I know many professionals – in many cases even friends – who stiffen up when they hear about personal branding.

Their position is, in short, that branding themselves is a form of deep insincerity, and that they would feel they are betraying the trust of their contacts the moment they start to see themselves as a brand.

I partly understand them and appreciate their sincerity. Communication is after all a rational and meditated process, certainly not spontaneous. It doesn’t belong in our everyday life. And yet, all these people are already doing personal branding. In fact, we all do it, constantly. We just don’t realize it.

With every word, every choice, every symbol, and every gesture, we build an image of ourselves with others. In the case of freelancers, and anyone who has to “spend” themselves, this image can make a big difference in terms of work results.

Paradoxically, however, when we let personal branding happen in a “spontaneous”, therefore uncontrolled way, we transmit a distorted and inaccurate image of ourselves, because we send conflicting and therefore confused signals.

Conscious personal branding means taking back control of this communication, focusing on who we really are, and ensuring that this identity reaches all our contacts loud and clear.

To do this we must first learn to see ourselves from the outside. Then we have to understand what the touchpoints are, that is the occasions when others form an image of us: from the signature of an email to what we write on WhatsApp, from the image we have on LinkedIn to the shoes we go to the presentation with. 

Everything is potentially branded, and many are amazed to discover that you don’t necessarily start with a logo.