Why Do You Need a Personal Brand?

There are many reasons you should want to develop a personal brand. Building a positive reputation (whatever that might mean in your field) can lead to increased word-of-mouth advertising for you and your services. When your reputation spreads and precedes you, it also makes interactions with potential clients that much easier, allowing you to spend less time convincing them to hire you, and more time negotiating the scope of services and payment (and actually working on the project).

Managing a personal brand helps you build a kind of brand equity, which will grant your name and products a certain star power. This associative celebrity can aid you in future projects you may wish to undertake, allow you to easily segue into alternate-but-related fields and will grant you expert status within your current field.

By recognizing and optimizing your personal brand, you will become part of and associated with specific ideas, movements, aesthetics, cultural attitudes and people. The more you refine your brand, the more targeted your message becomes and the more you will be doing the work you want to do, with the people you want to be working with, and at a price point that everyone can agree on.

And those are just the short-term benefits! In the long run, taking the time to filter out the rough and think through what kind of professional you want to be and how you want the rest of the world to see you can actually make you a much more skilled, fulfilled and happy person. It was Abe Lincoln who said, “I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” Don’t be looked down on by Abe: improve yourself today.