By Precious Williams Owodunni
Three Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand
W
hen I say “personal branding,” the response is often a deer-in-the-headlights look. The term is nebulous enough to elicit feelings of uncertainty in even the most senior professionals. Over the decade that my company has been advising legal leaders, my team has chronicled the three main challenges that attorneys encounter with personal branding. This article will examine those hurdles and outline how you can overcome them to craft and confidently communicate an authentic, powerful personal brand. #1 Determine What You Do Best and For Whom The first challenge most lawyers encounter is communicating what they do in a differentiated, simple, and memorable way. Putting your brand into a brief statement might feel difficult for a variety of reasons, including: • You do many different things for many types of people in varied industries, so where do you even start?
• You do not want to name a target audience, because that feels limiting. • You recognize that identifying what makes you and your work special is hard. In response to these concerns, I urge you to remember that branding (including personal branding) is about differentiation. Unfortunately, you will not be distinct if you suggest that you do all things for all people. How do you identify what you do best? People who have put their trust in you— your employer, your clients, and your colleagues—are the best sources of that information. Survey them. Ask them why they selected you, what they like about working with you, what they believe makes you different from competitors, and what they perceive as your areas of expertise. You will notice some common threads that should form the basis of your personal brand. The second part of the equation is for whom you do it (that thing you do best). The audience you name should be one you are comfortable making part of your brand and one that accurately reflects your client base (or the client base you aspire to have). #2 Get the Word Out The second challenge you will face in building your personal brand is getting the word out about your capabilities. You can take on this challenge by honing your elevator speech and promoting your brand online. • Refine Your Elevator Speech Your elevator speech is the explanation you can share with someone in just a few seconds to explain what you do and to prompt them to want to know more. The first bullet point provides ways to determine the content of your message, but here is an example from my own practice: “I help lawyers make more money.” Does this fit the criteria we discussed for effectively communicating a personal brand? 3 It is short.
