Branding Yourself in the Workplace

Executive coaching clients wanting to enhance their role and impact in their current workplace continuously ask me, “How do I get greater recognition?” “Make sure my boss doesn’t get all of the credit?” “What’s the best way to be found by potential employers and thought leaders in my field?” My answer is often “brand yourself.”

We all know of solid, well-established, brands, even some people have managed to become universal brands. In the December 2010, the Harvard Business Review article titled “The One Thing You Must Get Right When Building Your Brand” authors, Barwise and Meehan, list four ways to remain faithful to meeting customer needs. I believe this is the essence of personal branding.

1. Make a clear promise.
2. Earn and maintain trust by delivering on your promise.
3. Over deliver, improve, or somehow continue to enhance the pledge.
4. Surprising the customer by developing, delivering, or communicating with them something they did not expect.

These tenets easily translate from products to individuals. The promise comes into play when we accept employment but more importantly when we take on a role and agree to certain goals and objectives we will deliver. Weigh-in and buy-in are essential components of this because it makes a pact between you and your boss, your department, and organization.

You know I am a strong advocate of the “know, like, trust,” factor in all types of relationships. To earn trust you must do what you say. It can be as simple as respecting deadlines and maintaining quality and as serious as being honest with corporate funds and properties as well as representing the company in a way that is truthful and honest. A high level of regard for co-workers, regardless of rank, will earn you points and provide you with advocates you may need sometime down the pike. An integrity blemish is difficult to erase and has a tendency to grow in the rumor bin. On the other hand, acting within ones integrity builds the type of reputation that people wish to be associated with and want to know. That often translates into greater access and even a welcoming into the inner circle.

Contributing more doesn’t always mean working harder. What it often demands is thinking deeper and broader. Steve Jobs, when asked why he doesn’t solicit more suggestions from his users, quoted Henry Ford, “If I asked my potential customers what they wanted they would have said a better horse.” Real contributors anticipate, redesign, and find alternative uses, while remaining true to the core. Is that you?

In the same vein, when was the last time your comments, e-mail, model, or brief turned heads? You don’t need a large number to make a lasting impression. Contributions like these also help you create your unique signature—work that is identified with you regardless who attempts to take the credit. It’s why each of us needs to take time to think forward, out of the proverbial box, without giving to much credence to prevailing thoughts, the naysayers or our own insecurities.

If you wanted to enhance your brand, how would you make a clear pledge? Earn trust by measurably delivering on your promises? How could you over deliver on your commitment and at times surprise your colleagues and amaze your customers? Figure this out and your well on your way to having a professional brand.

Intrigued? Agree? Or are you a least willing to give it some thought? Professional branding is one of objectives many people bring to coaching.

Hiring a coach is the step you need to take after you decide to invest in your career. I’ve said it before but I think it’s worth repeating—you hire a lawyer to write your will, an accountant does your taxes, a golf pro improves your swing, a tech pro fixes your computer. Maybe you have a childcare person and/or someone who cleans your home. The dry cleaner presses your clothes and hopefully you’re not cutting your own hair. Yet, the area of your life that brings in the funds to hire all of these people, and pay your rent or mortgage and put food on the table, your career, has not been invested in, maybe ever. Does this make sense? Is this what smart people do?

Join some of the smart people I know and try executive coaching. Take an hour a week, even once a month, and focus on you and your career with a pro.

Still not convinced? Read ExecutiveCoachNY.com to see what others have to say about their coaching relationship with me.

Why don’t you have a coach?

Jane Cranston is an executive coach, career coach and “The Job Search Expert” based in New York City. She shares with success driven executives and professionals techniques, skills and goal setting strategies that advance their careers, increase people management skills and assists them in career change or job search. Receive Jane’s free "Competitive Edge Report" and the free audio download “Creating a Career Strategy” by visiting www.ExecutiveCoachNY.com.

About the Author

Executive and career coach, “The Job Search Expert,” Jane Cranston understands the challenges and opportunities in the workplace. She integrates years of experience as an accomplished senior executive with global brand name companies, with the lessons learned from opening three successful businesses, and then applies her education and coach training. This sophisticated mix affords her clients her unique perspective, business sensibility, and entrepreneurial spirit.

Jane is the founder and Managing Director of ExecutiveCoachNY, an executive and career coaching business based in New York City with clients nationwide. She coaches success-driven executives and managers to develop a career strategy that accelerates advancement, increases compensation, enhances people-management skills as well as gets the competitive edge in all business activities.

Coaching with Jane is dynamic, structured, forward-focused as well as fun and inspirational. Working with clients in fields such as finance, technology, media and entertainment, real estate, and the law, she assists them in recognizing and achieving their full potential at work and in their personal lives.

Clients claim coaching with Jane has “changed my career focus,” “helped me better understand how to motivate my staff,” “given me ideas that have increased my income by $100,000s,” and “made me realize what is my part and what isn’t,” and claim coaching is “the best thing you could do for yourself.”

Jane’s soon to be published “Great Job Tough Times” is a step-by-step job search system designed to assist managers and executives looking for employment, or contemplating leaving their current positions, with their resume writing, interviewing skills, networking techniques, and negotiating need to get the right job fast.

Jane Cranston is frequently seen on CNN’s “Your Money” and quoted in nationally syndicated newspapers, magazines, as well as Internet article sites and virtual programs. She authors the free, twice monthly, “Competitive Edge Report.” Learn more on her website www.ExecutieCoachNY.com.