Who am I?
What do I stand for?
Who would I like to work with?
Three questions. Deceptively simple. Genuinely worth sitting with.
Personal branding gets discussed a great deal on media platforms, and not always kindly. The term itself can feel uncomfortable; too self-promotional, too constructed, too much like turning yourself into a product. I understand that instinct, and I share it to a point.
But here is the thing. Strip away the label, set aside the jargon, and what you are left with is something rather more human: the idea that the way we present ourselves, the values we bring to our work, and the consistency with which we show up for the people we serve all add up to something. That something has a reputation. And whether we choose to manage it or not, it exists.
Why personal branding matters — even if the term doesn’t #
Dan Schawbel is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the most cited voices on personal branding in the business world. His definition, drawn from his book Me 2.0, is worth reading carefully: personal branding, he writes, describes the process by which individuals differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, then leveraging it consistently across platforms to achieve a specific goal.
What strikes me about that definition is how little it has to do with performance or self-promotion, and how much it has to do with clarity. Knowing what you stand for. Knowing who you are trying to serve. Knowing what makes your approach distinct from the next person offering something similar.
The clarity #
That clarity doesn’t just benefit you. Research suggests it benefits the people you are trying to reach. Psychology tells us that authentic, consistent professional behaviour reduces cognitive load for prospective clients; their brains don’t have to work as hard to figure out who you really are and whether you can be trusted. When you are genuinely consistent in your values and your messaging, you make it easier for the right people to choose you. Harvard Business Review research into the drivers of trust in business relationships identifies being genuine, logical, and empathetic as the three core factors. Authenticity sits at the heart of all three.
The building blocks #
Two definitions have stayed with me, and I find myself returning to them when the question of professional identity comes up in conversation.
The first is from Schawbel himself: “A personal brand is what you stand for and what makes you special. It’s composed of values, a mission, and a positioning statement that depict what you do and who your audience is. A personal brand is an indicator for how valuable you are to your customers, team or employer at every stage of your company’s development or your career.”
The second is from entrepreneur and writer John Rampton: “Personal branding isn’t just an ad campaign or clever tagline. It’s a combination of skills, talents, values, interests, and beliefs. In short, your personal brand should be the descriptive words that you’re known by in order to make you stand out and be more memorable.”
Read those two together and something useful emerges. Your personal brand is not what you say about yourself. It is what others consistently experience when they encounter you; in a message, on a call, in a proposal, at a networking event, or through the content you put into the world. It is built quietly, over time, through repeated small interactions rather than grand declarations.
The courage to be yourself #
This is where many people get stuck. There is a temptation, when thinking about professional identity, to reach for a version of yourself that feels more impressive, more polished, or more in line with what you imagine clients want to see. The result is usually a kind of professional persona that sits slightly apart from who you actually are and that gap, however small, is something people sense.
The neuroscience backs this up. Maintaining a professional persona that doesn’t reflect your genuine self creates measurable psychological costs: stress, exhaustion, and reduced performance over time. Authenticity, it turns out, is not just more comfortable. It is more effective.
The lowest risk solution #
In B2B contexts specifically, buyers rarely choose the best solution available. They choose the lowest-risk solution. A consistent, authentic professional presence reduces their perceived risk directly; not by claiming trustworthiness, but by demonstrating it through the steady accumulation of genuine interactions over time.
Which brings me back to where we started. Three questions, worth returning to periodically rather than answering once and filing away.
Who am I? What do I stand for? Who would I like to work with?
Your answers to those questions are the foundation of everything else; your communication, your positioning, your client relationships, and ultimately your reputation.
And as that perennial favourite reminds us, with characteristic economy:
“Be yourself; everyone else is taken.” — Oscar Wilde.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
Medium: https://medium.com/@richard-bulldomican
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
