Personal Branding Basics- Start Your Journey Part 1 of 3

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Personal branding has become an essential tool for leaders and entrepreneurs. In this video I share insights into personal branding in the first part of this Personal Brand series.

Why Personal Branding Matters

Personal branding is more than just a buzzword; it’s a crucial aspect of your professional identity. It defines how others perceive you and can significantly impact your career trajectory. For Jens, the journey of personal branding began with a need to redefine himself outside the constraints of a corporate identity. He emphasizes that personal branding is not about being overly outspoken but about finding and expressing who you truly want to be.

Step 1: Identify What’s Important to You

Jens suggests starting with introspection. Ask yourself, “What is important to me?” For Jens, generating impact and working through and with people were paramount. These values drove his decision to leave a secure position at Ikea and pursue a path that aligned with his true passions. Identifying what motivates you is the first step in crafting a personal brand that resonates with your core values.

Step 2: Understand Your Strengths

Knowing what you’re good at is essential. Jens highlights his strengths in connecting people, motivating others, and his hands-on approach to tasks like social media marketing and podcasting. Recognizing your strengths allows you to leverage them effectively in your personal and professional life.

Step 3: Set Goals for Improvement

Continuous improvement is a hallmark of successful personal branding. Jens identifies areas he wishes to enhance, such as his selling skills, patience, and writing. Acknowledging and working on your weaknesses not only makes you more self-aware but also more authentic.

Step 4: Define Your Legacy

Consider what you want to be known for at the end of your career. For Jens, being the voice of human innovation and emphasizing the importance of the human factor in business are key elements of his desired legacy. This long-term vision guides daily actions and decisions, ensuring consistency and authenticity in his personal brand.

Step 5: Align Your Brand with Your Business

Jens stresses the importance of aligning your personal brand with your business objectives. A strong personal brand can be a significant asset, especially in the startup world where personal and business reputations are closely intertwined. Iconic leaders who embody their brand values often lead more successful and resilient companies.

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Building a personal brand is a journey that requires introspection, continuous improvement, and strategic alignment with your professional goals. Jens Heitland’s experiences and insights provide a valuable roadmap for anyone looking to start or refine their personal branding journey. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, where Jens will delve deeper into the practical steps of personal branding.

By understanding and implementing these basics, you can begin to create a personal brand that not only reflects your true self but also enhances your professional success.

Transcript of the video:

Personal branding. I got a lot of questions over the last two years  and I  did this as part of my journey.

 Part of my journey was rebranding myself because I was always the person that. Was working inside of large corporate, you  normally have  to represent the brand specifically if you are in a higher paid position in your management position than everything you say on social media.

Everything you say, wherever outside of this is seen as you are an  employee of that company and you're representing them. And that's what you need to be aware of. So I have never been outspoken openly with my opinion because I was always feeling stuck in that corporate world. And I think it was right in that context.

And then I've completely rebranded myself. And it, you don't need to be extremely outspoken, but it's more about finding who you want to be.  So the right side is where we want to go. Who do you want to be? And the other questions are leading questions, which enable us to get there. So I've prepared a couple of things for us just to give you a little bit understanding of this.

So first question is, what is important to me? So if we take myself again, generating impact that's a huge thing for me. That's why I've left Ikea. I want to generate impact in this world. And another thing is through and with people. So this are the two most important things in my life obviously family and so on.

But from a personal branding perspective and business perspective, these are the things, this is the most important for me. Yes, I want to earn money. Yes, I want to be in a good spot when it comes to certain things, but that's not the most important thing for me.

So what is motivating you?

And if we that now links the other sheets as well together, if you see that

one thing for me is seeing people succeed.  Everyone who has ever worked with me on a one-on-one level or in a corporate setting knows that I'm focused on helping people to succeed. I have a lot of examples will not go into stories right now where I help people to succeed far further than I have ever come, most roughly ever will come. 

So what I'm good at,  super important to understand this as well. So for me it's connecting people linked to my superpower that you see as well. That this things are connected. Then motivating,

which is a little bit linked to the human aspect of what I do. And motivating is not the old school way of, Hey I'm just shouting at you. That's why I'm trying to find your intrinsic motivations that help you to succeed in what you're doing. Then I'm a builder, but I'm also an operator.

So whatever I do, I know how to do. You can ask me about how I cut podcast, how I do social media, marketing. I know all of this myself because I do it myself. And I love to understand it myself, even if I'm not doing it myself anymore. When I'm delegating, I still  know and dive deeper into all the different topics.

So  what do I want to improve is always an important question for yourself as well. One thing I want to improve, just to give you an example, is selling. I know the processes of selling, but I have still a lot of opportunities in this place to, to grow

Patience. I'm super inpatient. So that's a big topic I want to improve. I always am eager to move quicker than most of the other people. And another topic is writing. So these are things I want to improve.

What are the things you want to improve? What are the things where you say, Hey, if I'm improving this just a little bit, that's helped me to do things in a different way. So you see this all is linked to what we have done before. What do I want to be known for so often a question you get asked from a coach.

That's where I have it from because I'm an educated coach. If you are at the end of your life, what are the things you want to be known for? And most of the time these are things you don't value today. And that can be family, this can be this things. But if we talk about personal branding, from a work perspective?

What are the things that are important to you in life, but as well that are linked to your company, that are linked to your startup, that are linked to your product?  If we take myself as I want to be known for the importance of the human factor in this world.

And again, everything I do, if you follow me on social media, you will see that everything I do is connected to this. Everything we do with succeed is focused on human enabling you as startup founder, to succeed in what you are doing as a human with other humans. So that's why I'm focusing on these things, and that's, I have ingrained this from my dad and from my granddad.

So that's something I have since childhood in myself. I've never formulated  exercises like this. Help me to formulate that and be very clear about this. What do I want to be known for? And that's one of my, one of my main goals. I want to be the voice of human innovation. This is, and that might sound silly.

This for me, it's that's the specific thing I want to be known for. I want to be the person in this world that says, Hey, you can do all the different processes in any large organization. If you're not taking care of the people inside of your organization, it's not going to happen. There are a lot of reasons I will not go too much into my topics right now.

It's more for you to find out who do you want to be, what do you want to be known for. There are a couple of more things of course I want to be known for. I'm just trying to make it as easy as possible. So for you to get into that as well,  if you have understood this is okay. If you want to be the voice of innovation in, in, in my case,  Then how do you build this brand?

How do you build this? How can you put yourself out there through what you do with a business though that I say  personal brand, this is linked to your business. Because what I have found out over studying this the last  almost five years now, that brands who have iconic leaders are better companies with iconic leaders are better and iconic.

 Not in a bad way. There are a couple of bad examples in this world, and there are a couple of good examples in this world. But it all starts with  what are you willing to do? Where, who do you want to be and what do you want to be known for? And that guides you into a specific direction, and then you can put yourself into that direction.

Because one of the things is we are working in a startup environment, we know that every, I think it's every second startup goes bust in the first five years, and we need to be aware of this. So building your brand, your personal brand is one of the biggest assets you have because even if your startup goes bust, you keep your personal brand and that might help you to do the second startup more successful. 

Just being aware of that helps you. And of course it helps you as well to find  employees because you are the main salesperson of your company and it helps you to find investors and so on.