“You Are The Brand” webinar: Taking the reins of your personal brand

There is just one decision to make when it comes to your personal brand: Take the reins and call the shots, or let others do the job for you.

Either way, you get the personal branding you deserve.

In our recent “You Are The Brand” webinar, our panel of experts, Richard Henderson, Fady Ramzy, and Ethan Nacif Andreu showed our audience that personal branding is an investment and must therefore be intentional.

Category of One

Richard – who has over 40 years of experience in corporate branding, advising CEOs and top-level executives on their branding challenges – is a lover of analogies. He brought his expertise to bear on personal branding, conjuring a ruler to demonstrate two ways to approach personal branding.

He said you can be like a ruler oriented horizontally and be many things to all people. Or you can be like a ruler oriented vertically, with just a narrow set of qualities that make you unique.

“What I think we need to do for a personal brand is realize it is not about noise. It is not about being famous. It is not about clicks. What it is about is becoming a category of one. To be a category of one, you have to work out who you are, what you do, and why it matters,” he said.

Indeed, this matters when you work on being visible online.

The four C’s framework

Fady – an executive visibility strategist who helps leaders position themselves for board influence, advisory opportunities, and thought leadership – is a lover of frameworks.

For him, personal branding is about being visible in a very relevant and useful way. He has a four C’s framework for it: clarity, consistent content, and conversation.

For example, clarity in your profile for, say, LinkedIn. Is your value proposition clear within the first few seconds of viewing your profile? Do you have consistent content that shows your expertise and unique value proposition? Are you engaging in conversations that help your audience?

“If you are just bragging, no one cares. That harms your reputation. If you help a specific person solve a specific problem based on your expertise, you build trust,” he said.

And this is where authenticity comes in.

Making values visible

Ethan – a fashion stylist and freelance creative who has collaborated with Oscar and Grammy Award-winning or nominated artists – is a lover of authenticity in building your personal brand.

For him, it is about communicating what you stand for. It is about “showing your perspective, your process, and the results of your work in an organic way.”

“Authenticity comes from alignment between what you say, how you look, and what you do. When your actions, your work, and the way you present yourself tell the same story, it doesn't feel like marketing. It feels like clarity,” he said.

“Personal style isn't about fashion; it is about making your values visible.”

So are you ready to take the reins of your personal brand? 

Richard, Fady, and Ethan shared a lot more to our audience during the webinar, which was moderated by Barbara Pesel, chair of IABC Asia Pacific and Managing Director of award-winning Pesel and Carr, a strategic communications agency.

We have made the recording of the webinar available to all attendees. It is also available to IABC APAC members.

If you wish to become a member and get access to our webinars and other events, please go to https://www.iabcapac.com/membership.