Personal Brand: What You Need to Know and Why You Should Start Building Yours

...especially as a software engineer, tech lead, engineering manager or product manager.

I know, I know - “personal brand“ - you have seen it a dozen times just last week. It’s very in, it’s a buzzword all around LinkedIn and elsewhere.

Why should you care?

Do you even need it?

What is it and how it can help?

How to start building yours?

Well, let me begin by telling you a joke I really like.

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Once upon a time, there was a very religious man.

Every day he started with prayer. “God, please let happen, that I win a lot of money in a lottery so that I don’t need to worry ever again in my life.“

He did that every day, weeks after weeks, months after months.

But nothing happened and he slowly started to lose hope.

And then one day while he was once again asking God to make it happen, the clouds above him separated, and a bush next to him caught fire. The almighty voice resonated with the whole surroundings:

“For heaven love, CAN YOU FINALLY BUY THAT LOTTERY TICKET?!“

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Luck favors prepared.

Luck favors those who actively work on meeting it halfway.

And that is something personal brand can do very easily for you - you put yourself out there and that mere fact will increase your opportunities.

This, my friends, is HUGE, if you THINK about it.

Personal brand is what people tell about you when you are not in the room.

At least that’s what Jeff Bezos once said. Makes sense right?

Last week I was invited as a guest to one of our Communities of Practice - this particular is focused on product management people and they were discussing the topic of personal branding.

To be honest, I felt like a one-eyed king between blinds. But the fact is that when they were thinking about who to invite from our company, to talk about personal brand - I was the first one who came to mind.

At least that’s what they told me so maybe there were five more guys who turned them down before me :D

But jokes aside - this is just one example of how your brand can work towards your colleagues and the whole company internally.

People often connect personal branding with social networks, blogs, newsletters, and YouTube videos.

But if you really want to build your personal brand on solid grounds, I would recommend starting with your immediate professional connections and network.

You know what?

Let’s take a step back - and let’s talk about WHAT is the personal brand.

Personal Brand is your reputation, your “street credit”.

It is how the world sees you.

It’s really a combination of all of your skills, values, drivers, passions, strengths, and personal attributes.

The personal brand differentiates you from your peers - it allows you to continuously and consistently build and articulate your unique value proposition, your image, and how it is seen by the external world.

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Imagine you are the decision maker in a huge corporation, that needs to outsource a project that is quite important and is looking for an established product management partner.

Will you prefer that guy you see around over and over, you have read a few articles he wrote and his way of thinking is very similar to yours, on top of that he really seems to know his craft?

Or will you choose from the other three very precisely crafted propositions prepared by these companies’ sales teams?

The chances are that you just ask that guy you see around over and over directly without considering anyone else…

Personal Brand helps you to stand out. To differentiate yourself from the crowd.

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So to summarise - personal brand helps you tell the world WHO you are, WHAT you do and how are you DIFFERENT from others.

A personal brand is your STORY.

And the good news? Everybody loves a good story!

Start with this - figure out Who you are.

Now you might think - what the hell? I know who I am.

Let me tell you something - it’s different when you just say that, it’s different when you actually concisely think about it with full focus and attention, and it is a different story entirely when you write it down.

So write down who you are!

There are a ton of resources online that can help you do that, but it should be enough to start with questions like these:

• In which do I excel? What drives my effort and what motivates me?

• What are the personal traits others like about me? Is there something others compliment me about often?

• Where am I struggling and sometimes need help?

• What are my values, my moral compass and what are my beliefs?

• What drains my energy the most? Which roles/projects/jobs?

• What projects, and activities can I spend hours on without even realizing it?

Once again - WRITE IT DOWN.

Just make the effort, write down your set of questions, and write that down.

Once you are done, go through it once again and you should be able to summarize that information into one paragraph underneath.

That’s who you are. That’s the basis for your personal brand.

Mine looks like this:

I am a software engineer with a passion for the craft itself and want to explore the profession and just do it right. Growth opportunities motivate me and I like to find ways outside my box. I am a career switcher, and daddy, and I like to tell stories - I like to have my work in balance with my life. I love to build things and I can spend hours doing so - be it writing code or building city in a PC game. A career switch into tech was a big deal for me and is my other source of motivation. I believe in giving back and want to give back some value to the community.

When you know who you are, figure out what you want to be known for. And where you are heading.

Let me be clear - your personal brand is not supposed to be just a mirror of who you are today.

It is useful to also figure out where you are heading.

Best case scenario - you have well-defined goals, you mapped your weak and strong traits and you are actively working with them.

And you know where you want to be in 5, 10 years.

If not, I recommend you to start thinking about it - and you can use one of my earlier articles about uncovering your talents - it includes also a link to an awesome free personality test that was very helpful for me and I incorporated the result into my planning.

Think about your personal brand as a sort of roadmap to where you want to go. Not just a description of where you are today.

Some techniques for building your personal brand are also very well aligned with that approach - like learning in public. We will go deeper into learning in public in one of the upcoming posts in the next weeks.

And after that - Who should listen to your personal brand? Who is your audience?

Before you jump into crafting your personal brand - this is an important question. Have you thought about that?

Who are the people you are trying to reach?

Colleagues from other teams inside your big tech? Software engineers around the world? Recruiters? Particular individuals in a chosen set of companies? Decision makers in some narrow industries? Students and juniors?

The sooner you figure out this, the easier it will be to compose your unique story the way it works.

The sooner you figure it out, the more clear it will be where and how to tell that story.

You can’t really start building a personal brand without defining who you want to reach - that along with other things influences your strategy.

Let’s start building your brand.

Not now - in the next post next week.

I want to stay around the topic for a few weeks now because I believe it is important and useful and keep it very practical. If you don’t subscribe to my newsletter - do it so you won’t miss it next week.

If you believe this post is useful and valuable - please share it with the world. It will help me with building my personal brand - thank you very much :D

Thank you for all the support - if you want to reach out, or have some questions or comments - I am on LinkedIn - and I don’t bite, I promise!

Or use a comments section.

See you around,

Pavel, a soft-skilled engineer.