7 Steps to Pivot Your Professional Personal Brand
No personal brand ever likely stays stagnant. Outside of your personal brand goals, life happens. So, how do you pivot your personal brand when you need to?
Most personal branding experts agree that at some point in your career, you’ll have to reinvent yourself. External factors might force your personal brand pivot, like a job or personal loss. Perhaps, you’ll have an epiphany that you could be something more. Or, maybe it’s a nagging feeling every day on your morning commute.
Kim Perell, in her book Jump, proposes there are three types of jumps when you leap from your comfort zone:
Survival Jump: You have no other choice. You’ve been fired, gone bankrupt or experienced a life-changing event.
Opportunity Jump: You see an opportunity. You have a vision.
Stagnant Jump: You’re stuck. You’re considering change because you’re stagnating, bored or unfulfilled.
If you want to reinvent your career, this is your step-by-step guide to pivot your personal brand. You’ll likely find your professional brand’s transformation is less of a complete makeover and more about releasing the potential you already possess.
1. Take stock of your skills
When you’re caught in the daily grind of your 9-5 job, it’s easy to focus on the skills your current employer or customers want you to use - instead of all the skills your personal brand actually possesses. When you’re looking to pivot your profession, it’s an opportunity to broaden the prospects of your personal brand to new possibilities.
Imagine you’re planning a complete re-do of your resume. You’d start by brainstorming each skill you’ve acquired in each job and your proudest achievements. You would likely also consider the skills you’ve acquired through formal qualifications.
Reflect also on what you’ve been the go-to person for among your colleagues, friends or family. What do people most ask you for help with? This leaves clues about what skills others attribute to your personal brand.
Sometimes, the biggest skills of your personal brand are hiding in plain sight, like a dormant volcano in your current environment. The potentially hidden talents of your personal brand are still there, ready to erupt in the right conditions.
2. Explore what you want to do in life
It can be hard to know what you want to do with your personal brand, let alone with your life. But, luckily there’s a simple framework that might help with both.
In their book Ikigai, Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles go behind the scenes of Japanese culture. Ikigai is something the Japanese believe everyone has. It’s their reason to jump out of bed each morning.
In their research, the authors interviewed over a hundred villagers in Okinawa. The island’s people live for longer than any other place in the world. It has 25 people over the age of 100 for every 100,000 inhabitants.
Ikigai explores the secrets of a long and happy life.
So, what is Ikigai? Ikigai is the intersection of:
What you love
What the world needs
What you can be paid for
What you are good at
So, with Ikigai in mind, what is the sweet spot of your personal brand?
In creating his masterpiece of the statue of David, Michaelangelo famously commented that David already existed within the piece of marble - he just had to set him free. On sculpting, he would comment on having to chisel away the superfluous material. Career changes are often less of a personal brand transformation than you may think. They are more commonly moving your transferrable skills into something you love more and something the world needs. It’s removing the excess to highlight your niche and bring out what’s already within.
3. Supercharge your personal brand’s knowledge and skills
In his book, The Diary of a Ceo, the first of Steven Bartlett’s 33 Laws of Business and Life is to ‘fill your buckets in the right order’.
Bartlett’s buckets are:
What you know (your knowledge)
What you can do (your skills)
Who you know (your network)
What you have (your resources)
What the world thinks of you (your reputation)
The five buckets are interconnected. Importantly, you cannot pour from empty buckets.
The investment in your knowledge bucket is the highest-yielding investment you make for your personal brand. Your applied knowledge becomes your skills. And your skills cascade into all remaining buckets.
Your first two buckets, unlike the others, can never be taken away from you, no matter what others think of your personal brand.
Bartlett says:
“Those who hoard gold have riches for a moment. Those who hoard knowledge and skills have riches for a lifetime.”
When you know how you want to reinvent your career, do your research.
When I first decided to make the move into personal branding, I read every book on personal branding I could find, listened to hundreds of personal branding podcasts and watched all the videos I could on personal branding. While I didn’t know anyone personally in personal branding, I spoke to people in related fields. This helped me look beyond the echo chambers of my current contacts and their conventions to explore new ways of working.
4. Build your personal brand in private
As the saying goes:
“When you build in silence, they don’t know what to attack.”
The time between you starting your pivot and sharing your personal brand’s next moves more widely is invaluable. Major companies work on product launches for years before you ever even hear about it. They are getting miles ahead of the competition before the competition even starts to try to catch up. Where appropriate, try to test the same strategy for your personal brand.
Just because you have an idea doesn’t mean you have to share it. Before I announced my personal brand coaching services to my wider network, I started working with personal branding clients in private. I didn’t have a website yet. I hadn’t published any of the personal branding blog posts I had already written. I wasn’t sharing any of my personal branding work on social media. But I was testing my minimal viable products in personal branding. I was gaining experience and collecting feedback, testimonials and referrals.
One of my favourite professional strategies comes from Patrick Bet-David’s Your Next Five Moves. It promotes thinking like a grand chess master and planning many moves ahead.
5. Plant seeds in public
While you’re building your personal brand in private, prime your audience in public. Your personal brand’s career change shouldn’t give your audience a whiplash. A better approach is for your personal brand’s next chapter to feel like it makes so much sense to your network. In your personal brand story, you’re connecting the narrative of your career and highlighting your transferrable skills.
Once you know your career direction, you might start engaging with related content on Linkedin. Perhaps you’ll share content from other personal brands from that sphere. Then, eventually, when it’s time to go live with your personal brand pivot, people have progressively been primed to understand that’s where your interest lies.
If you know where your personal brand is going, you can also start to tune into the vibe of your destination. I once heard mega YouTuber, Ali Abdaal, discuss the importance of understanding ‘the vibe’ of your target organisation or customers. This is more than just their tone of voice. It’s ensuring your personal brand relates to their brand, their culture and matches their frequency.
6. Enter boldly
In Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, one law includes ‘Enter Action with Boldness’.
While vulnerability and authenticity are all the buzz in personal brand, remind yourself that your Ikigai includes what people will pay for. Whether it’s your next employer or customer, ask yourself - why would they pay you? Sounding unsure or insecure on your new website, resume, or launch posts doesn’t inspire confidence in your skills or personal brand.
Use empowered, active (not passive) language in your launch communications. This is your personal brand’s professional re-introduction to your network. First impressions count.
7. Keep pushing big rocks
I’ve spoken a lot in my blog about big rocks and small pebbles for your personal brand. This is a popular metaphor to focus on the most important tasks. For example, say you fill a jar with small pebbles first, you might not have room for the big rocks. Instead, fill it with the big rocks first. The small pebbles can then fall around the big rocks (your most important priority).
Your small pebbles are your day-to-day. Your big rocks make waves. They move the needle. Periodically plan your big rocks. They won’t be easy. They will likely feel like pushing a boulder up a hill. But, your big rocks, over time, tell the marketplace you’re serious about the path you’re on. I personally use my annual goal setting and 12-week year mindset to plan my big rocks. You can learn more about this in my previous blog.
All the best with your personal brand pivot! Remember, you already have the skills you need. It’s just a matter of mastering them and taking your people from where you’ve been to where you’re going.
