5 Key Steps to Defining Your Personal Brand Values
Before you create the map for your personal brand, create the compass.
It’s one of the biggest questions you face for your personal brand. What values do you represent? If you do the deep work to define them, you have the compass to arrive exactly where you want to.
Before starting personal brand coaching, I found myself at a career crossroads. I was Robert Frost on the edge of two roads. Both were enchanting in their own ways.
A friend shared an exercise they once did for themselves. A careers counsellor asked them to define their ideal professional life. It formed the compass to guide their next steps. Years later, they had created the very life they had orientated themselves for. I was thrilled at the obvious results the exercise had.
I saw the opportunity to also ladder up. In marketing, this is moving from mere features to understanding more meaningful information. Such as motivations and emotional causes. I wanted to know what values my dream work actually represented.
Research shows you make thousands of decisions every day. Including how to spend your time and whom to spend it with. Instead of winging it, imagine if you created the compass to orientate yourself toward your vision.
These are the five steps I recommend for creating your own personal brand compass.
Tip #1. Do your personal brand discovery work
Before you set your values, you must first do the discovery work for your personal brand. Without it, you could ultimately be setting yourself up for an unsatisfying future.
As I’ve covered in previous blogs, your personal brand discovery involves some key preceding steps including:
Once you’ve done this, you’re now ready to start defining your values.
Tip #2. Define your ideal work life
Ask yourself what your ideal work life looks like. What activities personally and professionally would be included?
If you use the laddering process, this would be starting with the features. How your core values come to life in various tangible ways. This may include skills, areas of expertise, activities, hobbies, talents and interests.
Tip #3. Define your personal brand values
Once you have the features of your ideal work week, think like a market researcher. Start laddering:
For each feature, ask yourself ‘for what purpose’? Keep chunking up to the value that activity represents. Do this until you feel there’s nothing more above it.
Repeat the laddering process for all features.
Find common themes across your values. For quality control, refer to your discovery work.
Consolidate your themes.
Define 3-4 core values.
Find Your Why
Did you notice one value seems to be most ubiquitous? This fourth or fifth value becomes the True North of your compass. Your personal brand ‘why’.
Simon Sinek’s book Start with the Why explains the ‘Golden Circle’ theory. This places the ‘why’ at the centre of the business.
Sinek says:
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”
The ‘why’ of your core values is the most profound orientating point of your values compass. It should feel most like your personal brand purpose.
Tip #4. Articulate your underlying beliefs
Once you have your core values, start articulating their underlying belief statements.
Without clearly articulated beliefs, your compass lacks substance. Values-orientated words are usually universal. The nuance to you is what makes your personal brand personal.
Like your values, perhaps you make sweeping references to your ‘beliefs’. But, how often have you actually reflected on what your most profound beliefs are?
The focus isn’t on creating catchy phrases. But, rather on generating powerful motivators.
It’s tempting to skip the deeper internal work, developing half-formed lacklustre ideas. But, remember, if you can’t spend time understanding your beliefs, why should anyone else? And if your beliefs aren’t expressed in a way you find compelling, they certainly won’t be for others.
Through your unique set of beliefs, you start to differentiate your personal brand.
Tip #5. Finding the sweet spot
Here’s where the magic happens. Where you find the work that truly motivates you.
Like a mind map, picture taking a needle and thread to all the details of your compass. Sew together different activities.
Ask yourself:
How can some of the features intersect?
Can your personal and professional interests combine?
What combined ideas are you most excited about?
If you pursued a particular area, what impact would this have on your personal interests?
What top three intersections would you be most interested in?
What could you be a subject matter expert in?
For example, imagine you're a financial expert. One with a keen interest in professional development. Perhaps your compass includes the values:
Learning
Prosperity
Relationships
Legacy (your why)
And among the many features, this might include:
Self-development
Investing
Leadership
Mentoring
You might, therefore, consider pursuing financial mindset coaching. Or mentoring young investors.
If this was the ‘Golden Circle’, these would be the final ‘what’ outer layer.
Your personal brand is the outward expression of your values. And your values unite you with your people. Use it to differentiate yourself. Because there is no one just like you.
So, what values do you want to live?
