Boost Your Career with Personal Branding: What You Need to Know! | Ep. 241

Intro/Outro: You know what it is. That’s right. It’s time to talk money with your money nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears. It’s the Money Talk with Tiff podcast.

Tiffany Grant: Hey, hey. Welcome to Tiffany’s. Take where I answer your money questions right here on the podcast. If you want your questions answered on the podcast, just go to www.moneytalkwitht.com/ask Tiffany.

So. For today, I wanted to discuss personal branding because I feel like this is really looked over, um, as it relates to how we operate in both corporate and or not even corporate, just in our work settings or in our. If we have our own business in those settings as well. And this is something that I teach to my freshman students, um, at the university I teach at, is just to kind of consider your personal brand.

And I thought, you know, this is something that not only students need to hear, but also people already established in their careers. Uh, your personal brand is everything. So. Let’s talk about what personal branding is. So first and foremost, personal branding is all about how you market yourself to the world.

It’s your unique combination of skills, experiences, personality, all of that, um, that sets you apart from others. In your industry or in your field. So a strong personal brand can open doors to new opportunities, help you build a network of valuable connections, and even position you as an expert in your field.

So a lot of people look at me. And they’re like, oh, Tiffany, you know, money Talk with Tiff. You know, that brand is great. You know, I’ve heard about it, blah, blah, blah. But money Talk with Tiff wouldn’t exist if I didn’t have a great personal brand as well. And so personal branding is really just how you put yourself out there to the world.

So what are some key things that. You can think about or start doing in order to create a strong personal brand. So first you wanna make sure that you define what your unique value proposition is. What is it that you’re trying to convey to the world? Think about what sets you apart from others and how you can communicate that to your target audience.

Whether that is, you know, your manager or your uh, recruiter or your. Audience, uh, you know, if you have your own business, if you’re a content creator, maybe your audience or your target market, so include this might include things like your expertise, your skills, your values, even your personal story. And I feel like.

That is one of the things that has solidified my brand is that I’m very personal. I tell my personal stories, not just the wins, but the struggles as well, and people really appreciate that. So for me, um, my personal brand, you know, if you look at my company values, it aligns with my personal values.

Authenticity, being bold, um, things of that nature. And so everything aligns, right? Um, another thing is you wanna make sure that you create a consistent and cohesive brand across all of your platforms. So your social media profiles, your resume, website, blog, all of those things. You wanna make sure that your messaging, your visuals, your tone are all aligned.

So to give you a. Great example of where this kind of went wrong in my career is I was working new job, working at a job and we were talking about, you know, going out, having fun, you know, if we were gonna meet up at a bar, whatever. And so I said, oh, there’s this bar that I really like downtown Greensboro.

And so I was. They were like, well, let’s look it up. So they go to the Facebook page and lo and behold, there goes Tiffany right as the cover image. So, quite naturally I was mortified. And also, you know, I ha these are my new coworkers. And they’re like, oh, well Tiffany likes to party. She’s on the front page.

You know, that type of thing. Um, gratefully they did not think of me like that. That was just the story that I was telling myself. But luckily I had a strong personal brand. Elsewhere and otherwise that, you know, they were able to realize that, oh, you know, she was just out having fun. It’s not like that.

She does this all the time. And so luckily I had other things out there, like all the good work that I’m doing, you know, my blog, I, at that time, I didn’t have the podcast, but I did have the blog, um, them even interacting with me in person, all of that stuff. Spoke the same language. So even having that anomaly out there of me on the dance floor, um, did not put a bad taste in their mouth.

But could you imagine if that was out there along with a lot of. Other things that kind of told that same story. Then now my personal brand, not saying that it’s bad, but my personal brand would be, oh, Tiffany likes to party. She’s always going out to party. She’s always, you know, drinking, having fun, whatever, acting a fool, you know, that type of thing.

Um, but there was nothing else out there that backed that story up. So, um, all of that to say you wanna kind of, you can’t help what. Stories people create for you, but you can kind of, um, Help them navigate to the story that you want them to have. And so that’s all a part of personal branding. Um, another thing I will add as far as creating a strong personal brand is to stay active.

You know, whether that’s on social media, engaging with others in the community, um, developing your skills and knowledge. You know, remember that your personal brand is an ongoing project and that project requires effort and attention. Um, so you wanna make sure that you keep that in mind as well. So how do you promote your personal brand?

So if you are at a job, uh, one thing that I. Always did with every job that I worked, um, is making sure that I keep a record of all the things that I’ve done for that particular employer. And how did that play a role that helped me establish my personal brand as. Someone that’s, um, a go-getter that, um, you know, does whatever needs to be done, uh, that is working on the best interest of the business.

And when it came time for, you know, promotion talks, or it came time for raises, I would pull that information and present it, you know, because that’s one thing. I feel a lot of people miss is when it comes time for your yearly evaluations, brag on yourself. Cause it’s gonna be impossible for them to remember everything that you did or even the highlights that you did when they have a whole team that they’re worried about.

And so you wanna make sure that you keep those records and you keep track of all the things that you’ve done. That help the company so that way you can get the max, the max raise that you deserve. Um, also I’ll say that has helped me in, um, being a business owner as well. I keep track of all of the things that I’m featured in.

I keep track of all the testimonials that I get from my customers, so on and so forth. That helps me establish my brand as an authority, um, bo both my personal brand and my, um, business brand. So think about that. Uh, you wanna make sure that you are active, you’re showing up when you show up, you’re being an asset.

You’re, you’re not being the person that people are like, oh my gosh, here such and such comes, you know, that’s a brand. You know what I’m saying? Um, and when I talk about this to my students, I’m like, You don’t wanna be the person that nobody wants to associate with. You don’t wanna establish that as your brand because then it’ll hinder you.

So you wanna be, you want your brand to be reflective of your true personality, reflective of your values, and what that looks like Now. Don’t get me wrong. If you want that to be your brand, if you want to be the Dwight of the office, then by all means, but it’s completely up to you and you know, you, you definitely need to think about how you are portraying yourself to other people.

I’m not saying to, you know, Overly care about what other people think of you, cuz I don’t. Um, but what I am saying is to be intentional with how you put yourself out there. So it reflects who you are as an individual or who you are as a company. Okay? So as you’re thinking about these, you know, things as you advance in your career, as you advance as a business, Make sure that you know who you are, you know, what are your values, what’s important to you, what are your goals?

And then portray that in a way where people can understand it and know where you stand. Know where you’re trying to go, know how you operate, and that also can help you establish your personal brand. Um, There’s so much that I can get into when it comes to this, but I just wanted to give you a quick, high level overview of personal branding and how that can help you in your career, in your life, um, and how important it is really.

Um, your personal brand is everything. Your name is everything, so make sure that you do it just. This. All right. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode today. If you have a question that you want me to answer on the podcast, feel free to go to www.moneytalkwitht.com/ask Tiffany, and I’ll be more than happy to answer for you.

So hopefully you get your personal brand under control and I will see you next week. Bye.

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Until next time. Spend wise by spending less than you make a word to the Moneywise is always sufficient. It.