A strong personal brand is essential in today’s professional market, but it’s difficult to know where to start. Here are simple steps on how to build an effective brand to become an expert in your field.
What do you think of when you hear the word “Expert?” or “Branding”?
For many professionals, firm logos, slogans, website style and services come to mind. Not to underestimate the importance of these factors, but nowadays these are only a small fraction of the overall professional success ingredients.
Nowadays, there is no doubt that becoming an expert in your field, makes you more valuable and pave faster ways to succeed in a crowded professional world.
Cultivating a personal brand and expert position often requires some outside support and expertise but as always there are fast ways to reach it.
But make no mistake: Whether you agree with our position and whether you intentionally create your personal band or not, you DO have a personal brand.
As Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, once said: “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room”.
Most professionals, however, have not managed their brands until now and may not even have put much thought into it.
They are just may not be aware of it.
There is a widespread belief that if you do your best at work as a professional someone will notice.
That was true in the past.
These days, in many cases, unfortunately, that is not enough. Especially when many changes in technology and the economy have affected it.
It’s important to be intentional when it comes to your personal brand. Try these five steps to becoming an expert and you, too, can start building yours:
1. From what you do to what interest you
As a professional, let me assume, you are already an expert or are on your way to becoming one, at least in the field you are currently working in.
Right?
So, why not start right there.
Evaluating your current position will be your first step. It will allow you to examine the possibility to build upon your current expertise and grow from there.
But I can hear some of you already asking: what if I want to change?
What if you are not interested in what you are currently doing and want to build your expertise in other areas?
In that case, your first priority is to find and figure out what really interest you right now.
What is the most important part of this process?
It is to find the “thing” that you choose to be an expert in, that you are almost obsessed about.
In other words, it has to inspire you so that the necessary reading and learning seem effortless to you because you enjoy the learning process, it totally resonates with you.
Remember: based on my work with thousands of professionals – lawyers, accountants, tax advisers etc. – from all over the world, I never met a professional (or even a person) without any expertise. Everyone has one–some have more than one–you just need to find it.
2. Develop your distinct point of view on one subject
One of the real obstacles for many lawyers in developing their personal brand is the need to focus and develop their ‘distinct point of view’ on only one subject.
Many lawyers believe, mistakenly, that if they will focus on one subject they are going to miss the opportunities that may come from other areas they can help and support their clients on.
Here is the truth – trying to become an expert in too many things at one time will only set you up for failure.
You probably heard before the saying – if you focus on everything, you will get nothing!
Focus.
The simple secret is: Focus on one subject. Do it well. Repeatedly. Become an expert.
3. Practice x 3
Becoming an expert takes time. Significant time.
But many professionals already put a lot of work and dedication into becoming an expert in their field.
So to form and maintain your expert position, I warmly suggest to you to dedicate some time for:
- Studying— Experts are also students for life. Continue to read books; attend online and offline education lessons or webinars; watch videos; attend conferences, events, and seminars; share knowledge and learn from other experts within the field.
- Practicing— actually implementing and doing what you are learning. Enlarging your network of connections in your field and practice things you learned in your study time.
- Presenting— Part of being an expert is learning to share your expertise and finding with your tribe and relevant people. Nowadays, there are many ways to share your knowledge, by articles, blogs, eBooks, videos, podcasts, speaking at a conference, writing a book etc.
Try to find the channels that work for you and use them to share your expertise. Sharing your knowledge and what you have learned to others will push you even further toward your goal of mastering your new field and becoming the expert.
IT IS YOUR TIME!
Your personal brand is the sum total of what you do, how you do it and why you do it.
Your personal brand has to be genuine and authentic. You cannot fake it!
If you get it right, your personal brand will make you as a professional stand out in the crowded market place, shine a spotlight on your expertise and enhance your value.
And the upside is that if you have truly found your gift–your thing—your distinct point of view – than becoming an expert in your field should be a joyful and exciting process for you.
If this is not the case…
…you have made the wrong choice and you need to go back from the beginning.
In this stage there are still many questions left unanswered – Isn’t there a proven path to building your authority?
Any specific tools that can help build your authority?
How can you use your authority to attract more from the right clients to your firm? Etc.
These and more in the next part of this special series.
“Itzik is an International Speaker, Bestselling Author, Business Mentor & Attorney-at-law. The Global Leading Authority on Business Development, Business Networking, Referrals & Relationship Capital & Founder of THE SWITCH® and THE SWITCH HUB®”
