Play to your strengths to promote your personal brand

When I facilitate workshops, the subject of strengths often comes up – particularly if the topic is leadership development, working in teams and feedback.  In ‘How to build your personal brand’ we take some time to reflect on our strengths, and it never ceases to surprise me how tough some people find it to name and claim what their strengths are. Maybe it’s us Brits hesitating to blow our own trumpet? Possibly – but Zoomly’s participants are from all over the world – so I think there’s a bit more to it. It seems that many of us don’t stop and think about what we’re naturally good at – and have the potential to be great at.

If you are serious about wanting to develop your ‘personal brand’ – which, as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos so memorably put it, is “…what people say about you when you’ve left the room.” – it’s well worth taking time to identify your strengths.

What have strengths got to do with building your personal brand? Think about the people you admire – both at work and beyond – and note the characteristics and qualities that you particularly admire. Are they creative, collaborative and/or conscientious? Note your thoughts. Now think about the consumer brands you admire and remain loyal to – what do they do well and what do you admire about them? Are they innovative and daring or friendly and approachable?

As you note your responses you’ll start to build a list of characteristics that resonate with you. These may be qualities you already have or may aspire to. Others will naturally say things about you when you’ve left the room, and their comments will be around perceptions of your personal brand – what you do and how you do it.

Consider these questions to get you started:

• Thinking of a time when you were feeling really energised, what were you doing?
• Recall an instance when you were so engrossed in what you were doing that time passed unnoticed – what were you so absorbed in?
• Cast your mind back to the observations older relatives made about you when you were a child? What did they say?

Note your answers to the questions and look at the words that recur most often. Chances are you’ve found some of your natural strengths. I should say at this point that you can also complete an assessment (and that Zoomly uses the highly-rated Strengthscope® – see what I just did there?). If you want to explore strengths assessments, check out this post: Why should you bother identifying your strengths (And how?)

You may find this post useful: ‘Develop your team’s strengths’  

Dawn is the author of ‘The Feedback Book’ and ‘How to be Zoomly at work’

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