Do you need personal branding as a Sales engineer? Our guest today gives us enough compelling reason to believe so. Join us in our conversation as William Arruda lets us in on the benefits of having a personal brand and how we can use it to become more successful within our company and line of work. If you’re wondering how you can make yourself stand out in a world that’s gone completely virtual, you surely won’t want to miss this episode.
William Arruda is a motivational speaker, personal branding expert, and the founder and CEO (Chief Encouragement Officer) of Reach. He is the bestselling author of the definitive books on executive branding: Career Distinction, Ditch. Dare. Do! and Digital YOU. He’s passionate about how personal branding can inspire career-minded professionals to become indispensable, influential, and incredibly happy at work and teaches major global brands and Fortune 100 companies to increase their success by infusing personal branding into their cultures.
Key Takeaways
Listen to our interview and learn more about:
- How William started with an electrical engineering background to ending up in personal branding
- What made him realize that he wanted to pursue a career in marketing
- Why he left his job in engineering to become a consultant for KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting organizations at the time
- How his engineering degree might have helped him gain more credibility within the firm
- How taking a break from his job and staying open to new experiences led him to better opportunities in his career
- What is personal branding?
- Exercises you can do to figure out your personal brand
- Three questions to ask yourself daily for self-reflection
- Three categories most brand fall into
- Why self-awareness is so important
- What we really base all our buying choices and decisions on
- What’s the next step after finding out what makes me or my company unique?
- Tips and tricks you can do on Linkedin to make yourself stand out and be a strong asset to your company
Quotes:
On the misconception most people have about personal branding: “A lot of people think branding is spin, it’s polished, it’s trying to convince people of something, but it’s not that. True personal branding is about what’s authentic to you, and how you as one unique individual has something to offer and making that visible. It’s how you identify the things that will help you be successful while driving incredible value to your team, company.”
On the parallels between company and personal branding: “In any place there is competition, there is a need for branding. Because brands help us choose, and it’s the same with people. Who do we wanna choose to work with? Who do we wanna have on our team? Who do we wanna hire in our company? And so, we look for those characteristics that really appeal and connect with us. Branding is meant for people. Branding is about creating an emotional connection.”
Three things you can do on your Linkedin profile to stand out: Work on your headline. You need to make it more interesting to make me more excited about you. Your headshot should be facing forward, professional, 60-80% of it is just your face. Your About is a place you tell your story, it’s not where you repeat what you put in your experience. This is where you weave together that story about who you are, integrating your passions, values, superpowers, and your differentiators, and all those elements.
“The new version of Linkedin, when someone is checking out your Linkedin profile, they only see the first three lines of your about, and they have to click see more. So, the first three lines cannot be a repeat of your headline, they need to be provocative, magnetic, compelling, interesting, and unexpected.”
“Everyone has some unique gift to offer, and it’s our job as personal branding people to help them figure out what it is and inspire them to do it.”
Not So Fire Round
- What do you love about personal branding and your role in being able to allow others to better portray their brand to the world?
When you’re being yourself every day, you’re confident, you’re energized, you’re motivated and you’re delivering better value to your company. When a company permits people to be their best selves at work every day, those people are more engaged, motivated, energized, and loyal and more connected to the company.
- What would you change about the way personal branding?
I think the message has been muddled a little bit
I believe personal branding is all about authenticity – who are we as people, and there are people out there where they’re all about spin and packaging, and like, what do you want your brand to be and we’ll make it. So, I think personal branding is a little bit, and the message has been muddled a little bit.
- Tools, Books, and Resources for those who want to learn personal branding:
- Digital You: Real Personal Branding in The Virtual Age – William Arruda
- The Brand You 50 : Or : Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an ‘Employee’ into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion! – Tom Peters
- What separates the great personal branders from the not so great ones?
The great people at anything versus the less great people are those who are genuinely motivated and engaged in whatever it is they do. When you can align a little bit with your purpose, you’re gonna be great at what you do.
- If people want to reach out and connect with you, where can they do it?
Find and connect with William Arruda on:
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