Fake It Til You Make It

Yes, your organization has or should have a branding plan for itself, but do you, personally, have a branding plan for you and your career?  How are you preparing to move up the career ladder?  Have you set a goal for yourself and then created a brand for yourself to help you achieve that goal?

These questions were front and center during the Advancing Women in IT Community breakfast at the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting this morning in Chicago.  To a packed room of 60+ women and men, Kyra Cavanaugh, president and founder, Life Meets Work, discussed how you can move up in your career by developing your own brand.  She offered several key steps:

1. Look around at others.  Analyze their brand.   Decide what you want your brand to be.  Cavanaugh related how when she first walked into corporate conference rooms, she didn’t have a voice or brand.  She first had to determine what she wanted it to be.
2. Align your brand with your mission.  With a mission, you can’t say “yes” to everything.  Do the things that support your mission. Saying “yes” to everything can mean saying “no” to yourself and what you really want your brand to be.
3. Don’t take no for an answer. Follow the little voice in your head.  Know that you can do anything.
4. Fake it til you make it.  Act like you belong.  When Cavanaugh launched her consulting business in an industry that she did not have any history with, she gave away things for free and slowly built a bridge to the future while she learned who was who.
5. Never go to a networking event with a friend.  You have to get out and network.  Cavanaugh bemoaned the lost art of information interviews.  She had reached out to people that she wanted to be like in her industry and learned how they made it.  She also went to every networking event possible.  She recommended walking into the event, getting a non-alcoholic drink and picking out people who are already engaged in conversation and then joining the conversation.
6. Be brave.  It’s not easy to network and build your own brand, but believe in yourself and be bold.
7. Be generous at first, but only to a point.  Eventually cut back and learn how to negotiate to support your value once you’re more established.
8. Be authentic.  Speak the truth – don’t bash the competition, but make your brand authentic to whom you are.
9. Evolve your branding and networking efforts to fit with what you need.  Consider blogging, posting videos or presentations, or network outside your organization to get your brand out in front of your target audience.