The Business Case For Personal Branding [For Corporates]
Maybe building your Personal Brand is on your priority list and you’re not sure how to get support from your company or maybe you’re on the other side and get the enquiry to support your staff’s personal branding efforts and you’re not quite sure if you should get behind - this episode is for you as I go through 3 very common scenarios and how to tackle them in this blog.
“How do I build my personal brand while still working at my corporate job, especially when my company doesn’t support it?”
This is a question I get asked a lot because the majority of my clients are either still in a senior executive role and realise they’ve maxed out their potential where they are now and want to prepare for their next chapter or they want to pivot and either start their own business or change career without having to take a step backwards.
So how you go about asking not only for understanding by actually support in terms of financial, time and energy investment? I’ll go through 3 very common scenarios and how to tackle them!.
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Now to be honest, this conundrum of not getting the support or buy-in isn’t unique to personal branding. It’s often a discussion point when it comes to any extracurricular training, education or activities that aren’t correlated to your current role.
I’ve seen it many times that leaders absolutely do understand the importance of their people better themselves, from developing a skill-, mind- and tool set so that they can progress in their career beyond their current role and that investing in them also improves retention.
And yet, when push comes to shove and time, energy and financial commitment is involved to make this goal happen, employers are backing off especially when they don’t see the direct correlation between your current role and you wanting to build your Personal Brand.
Maybe you’ve had this experience before when you asked and your boss countered with questions like:
We have a strong company brand. Why would I want to invest in an employee’s brand?
Why would I want to pay for you getting poached left, right and center?
This personal branding stuff is just a distraction from getting real work done and you’re working on billable hours.
Now - of course, these types of questions sound logical and reasonable but there’s one thing we need to get clear on first.
Every employee already has a personal brand, the only question is what the employer is going to do about it. More specifically: how are leaders going to leverage individual talents to create a bigger ripple effect?
In the current economy where every company experiences the war for talent, experience more competition to keep existing staff and see less results from their advertising campaigns, personal brands are the unfair competitive advantage a business has.
So let me hit you with a few mind boggling facts and statistics on Personal Brands
People are 16 times more likely to read a post by a friend than by a brand. (Sprout Social)
People are 77% more likely to buy from a company if the CEO uses social media. (Forbes)
75% of job hunters research a brand before applying for a job position. (LinkedIn, EveryoneSocial)
92% of workers would consider leaving their job if offered a position in a company with an exceptional reputation. (LinkedIn, EveryoneSocial)
Employees have 10x more followers than their company’s social media accounts. (Markivis)
Leads obtained through employees’ social media convert 7x more frequently than other leads. (Dreambox, PostBeyond)
Did you know some of those statistics? If not, feel free to use them in your negotiations because when in doubt - always come with numbers, facts and figures and support your claim because you can’t argue data.
From my own experience I can say that there’s been a shift over the years. When I started talking about the importance of personal branding to build the employer brand 8 years ago, leaders looked at me as if I was from a different planet whereas probably over the last 12 months in particular, I’ve seen a big increase of requests and engagements from HR and leadership teams to work with them and their teams. And yet - I know we still have a long way to go to educate especially those more traditional leaders if they want to future-proof their business.
So let’s answer the question:
WHY SHOULD COMPANIES AND BOSSES INVEST IN EMPLOYEES’ PERSONAL BRANDS?
Q: We have a strong company brand. Why would I want to invest in an employee’s brand?
A: Because one boosts the other. They’re kind of the ying and the yang.
Have a look at even some of the biggest company brands accounts. You’ll see that even brands like Amazon, Spanx, AirBnB & Co have a smaller following than their founders or leaders.
We don’t buy into brands and logos. We buy into people, their stories and their insights and in hindsight, this is what builds the external perception and reputation of the brand.
When I was still at uni and studies marketing,we were taught that it was all about outspending competitors and we’ll be fine. Now, somewhat 20 years later, most mass media channels are for free and outspending is not a strategy anymore. I’d argue, it never was a sustainable strategy anyway because it eventually erodes the bottom line but that’s a different story.
These days, it's about out-contributing in terms of value, created by content and communities by those who’re on the ground aka the employees themselves.
Laszlo Bock, Work Rules said that there are only two reasons why employees stay at a job; 1) the quality of the people they work with, and 2) the feeling that the work they do is meaningful.
Therefore, showcasing the caliber of people you have already is what draws other high-caliber talents and clients to you.
Plus- investing in Personal Branding coaching has also a massive impact on the leadership quality of the individuals as one of the main focuses in programs is on self-awareness.
In the end, if you don’t know where your strengths and weaknesses are and who you need to be surrounded by to get the best out of yourself, how can you pick it up in others?
Knowing where your personal high performance zone is and being able to clearly articulate it to decision makers is what demonstrates true leadership quality and that’s what gets others to buy into what this person says or pitches for.
So besides attracting more of the same high-caliber talents, keeping them for longer, investing in their personal brand aso means getting the best out of them.
Takeout Number 1:
Want to attract the best talent? Invest in the personal brands of the talent you have.
But the talent side is only one piece to the puzzle. The other benefit is boosting the employer brand organically.
Showcasing your talents and people behind the company brand on social media, as speaker at conferences or as content creators for podcasts, newsletters or blogs, it helps also to:
Humanise a company authentically which also leads to better sales since people prefer to buy from people they know, like, and trust, rather than faceless corporations.
Increased visibility and reach, not just on a shoestring budget but often, entirely free. Given that a post published by a personal brand gets on average 10x more reach than a company brand, you can do the math.
Build more credibility and make you look bigger because people have the feeling that they ‘see you everywhere!”
Move your company from one of many vendors to the one and only choice for clients since the consistent presence and communication builds trust
Takeout Number 2:
People are every company’s biggest unfair competitive advantage to boost the employer and company brand.
INVESTING IN AN EMPLOYEE’S PERSONAL BRAND INCREASES RETENTION
Q: Why would I want to pay for you getting poached left, right and center?
A: Maybe. But that doesn’t mean you’d actually want to take it.
One of the biggest motivators for talents to take on a new role is their personal and professional development opportunities. It shouldn’t come as a surprise but we human beings are wired to grow and learn and better our career and personal situation.
Investing in ongoing learning especially when it comes to building their personal brand keeps talents not only more engaged and curious. But also more connected to the company brand.
Why? Because of the law of reciprocity that Cialdini already identified. It means that when you proactively engage and support your employees to build their personal brands, your company brand becomes part of their personal brand.
The process of building your Personal Brand involves identifying how to maximize and leverage natural skills and strengths and there’s nothing more powerful than when someone can step into their full self. Imagine when you find out that your system analyst also runs a YouTube channel on the side to talk about his passion for cooking! Video is one of the biggest marketing trends and simply connecting the dots and creating opportunities for the system analyst to help with video marketing to boost the company’s profile - how much more excited do you think he or she would be?
And that has ripple effects as it not only means that your company gets extra skills without necessarily hiring someone else but also a more versatile talent that could pivot into another role or at least articulate how else their skill sets could be used.
Takeout Number 3:
Investing in your employees Personal Brand doesn’t only improve retention but also maximizes their skill sets beyond their current role.
PERSONAL BRANDING IS REAL WORK
Q: This personal branding stuff is just a distraction from getting real work done and you’re working on billable hours.
A: If you think that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results from doing the same thing is ‘work’, then you may be right. If you realise that your best thinking and approach 5 years ago quickly becomes your biggest baggage - then you’ll rethink this question.
Think about it:
A brand is a promise and a way to mitigate risks. When it comes to working with high-profile clients or pitching for high-stake projects - who do you think will get chosen?
Option A who has zero digital footprint nor trackable reputation or Option B - a person who’s not only contributed to respected industry magazines, has an engaged audience (note - I didn’t say big) and shares regular updates on their personal page what’s happening in the industry and what it means?
I think I know your answer.
Takeout Number 4:
Investing in building your employees’ personal brand doesn’t only attract higher level clients but also reduces the competition.
HOW TO GET STARTED WITH INVESTING IN PERSONAL BRANDING FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES
Clarify your goal: get specific with what you want to achieve as a business. Hint - you may want to review your vision and mission statement as I'm sure it goes beyond ‘surviving’
Involve your team. Get your team excited and involved early on. The communication around the initiative is important and often goes wrong when internal comms basically mandate the attendance and don’t give context around it. You can even use this as additional incentive for job ads and make it part of the rewards program. But again - the communication of the initiative is key to get the buy in and support.
Get educated and supported. Having a good understanding of what personal branding is, how it works on a bigger level and best ways to leverage personal brands within businesses is imperative. However, trying to shoot from the hips or even worse - leave it up to employees to figure it out by themselves can quickly go south. Instead, consider engaging a consultant who can support some or all aspects to kick off the initiative the right way and make it a long lasting success.
TL;DR:
As an employee, it is your responsibility to not only take the lead for your own career progression and development but also to demonstrate how it is of the best interest for your employee. If you remember the main principle of being a Trusted Authority then it’s being the translator: speak their language and make your ask, your background and your goal relevant to your decision maker.
Address objections or concerns early on and come up with solutions before you make the pitch. In the end, advocating for yourself is a massive skill set that will benefit the overall performance. Take this as the opportunity to stand up for yourself and take the lead.
