A year ago, I started contributing to Reputation Today Magazine on a weekly basis for my own column titled ‘Next Page’ – which you happen to be reading right now. The name is meant to cue the overarching theme of each and every article I write about, every single week. The theme is essentially the change that’s shaping tomorrow. Turning to a new page in the book of time, to reveal what to be prepared for in the coming years. This was in recognition of the reality that in this fast changing world, not only is staying relevant paramount, it is also the hardest thing to do.
When I had completed close to 40 articles, I started to feel, I had covered all the major topics within this theme and that I may need to discontinue the column. How wrong I was. During the month’s break I took to collate all the write-ups until then into a book which I self published, I kept finding more topics to cover. Here I am 4 months since the publishing of my book, still writing every week on the very same theme. I slowly started to champion the context of change. All my posts on social media platforms began to reflect this. What was happening throughout this time was that my brand was getting sharpened and strengthened.
The thing about personal branding is that whether or not we actively work on it, it is being built. This thought is covered in the chapter titled ‘every person a brand’ in my book as well. Simply by maintaining my column and social networking posts with consistency and self publishing a book, my personal brand was getting built. My brand – that slowly developed a life of its own – helped me identify my unique offering in the world of brand building specialisation. Since the last few months, headhunters have stopped approaching me for easily replaceable roles. People have stopped approaching me to simply package their half-baked ideas with an easygoing ‘strategist’s’ presentation skills – falsely thinking that is what will make their dull-witted approach click. I am getting projects that I enjoy working on with people who are like minded in the space of branding for a changed world. The rest are automatically filtered out. My brand speaks for me. People who follow me speak for me. That is the power of personal branding. Personal branders are products of this changed world and they are further catalysing this change in the world of business, employment and service-provision.
Be it by themselves or with expert assistance, people with substance, experience, openness to keep unlearning, reskilling and evolving in accordance with the world, are escaping the classic corporate ring. This facility to escape is raising the decibels of complaints about unkindness at work. It is not so much about the number of hours expected to be put in as much as the cold, unkind, entitlement with which it is done. In some ways, feudalism never really went away in its entirety. But now, there are signs of it finally being destroyed. This does not mean the corporate structure is destroyed. It just means that employees who are ok serving endless hours at work are most likely working with managers who are appreciative, enabling leaders. Will Personal Branders force unkindness out of the system?
The idea of personal branding and the power it holds for individuals by freeing them from an over reliance on being employed with an unkind company or a looming fear of being laid-off is gaining momentum.
Personal branders are raising the bar of their respective domains, by infusing it with the superiority of output a sr. manager may have interfered with. What’s more! They are also mentoring others to build their respective personal brands. The difference between personal brand building and business brand building is the lack of competition. Every personal brand is unique because each person’s career graph and life story is unique. When it comes to personal brands, there is no requirement to outrace others with shrewd pricing or other tactics. Personal branders are products of an era of abundant opportunity and are slowly but surely, further fuelling this shift towards an abundance mindset.
The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.
