Mark Cohen, Metlife, on Building a Personal Brand

If you’re a business professional, one of the best steps you can take for your career is developing a strong personal brand. A personal brand makes it clear where your interests lie and what your professional background is. When you’re looking for new career opportunities, it’ll be easy for potential employers to find you online or find other marks of your personal brand that indicate you’re a professional at what you do. As you develop your personal brand, it can help you determine what you’d like your career path to look like and how you want to present yourself to the business world.

Choose your niche

As you go about developing your personal brand, you’ll need to decide on your niche. It’s a good idea to focus on something in your industry that you feel you know a lot about. You can have more than one niche, but avoid focusing on too many; you want to establish yourself as an expert in your area. Focus on something related to what you do and is relevant to you as a person.

Be visible online

Many people do not want to have a strong online presence, but creating online profiles and websites is one of the best ways to quickly and securely develop a personal brand. As you get to know more people, some of them are going to look you up online. You want the first results to be positive ones related to you that you can control. By developing a strong online presence for your personal brand, you’re in control of what your personal brand looks like.

Create a blog

You might not think you’re good at writing, but even creating short, informative blog posts is better than nothing. Get a website domain in your name and utilize to share your expertise and experience. Write blogs about your industry or personal experiences you’ve had while working through your career.

Get experience

If you’re at the beginning of your career, you’re going to need to get as much experience as possible. This piece of advice does not mean you should switch jobs every six months; you can also get experience through volunteering, networking, and just offering skills or help to people you know.

Network

If you want to spread your personal brand and see great benefits for your career. Attend networking events and actually talk to new people; you’ll make great connections and also be able to solidify your personal brand with other people.

Share your uniqueness

Everyone is unique in their own way. If you’re looking to create a strong personal brand that draws people to it, you need to showcase why you’re unique. There are many people out there blogging and trying to create a brand online, but you need to show that you stand out from the rest by sharing what makes you different.

About the Author

Mark Cohen is a financial professional who has previously worked at BCG Securities and Metlife. Mark has extensive experience working as a financial advisor and enjoys being able to help others successfully manage their personal finances. He feels that working in finance provides a challenging environment where there are constant developments and changes. Mark Cohen has enjoyed great success in his career and achieved much at the various companies he's worked at, including building a talented team of investors, being recognized in the top one percent of financial advisors in the country, and being recognized in the top 20 of advisors throughout the country.