Features

CREATING A POWERFUL BRAND OF PROFESSIONAL IMAGE

Shakespeare wrote “A rose by any other name is still a rose...” A product by any other look or name may not exactly be the same. 

A professional image has the same person but may remain the same or is dramatically changed. An image is a brand and a brand creates an image based on what it serves and carries within itself in the product (BLURB). Apply this to a professional image of a man or woman, the same principles apply. The results follow how the principles are applied.

Let us take a consumer product as metaphor of creating a professional image. You may pick a product of your choice like a car, a house or building, or a perfume. If you were a product, what would you be? Describe the features and qualities of the product you represent. What are the differentiating factors of the product compared to other products in the same type? These will determine your target market group. It is the beginning of identifying what brand of professional image you create. 

Examine that image. Do the external visual elements or what the public sees and knows clearly express what you are as a professional? Does that image run consistent to your personal self? What are the diversifications or gaps in the professional and personal qualities in your own wholistic profile? 

The entirety of your profile creates your brand as a professional. More importantly, the person in you and that is, you must integrate both into the one singular image - in the behavior, visible qualities, practiced values and principles of walking your talk in the professional and personal arena. A split of the two facets will create some dissonance in perception of the image, and more visibly, in the practice of values and principles at work.

The same is applied to the brand of companies and professional organizations. Regardless of whoever sits at the helm of leadership, the image of the company must be aligned and consistent with what it stands (BLURB) for in its corporate governance, products or services, management practices, and most importantly, the people they keep. The top leadership must align itself to all those. It should be able to walk their talk firmly on solid grounds while delivering customer satisfaction and stakeholder ROI.

In creating a powerful brand of professional image, the following elements must be clear, aligned and focused. Such that, there is natural or enormous confidence in the way you carry through your career without trading values and principles to keep a job. And there is enormous ability to navigate your career in new fields or expanded expertise when your market has dramatically changed.

1. SYNERGY OF CORE COMPETENCE: Your skills create your competence. The skills and areas of application may be diverse or in the same line, but there is a very notable logical interdependence of each area to another and a positive boosting synergy of each one to the other creating a chain of competence. 

This connectivity makes the differentiating factor or unique feature about you as a professional. Try to discover other personal qualities that you can nurture to add up into the other skills. And form new sets of skills that eventually form a new area of competence.

2. SYNERGY OF EDUCATION WITH TRAINING INTO TOTAL EXPERIENCE. Most people choose a course at one time and end up doing another diverse thing. That is alright provided you are able to connect the core valuable facets of your education with the addition or complementary training you got or a discovery of a new skill along the way in your profession such as financial management or business process outsourcing. 

To do this to ourselves, we must be able to appreciate other resumes bearing the same features. As People Managers, we cannot box-in the capacity of people to excel in a new field. This is what multiple intelligence is all about. The same is true as applied to creating your own brand. Nothing and no one can stop you from diversifying into a new field provided you are aware of what to capitalize on from your core competence as you acquire new education hands-on or in school or from training.

3. PACKAGING OF IMAGE AND VISUAL QUALITIES. Image is what people see – from your physical attributes to the way you talk, walk or even write. You do not have to look like the demi-god of beauty as a woman or as a man. Focus on how the first quadrant of your body presents itself. The one from the top of your head to the shoulders. Does that face have a nice smile, good set of teeth (natural or prosthetic), clean skin regardless of color, well-kempt hair suited to your image?

Try to use image enhancers such as make-up, laser correction of scars, non-surgical or surgical lifts of sad-looking eyes that make you look tired. Make use of cosmetic dentistry to give you the toothy smile that makes you approachable even from afar. Clothes help in carrying your image – use colors that create a positive impact and don’t be afraid to stay away sometimes from the blacks or blues and browns. Try pastel colors to make you look softer once in a while especially if you are facing a difficult meeting or negotiation.

Go into the next two quadrants of your body – from the chest down to the torso. Don’t be afraid to lose a lot of extra pounds. It is healthy to be fit, and you look lighter and agile. Discipline is important in any profession. Our bodies speak louder that discipline we are talking about. It is not vanity. It is health in the strictest sense. It does not have to be muscular or slim, just right weight. And you feel better. It goes back into your efficiency and effectiveness due to the positive impact it has on your self-esteem.

4. COMMUNICATION FACILITIES. Every written and spoken word is a cornerstone we cast into the minds and hearts of people. It comes with qualities of sincerity and humanness. The spoken word no matter how painful can be lathered by humor and the ability to repartee with more wit. After all, why do we have to edit the truth? 

We have to speak with integrity, but try to spice it with some metaphor or cushion it with conviction and delay of response. What we write and talk about speaks louder than our resumes or titles. They can either affirm or confuse it. It is better to correct lapses in grammar or pronunciation especially if we have high positions. Better to go to a speech clinic than end up feeling grumpy or wondering why a promotion was missed. Get a personal coach for speaking or writing, and be willing to spend on it as investment on yourself.

5. ANCHORS OF IMAGE. Most people rely on who they know more than the real base of power. Primarily, our practices stem from our ability to check our paradigms with irrefutable principles. 

Values are relative and they function better if aligned with or by principles. They help us develop our quotient for handling ambiguity, adversity and complexity. We do not need to be afraid if we discover that we do not have to be the same as all the others or to be excellent when the rest want mediocrity. This base is latched on to a strong spirit founded on being true to self. It helps if this is confirmed by spiritual validations in activities that challenge our comfort zones of understanding what is and what is not, culled not from conventional knowledge or historical wisdom. 

We create a powerful differentiator when we find our anchors in the principles and examples of the people who we love and our chosen mentors in the professional and personal arena of our lives. The more diverse and integrated they are, the better is our check and balance to our perceptions. 

The same is true with our teams in the company, if they think along the same streak, nobody will challenge the status quo and no innovation can take place. And the brand image stays stagnant instead of evolving into a dynamic process.
Roses are red. Violets are blue. When you find a blue rose and a violet that is red, then it is time to call them a new name without being oblivious to the fact that this is a rose and that is a violet. Both are flowers. This is what branding is all about. You can remain a rose or a violet. But by all means, you can change all the other elements that make you a different rose or violet. 

Carry what brings you real power – inside and out as a professional and a person; nothing like being true to self. It sets you free to choose any field you want to excel in. The boundaries are only in your imagination. Empower your imagination. And the results are endless.

Grace Rallos-Bakunawa, PR and Publicity Com Chair