You And Your Personal Brand – Making Progress

Personal Brand
Margaret Adams talking about the TQS

Personal branding and making progress with building a personal brand are not issues at the forefront of many professionals’ minds. This post is about how one personal brand was built – successfully.

In the previous post I said:

There are almost limitless opportunities to building your personal brand online.

This is true, but before you think about your own situation, consider below how I built a strong personal brand over several years

Personal Branding Delivers

Remember, for you to build a successful personal brand you must look beyond yourself. Your personal brand must be packaged in a way that will be of interest to others, especially employers.

Example:

Between 2007 and 2015 I wrote well over a hundred articles for specialist journals serving teachers. My theme was consistent. It was to help teachers perform more effectively outside the classroom, improve themselves and achieve more. I wrote may articles for a specialist publication for secondary teachers called SecEd .

Here are some examples.

How to make more of your Continuous Professional Development. (CPD)

Are you in a rut with your CPD?

How far ahead can you plan your career?

Who should you have on your team?

How will you know when your induction has finished?

theatre seatsAs a result of writing regularly for this publication, I was approached by the editor of a publication for teachers in early years establishments covering the ages three to seven. I then wrote for a specialist publication for primary school teachers covering ages five to eleven.

Articles I wrote for the latter publication included:

Do you believe these CPD myths?

Which is better: an external course or in-school development?

Are you doing a good job?

How to switch off from school.

See: Primary Teacher Update

After 2010 I wrote for an online journal for Further Education (FE) lecturers. My articles included:

How to leave FE gracefully and professionally.

Is it a good thing to get rid of your prospectus?

I didn’t come into FE to . . .

I could offer many more examples. The point is that I knew my audience. I knew their concerns. I knew what was bothering them. I knew what they would be interested in reading about.

Margaret Adams - speaking
A workshop with Margaret Adams

 I knew, because I had once worked in their industry but I had kept in touch and continued to serve the further education (FE) industry after I left employment. That was many years ago and I have had numerous consultancy projects with FE over the last twenty or so years.

My personal branding also brought me new clients. (Your personal branding could help you to impress employers.)

Speaking, by invitation, at conferences reinforced the perception of me as an expert in CPD for the education world. It brought more writing opportunities, too.

I took this further with more work in the FE sector, starting with a blog entitled: Achieving The TQS.

Achieving The TQS

This blog showed me as an expert in the FE marketplace. Several colleges approached me for assistance in gaining the Training Quality Standard (TQS) as a result of reading my blog. My very narrow niche paid off. Between 2008 and 2011 I completed many TQS projects plus projects about quality in FE.

Once your name starts to be identified with a theme or with an audience, or both, you will be well on your way to creating your own personal brand. That could mean you gain a new job or that you become well-known and in demand as a speaker and workshop leader with reference to a particular theme and a defined audience.

The End Of Things. . .

I worked until near the end of 2015 on issues such as the ones identified above. There was no sign of interest declining in my field. When I stopped working with one client I then worked with another. My name was well-known via my writing. (I never advertised; people approached me.)

However, this personal branding story ended in late 2015. I will tell you more in the next post.