It takes more than just a solid CV and a solid track record to make an impression as a financial or accounting professional. Your personal brand greatly influences your career journey in this digital age. Consider your uniqueness in your profession to be your personal brand. It’s how you show the world your abilities, knowledge, principles, and professional goals.
Personal Brand — like it or loathe it, we all have a personal brand! I love the quote attributed to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: -“It’s what people say about us when we’re not in the room.” So, it’s not in our control then? Ok, it’s not in our direct control, and yet we definitely can influence it. In this article, we’ll cover the amazing importance of personal branding in your accounting profession, and how it can help you to progress your career and establish yourself as a respected professional in the field.
How Personal Branding Impacts Accounting Career Development
Everything we do or say either supports, strengthens or dilutes our personal
brand. So let’s do what we can about it then. Building a solid personal brand is essential for professional advancement as an accountant or finance professional. It distinguishes you, increases credibility, and draws in chances for advancement. Personal branding aids in career transitions, getting noticed by employers, and connecting with industry leaders. In the same way that a business builds its brand identity, a strong personal brand transforms into a defining characteristic that encapsulates your aim, message, and objectives. It highlights your abilities, experiences, and values, which is why building a personal brand can help you advance in your career.
The Power of Personal Branding
Ultimately, we can shape our personal brand any way we want! Sometimes
someone might take a bold move if they’re starting out a in new chapter somewhere, e.g. a
new role in a new company. However, if we’re pretending to be something that we really are not, then this can be exhausting, and ultimately we’re going to get “found out”. For this reason, our personal brand is often pretty close to who we already are. But maybe a brighter (or more intentional) version of this, through polishing up the parts we want to stand out most.
The positive impact of an intentional personal brand can be huge, including being:
- Invited to more or different meetings
- Considered for special projects
- More successful in interviews
- Invited to take part in internal or external opportunities
- Promoted
You can learn more about the power of personal branding and how to utilise it for career success in our blog post “Using your personal brand for career success”.
Building a Powerful Personal Brand in Your Accounting Career
I’m often asked how we should figure out what our personal brand should be in the course of my coaching. My answer is simple. “How do you want to show up?”, “ What do you want people to be saying about you?” The answers to these questions may well evolve over time. This could be related to how people relate to us, e.g., she is a very supportive manager, he is a safe pair of hands. Alternatively, it could be related to our career prospects, e.g. she is a future leader, or he is operating at X level, if we want to be perceived as “promotion ready”.
This first step of deciding how we want to show up is really important and can only be decided by you, so this could require some self-reflection up front.
- Asking others’ opinions at this stage isn’t necessarily going to be as authentic to you as it needs to be. It’s also worth thinking about the present or past rather than how you want to show up in the future. Once you’re clear on how you want to show up, the next step is getting an external perspective on how you’re actually showing up today. This external perspective is valid.
You can look at recent feedback from appraisals or 360 assessments, if available. I find this simple technique to be the most useful: ask 3-5 people for 3-5 words to describe you. The chances are that they’ll take the time to do this, partly because it’s you and partly because it’s not such a big ask.
You’ll probably also notice a few things:
- The words are often positive: this is great as it can give you a confidence boost.
- If you do have some words of a more constructive nature, this could also be useful as it means they truly care about you (and your development) and have been open and transparent.
Looking at the words received, you may notice some patterns:
- Same words/similar words coming up again and again.
- A few different words depending on how you act and are perceived in different situations.
This is all great! Pick out the key trends from these. This is great feedback on how you show up today!
Then compare this back to how you want to be perceived. The difference between your aspirational personal brand and how you are perceived today is the gap you need to close.
Remember, everything you do and say either supports, strengthens, or dilutes your brand. What actions can you take today? What can you consistently do to help support your personal brand? Small actions done consistently over time can make a big difference.
We all work with people, and their perceptions can impact us greatly. Take control of your personal brand today.
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Chinese proverb.
