of Staff Staff is. And I think it's helpful to identify what kind of a Chief of Staff you are and what kind of Chief of Staff you want to be known for.

My recommendation also as part of this building your professional brand for Chief of Staff in particular, is actually identifying what you don't do.

How much should I post about what I do versus what my work does? ‍

There isn't a science here, but it's really what defines your professional brand — how closely do you want to be linked to your company and what your company does? And how much of your own personal story do you want to share that is actually linked to the opportunity that your company gives you?