I’ve been doing a lot of work these days with entrepreneurs and senior executives to help them boost their online personal brand images – which largely entails giving their LinkedIn profile a much-needed makeover, reworking their biography, and possibly creating a personal brand website.

With the job market in such distress and people out of work, today I am giving back by sharing some free guidance on how to write your personal brand statement.  If reworking your LinkedIn profile, resume, cover letter or bio is on your ‘to do’ list, you’ll want to read on.

As a marketer at heart, I treat my clients as if they were a product.  “Brand U” I call it.  I start with a personal brand audit to understand their target market and the problems they solve, then explore their values and guiding principles and their brand purpose – what they stand for.  The goal is to articulate their unique value proposition (UVP).  I use this format:

• I am – Who you are?  The Title you would give yourself.
• I help – Who do you add value to? This is your audience.
• So that – The type of transformation your audience should expect to receive.

We then put it all together into one personal brand statement, which serves as messaging that can be consistently deployed in all communications.

It’s really about asking the right questions.  My favorite is “If you were a product, what are the three top reasons someone would buy Brand U”?

For LinkedIn, short brand purpose statements make great titles (to replace traditional job titles) and your personal brand statement is the essence of the story you want to convey in the About section of your profile.

I’ve summarized this personal brand statement development process in a step-by-step e-workbook.  You can download your FREE copy here.  

Reach out if you need some help.