Building your personal brand through your network

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: February 16th, 2007 | 0 Comments | Posted in: Conferences, Corporate podcasting, Ireland, Networking offline, Networking online, Personal branding, Podcasting for profit, Women in business

You are probably aware that as we prospect for more clients, it is critical to ensure that we address their fundamental question before they invest in your programmes, products or services.

And what is their fundamental question?

What’s in it for me?

However I often find that we also consider that same question in our professional services practice as people approach us for information and advice.

I always encourage my clients to turn that question around and instead ask:

How can I help?

Our goal as a business leader in professional services should be to build our personal brand and personal reputation as someone who is generous and connects people in their network to the solutions and services they are looking for.

This applies even if it means that we do not immediately profit or increase our revenues in the short term. It will ensure that you build your personal brand and reputation as being considered generous, remarkable and someone that people want to do business with in the future.

Consider it another way…

How can you pay it forward?

Let me share an example with you.

Today I was online at the Irish Business Women online network where I had the honour of being the key note speaker to 250 Irish Business Women at their first ever conference in 2006.

The community are starting to plan the 2007 conference and were asking for suggestions on who to invite as guest speakers.

I nominated two fantastic Irish business women I have had the honour to work with in the last year as potential speakers for the conference. I also provided the event organiser a link to my podcast where they could hear the proposed speakers in conversation with me on the Women in Business radio show.

The opportunity I provided for the event organiser to listen to the potential speakers on the podcast was so compelling that they immediately contacted me about my proposal for these two speakers to be the star attractions for the conference this year.

We then spent time discussing the agenda and flow of the day and I then agreed to connect the event organiser for the Irish Business Women conference to my colleagues.

Many times we look for opportunities to build our profile and in fact I could have looked to position myself as a speaker again at the conference.

However what I realised is that offering access to my network and providing assistance in shaping the event builds my reputation as someone the event organiser and my business colleagues will want to do business with again.

The event organiser is thrilled as they have a terrific agenda and guest speakers for this years Irish Business Women’s conference.

And my colleagues are delighted that they were both nominated by me and have secured an opportunity to speak at the conference to 250 Irish Business Women without even having to pick up a phone or write a proposal.

I have now created equity in my network and in my personal relationships and I am sure that at some stage in the future this investment will be more that realised.

So the next time you get an opportunity to promote your business, consider how you too could pay it forward.

Building your personal brand equity over the long term together with your short term profits will ensure that you survive the ever increasingly competitive market place in professional services.