CPOEF E-TALK: “Personal Branding” – why & how to create and improve your personal brand and reputation?

Building your public presence is an incredible tool when looking for work or seeking career opportunities. It is not only important for freelancers and entrepreneurs, but also for young professionals and job seekers who must understand the process of presenting themselves as a marketable brand. We had an interesting and rich in content debate with our guest speakers:

• Lazar Džamić, Xoogler, Author, Content & Digital Storytelling Trainer
• Klemen Selakovič, Award-winning UI/UX Designer & Podcast Host & Digital Nomad
• Nina Gaspari, Entrepreneur & Consultant & Author of the entrepreneurial podcast Lovim ravnotežje

Personal branding is attracting luck to your life and business. It is composed of a person and something else, that is a sort of promise to yourself or a set of expectations. However, there are different approaches to achieving the same objectives when creating a personal brand. But which one is the best? Doing things organically without strategies or planning everything in advance? Flexible way of work on one hand or certainty and strict planning on the other? Either way, always stay authentic and passionate about what you do.

We believe there is no single-handed approach to creating a personal brand whether there are strategies involved or intuition is used. Some people do their work completely intuitively or organically, but as we “read books”, we try different theories and improve ourselves. We look for the ones that suit us the most. As we do that it means that we think about what we are doing, about who we are and about what our weaknesses and strengths are. Later, if the evidence supports our strategies, we just jump and listen to our intuition. But first, we think! Below there are a few useful tips for applying authenticity to building your personal brand:

• Understanding yourself, it will help you become more confident when presenting yourself.
• Understanding the people around you.
• Define your goals reasonably – consider your abilities.
• Defining what is the role you are fulfilling.
• Build something you are passionate about.
• Do not preoccupy yourself with goals, but enjoy the path itself (you may find the answer on the way).
• Identify which communication type you are (you don’t need to be an extrovert to build a personal brand).
• Make sure the content you create has the added value to the community.
• Be aware that authenticity is something that people feel, and it is not up to you to decide whether you are authentic or not.
• Think of how you promote yourself (buy your domain and post your thought and your work).
• Present your potential to the world.
• Act in order to make progress.
• Do not get scared by mismatch between your and public opinions.
• Resist to the force that is sabotaging you from creating – just create!
• Confront your fears and limiting beliefs by doing things you are afraid of – repeatedly.
• Post and ghost – look forward!

You can watch the whole discussion below: