The No Experience Personal Brand

Personal Brand.  

Much like "hustle," the word brand takes a whole lot of undeserved abuse.

"I'm building my brand."  

"I decided purple doesn't fit in with my personal brand."  

"I had to weigh the negative impact to my brand."

We've all heard it.  And we've all rolled our eyes and thought to ourselves, "your brand?  Aren't you a checkout girl at the grocery store?" (No shade to the hardworking checkout girls of the world, all the shade to the big talkers who would rather sound like they work than actually, you know, work).

As someone who actually does build brands, it annoys me too.  So roll your eyes one good time and get it out.  Now, truth time.

The truth is, you do have a brand.  Even if you have a corporate job building someone else's.  Common vernacular abuse notwithstanding, your brand is just an MBA-speak way to say your professional reputation.  And that reputation is more important than anything else you bring to the table.  More important than your schooling, your past work history, even subject matter expertise.  Because your professional reputation establishes what your value is and speaks for you when you are not there.  Without a strong professional reputation, you won't even be at the table.

You must be constantly managing and building your professional reputation, even at the earliest stages of your career.  We already know Rule #1 - do the work.  There's no way around this.  Do the work, learn your job, your company and your industry.  Dig into the details.  Understand how everything works, how different departments intersect, how the decisions you make today affect where your company is going tomorrow.

But while you're doing the work, keep your reputation top of mind.  Too many professionals, especially women and people of color, focus only on doing the work, keeping their heads down grinding away.  After a few years, these people often find themselves passed over for promotions or plum assignments - not because they can't do them well or aren't liked, but simply because nobody was thinking of them.   Management can't recognize what they can't see.

So how do you build and manage that professional reputation or personal brand or whatever term you want to use for it?  And particularly, how do you do that when you're brand new to your career?  

At the earliest stages, you won't have much of a reputation to go on simply because you just don't know enough, haven't experienced enough, or seen enough to truly establish any expertise or solid strengths.  

But what you do have going for you is that no one is really expecting you to have a professional reputation either.  So the earlier you establish a positive one, the faster you'll pull ahead of your peers.

The three most important things to establish yourself as early in your career are that you are smart, driven, and resourceful.  If you can have these words and all their various synonyms be top of mind when managers and peers think of you, you'll find paths opening up.

Smart

Why this is important should go without saying, so we'll spend little time here.  Nobody promotes the well meaning idiot.  And chances are, if you got the job, you went to a pretty good school, got pretty good grades, and gave pretty good answers to the interview questions, you're pretty smart too.

The main thing that will undermine your intelligence at work is sloppiness.  If you rush through projects and miss big, glaring errors enough times, people will start to wonder if you just don't care or if you truly don't know any better.  So don't make them wonder. Spell check your documents and emails.  Do the calculations three times just to be sure.  Keep checklists if you have to.  Challenge your own assumptions.  And, if you can't figure something out (after trying to figure it out on your own of course), don't be afraid to ask for help.

Driven

Driven people want to do more than just learn, they want to do.  Be that.  Volunteer for the grunt project.  Build the template that organizes the 2,000 row spreadsheet.  Conduct the walk around survey in the office on the new product.  Help print and make the binders for the management meeting.  Take on as much as you can reasonably deliver great results against.

Resourceful

Last on the list, but probably most important.  Resourcefulness is how you show your smarts and drive in action.  Being resourceful can change you from being perceived as just a green eager beaver to someone who truly brings value to the team.  That's because resourceful people always figure out a way to get things done.  Even more than that, being resourceful shows how you think.  It gives an insight into your process, what you're already good at, and what you would need to get even better.

Being resourceful also makes your manager's job easier.  (Hint: anything that makes your manager's job easier is a really good thing for you).  It signals to him that he doesn't have to micromanage, that you are on top of your tasks, and that he only needs to be involved when or if there is an issue you can't figure out.  When you're resourceful and take projects as far as you can, it allows your manager to enter the picture only when his or her expertise is truly needed.  No manager wants to feel like they have taken a step backwards and are still doing the work they did an an entry level employee.

So how do you establish yourself as resourceful?

1.  Never just provide information, always make recommendations also.  

Anyone can parrot back info, you add value by synthesizing and drawing conclusions from it.

"I researched suppliers for X, found 12 capable of providing, and after review, Joe Blow Inc. seems the best suited because they have the best price and can meet our deadline."

2.  When you ask for help, set up the framework of why you need it.

"You asked me to research the best supplier for X, and I've found two who can meet our cost target - one with the best quality and one with the best ability to meet our deadline.  For this project, which is most important in driving the final selection?"

*Bonus Points* Still make a recommendation, even when you aren't sure.  Taking the previous example up a notch.

"You asked me to research the best supplier for X, and I've found two who can meet our cost target - one with the best quality and one with the best ability to meet our deadline.  **Since this project is so hot, I lean towards choosing the supplier who can deliver on time, but wanted to get your take on it.**  For this project, which is most important in driving the final selection?" 

3. Do your research first.  

Above, I said it's important to be driven and volunteer for more work.  But what's also important is how you do it.  When you're just asking for more, that puts the onus on the manager or colleague to stop what they're doing, find a project that would be good for you, explain it to you, and then review and edit your work.  Most of the time, it's faster for them to just do it themselves.  So eliminate all that upfront and show up prepared before you ask.

"I know your team is looking for new suppliers for X.  I did some quick research and found a few options that I think might work.  If you need help narrowing in on the right few, I'd be happy to look into these even further for you.  Could you give me a quick sense of what will be most important and drive your final selection?"

That's it.  Not complicated, not impossible.  You can still build your personal brand when your experience is limited.  As you grow in your career, you'll deepen and refine some of these areas.  You'll add even more.  But smarts, drive and resourcefulness are going to be the bedrock from which you build what will eventually become your brand.