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Personal Branding—Reinvention or Evolution?

When it comes to professional development, how do you choose between reinventing or evolving your personal brand?

BY Shoana Prasad


Starting with Fast Company’s “A Brand Called You” article written by management guru Tom Peters back in 1997, personal branding has grown to become a mainstream concept. In its simplest terms, personal branding is taking lessons from big brands and applying those concepts to brand yourself and your career. In order to do it right, however, branding requires a continual process of understanding your core competencies, skill sets, values and communications habits. After all, it’s these things that will drive your business behaviours and create a controlled perception of your professional reputation. For many, branding still remains a big and elusive concept.

As an executive coach specifically focused on personal presentation skill, style and executive branding, I work with corporate folks at all levels. All too often managers all the way to C-suite executives come to me with panic in their voice, “I’m mid-point in my career, how do I reinvent myself now?”

There may be any number of reasons to reinvent your brand, but before you start over from scratch, first consider why. The remedy to branding issues is rarely an entire reinvention, but rather an evolution to broaden and maintain your already established reputation. If you are seeking more meaningful work, reacting to a major life event, or seeking broader horizons, sometimes an evolution is driven by a desire, or simply survival.

Whether you have been strategic about how others perceive you or have been shooting from the hip your entire career, there are a few things to bear in mind when seeking to evolve your personal brand.

1.) Take stock of your current brand position

Get really clear feedback of how you are perceived by your personal and professional circles to understand if their description matches your own. And here’s the key: ask those who have given you both accolades and honest criticism on your past performance. Speaking to those who haven’t given you anything but praise is like preaching to the converted; it feeds your ego, but only tells half the story.

2.) Devise a plan

Now that you know where you are, figure out where you’re going. Regardless of whether this evolution is driven by passion or survival, you need to be realistic about your goals and resources to accomplish it within a reasonable timeline. If going back to school is a part of your plan, then you’ll need to secure financing and be mindful of how long it will take to complete. If this is more of a passion project, though resources and time are still necessary, you may have more flexibility as your plan unfolds.

3.) Focus on brand values

Regardless of what you do, sell, distribute, etc., the internal values that drive your brand behavior will not—and should not—change. True to any authentic brand, you need to stay focused on what you

believe in and what you stand for. If words like integrity, honesty and accountability are key to describing how you conduct yourself in a corporate setting, then that will not change if you downsize to a smaller company or establish your own company.

4.) Use narrative to tell the story of your brand evolution

Escaping from the linear process of typical resume writing will allow you creative control over how you communicate your transitions from one career path to another. Once you know how to tell your story, tap into your internal network and social media communities to spread the word. A critical element in telling your story is positioning from the point of view of how this benefits the marketplace, not yourself.

Hollywood loves a great overnight reinvention story, but in the everyday lives of corporate executives who are simply seeking greater satisfaction in their careers, an evolution is more realistic. Don’t be too quick to dismiss your talent, expertise and personal relationships you’ve built to date. After all, it’s that same network that will be the storytellers of your next brand evolution.


Shoana Prasad is a Course Leader at the Women of Influence Advancement Centre and offers group presentation training, one-on-one coaching and executive branding. She is an executive coach and Founder of Glenwood Consulting Group Inc. To register for one of Shoana’s courses, click here.