The importance of a professional personal identity isnât hard to explain. We all want to let business contacts see us as high caliber individuals with strong positive qualities and competence. A strong professional personal identity can differentiate and position us an irresistibly attractive asset when we want to work with a most prestigious team.
But a great professional identity more than clever packaging. Itâs more than a 30-second pitch on who we are. To set our personal potential into action takes self-awareness, reflection, information, conversation, consideration, reorganization, and a vision that we can translate into action.
By identifying personal and professional brand synergies, aligning your personal brand goals to your professional pursuits you can have your cake and eat it too. By identifying opportunities that serve both your personal and professional brand objectives, you can effectively multitask, utilizing the professional support and resources at your disposal while building your own brand. Dan Schawbel
It takes work to identify, understand, define, and articulate the unique value that is your personal value proposition. But it’s worth it to get the right words, the right values, and the right talents and skills to talk about when we talk about ourselves in a business context.
It’s harder yet to take that down to a shareable sound-byte that’s clear, concise, and dead on true.
What Soundbyte Do People Use to Describe YOU?
Call Tony. He can fix anything.
That Vanessa, sheâs so sweet.
If you want it organized, accurate, and complete, Anneâs the one.
Ryanâs a problem solver. Heâll have this figured out in a matter of minutes.
David will give you the shirt off his back. Don’t take it. He never forgets that he gave it.
Those soundbytes, mini-descriptions, might be accurate, or they might be legend. The point is that the people talking believe and share them. The people they’re describing have communicated those traits strongly over time.
What do people share about you when you’re not around? Being able to articulate and highlight your value can define and even change what folks share with each other about who you are.
You probably have a sense of your strengths and some of your weaknesses. Itâs hard to get through school and get a job without having a sense of what they might be. But few of us actually take some time to pinpoint what they are. Take the time to determine your most outstanding assetsâyour highest proficiencies, your core competencies. Ask yourself these questions to gather the relevant data.
- What am I often asked to teach others?
- What responsibilities are often delegated to me?
- What kinds of meetings and tasks am I asked to lead?
- What special skills and competencies do I have that others rely on?
- What parts of my job description would be hardest to fill?
- What traits make me a valuable and unique member of the team?
- What work isnât work at all?
Spend serious time reflecting on each question. Reflection is how we understand what we know. You might think about one question for set time or for a few minutes at different points in a day. As you get ideas and remember things, take notes. Write down what comes to mind. When you’ve got notes on all seven, roll up what you have gathered into one single big idea — the short bio that we hear people use all of the time — something like …
Liz can articulate what could make any product irresistible and how to turn any problem into a win.
Make your big idea a statement of your unique value in ways that others can see it, can believe in it, and can share it easily.
What is the sentence that people should be saying about you?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!