Enhancing your visibility and personal brand the right way can advance your career. Your personal brand is either by default or by design. A default brand is one that others assign to you. A default brand sounds like: Gertrude is always late. Herman doesn’t follow through on projects.

A well designed personal brand is one you choose for yourself; you control and manage your personal brand through your actions. How do you take control?

First, you’ve got to know where your brand currently stands. Google yourself. Are the search results you? Or someone with too similar a name? For those results that are you, do they reflect how you wish to be perceived today for your current career goals? If not, check out these tips.

To find out how you’re coming across at work, take a personal brand survey. Ask three people whose opinion you respect what three words come to mind when they think of you? What do they feel is one of your greatest strengths? Were the results what you expected? Do these results reflect how you wish to be perceived at work? If there were pleasant surprises, what can you capitalize on? (Check out Bob’s story.) If feedback was not what you’d hoped, what can you do to stand out and be a rock star at work?

Next, take action. What’s one thing you can do to enhance your brand this week?

Results: When I conducted my Stand Out be a Rock Star at Work! program at a young professionals organization, I got a call a few months later from the executive director.

“Wendy, I’ve got something to share with you,” she said and shared the following:

While visiting a client company’s site and a dynamic, polished woman walked up to her. She realized it was K*, a member of the young professionals organization.

“What’s with the new look?,” the executive director asked K.

K said, “It was Wendy’s personal branding workshop. When we did the branding exercise in Wendy’s class, people thought I was shy and quiet. That’s not me! I thought I had to be boring to fit in with my new corporate job.”

“This is me,” K said, grinning with confidence and pointing to her new haircut and sharp attire. “By being more ME, I’m on track for a promotion.”

A promotion also equates to higher visibility in the workplace along with a salary increase.

I love it when I hear success stories from an organizer about someone who attended my workshop. Had K not assessed how she was coming across, she wouldn’t have known to make the change. And she took action to transform her career by design, not default. You can too.

Coaching Challenge: Which of these actions will you complete in the next week?

Want to kick your brand up a notch? Let’s talk. 

*Name pseudonym.

© 1998 – 2016 Wendy Terwelp | All rights reserved.