How to figure out your Personal Brand Attributes – exercises and free template
My practical personal branding system is a three-step system, based on the stages that you go through when building your personal brand: first, we have the Find step, focused on finding out who you are and what you want; then we move onto Craft, focused on building the materials you need to succeed; and last but not least, we get to Communicate, the action step.
Find is the key step, since it will be the foundation on which we build. Here we focus on finding out who you are and what you want.
There are two parts to Find – first, we identify the destination, or where you want to be; then we look at your starting point, understanding where you are. We then work on mapping out the path that takes you there and building the tools that will help you navigate that journey.
Today I’m going to show you one of the best ways to get started with the “where you are” portion of your personal branding journey: identifying your attributes.
By “attributes” we refer to the adjectives and descriptors you and other people use to describe you. The list of potential attributes includes your skills, attitude, competencies, experiences and personality.
Attributes Exercise
To get the most out of this post, before reading any further, set a 1 minute timer on your phone and write down any attributes that you feel define you.
Remember to write about attributes that truly define you, not the ones you’d like to have or you think you should have. Think about how you would describe yourself, how you are introduced to other people at work, the feedback you get, what makes you different from other people you work with, etc.
If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, here are some examples:
ethical, stable, confident, active, critical, outspoken, insecure, dependable, international, generous, diplomatic, energetic, creative, agreeable, ambitious, analytical, positive, realistic
You can find even more here.
Once the list is complete, select your top five attributes. Why have you selected those particular attributes?
If you want to refine them further or you’re struggling with this exercise, another way to identify them is to take online tests to help you determine your skills, psychological traits, personality, and other attributes. A great free test is 16Personalities; on the freemium side Crystal provides a number of free and paid tests, including the Enneagram personality test; and among paid options, I would recommend the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and Self Directed Search (SDS).
Those tests will provide a more comprehensive list of attributes to start from if the brainstorm approach didn’t work for you.
An Outside View
Your inner perception of your attributes might not match how others perceive them; sometimes they will notice qualities you don’t or miss entirely key elements of who you are and what you do.
Make a list of people – family, friends, colleagues, mentors, clients – that you feel comfortable bringing into your brand attribute evaluation. Choose five and ask each of them to write down the top three attributes that define you and why.
Review the results:
Are their answers similar (meaning you have a consistent reputation)?
Check that list against your own list of attributes. That is the current distance between your brand attributes and your reputation.
Are there any attributes you hadn’t included in your own list? Should you add them to your own list or do you feel they are not the most relevant ones?
Are your top five attributes reflected in their answers? If the answer is no, why do you think that is?
This is just the start of figuring out what your current personal brand is, but it’s a powerful first step.
No comment yet, add your voice below!