The 5 Ps of Personal Branding (2024)

Personal branding is a significant and oft-lectured on subject lately. Let me opine from my perspective.

First of all, many folks start the conversation with something along the lines of: should I build one? Should I have one? Should I start one? Or, demonstrating some bit of understanding of the subject, should I invest in one?

Let me be unambiguously clear: if you have any degree of a digital footprint, you have a personal brand, and it is global. Even if you don’t have a digital footprint, you have a personal brand, it’s just more local.

It used to be, in the old days, that only those you worked with knew that you were great or otherwise. Now the whole world with any degree of digital touch can see that you’re an absolute talent, and you can demonstrate that quality to the whole universe quite easily.

So the answer to these questions is yes. By definition of a positive answer to the first, you should certainly invest in one. With those two points as my underlying principles, let me give you five Ps to personal branding which are born out of my experience in the space.

The five Ps are: Personal, Pointed, Purposeful, Prioritized, and then ultimately (broadly defined, if you wish it to be) Profitable.

Number one, Personal.

Sorry for the BGO (or blinding glimpse of the obvious), but your personal brand is personal. It’s about you. Don’t create brand confusion between you personally and who you work for, the company’s brand, one of their brands, or any other associations you may have. Yes, certainly, your association with other entities colors your own, but they are not yours. Borrow some brand equity if some of what that brand represents is something you also believe passionately (there’s another P for you). But make it about you. Hopefully your personal brand, and the brand of your employer, can coexist together but be unique. You should be able to replace the word “brand” with “reputation” and they still overlap and be positively accretive to each other. But your personal brand is yours and yours alone.

It is the digital reputation for which the marketplace (in this case the entire universe potentially) knows you. Don’t confuse others brands with yours. Don’t let others do it for you. Yours is yours.

Number two, Pointed.

This means you’re answering the question for yourself (in your personal branding) of “what do I stand for?” What do you want to be known for? What are your priorities? What is important to you?

Have an end result in mind for why you’re working on your personal brand. When I say “pointed,” that answers the question of “why am I doing this?” Pointed implies a very sharp tip, very unambiguous, not blunt but pointed.

Number three, Purposeful.

You’ve got an end result, you know what you stand for, and what you want your reputation to be, and you have the area you have some expertise in. Great. What is the plan (there’s another P for you) to make all of that purposeful? What are the journey, strategy, and tactics you’re going to employ towards that end?

If I’m at starting point A in my personal brand, and I have determined that I want to accomplish B with it, then charting the course from A to B is quite straightforward, but you need to be purposeful in the steps you take. One hint to do this is to engage a third party to help you think outside of yourself a little more strategically. This allows you to think clearly through your strategy and your tactics.

Number four, Prioritized.

At certain times and seasons, your personal brand will be your number one priority. Maybe when you first kick it off, maybe when you’re trying to establish that foothold, it is a very high priority. There’ll be other times and seasons, particularly as your brand gets some rhythm and achieves a toehold in the market, where it may fall down the prioritization list. That’s ok, but it needs to be prioritized as something that is important to you. Don’t mistake prioritization for the fact that it should always be priority one. Don’t become so egocentric, believing your own press releases, that your personal brand is always priority one. That’s the quickest way to undo a solid and substantive personal brand.

It does need some priority, but not always the top spot. It will change based on its life cycle. Your personal brand is informed by the other work and priorities you have. And the season that you happen to be in.

Number four, Profitability.

If you want to, there are certainly possibilities to make money from your brand. If you’ve got something substantive to say, you can deliver value to the marketplace as part of your brand.

But I’m using the word “profitable” with a much broader definition. What are the intrinsic and measurable returns for which you’re looking? Do you just want to be seen as someone that has the competence and the confidence to answer folks’ questions? Do you want to be the resident expert? Do you want to be someone that is positively accretive to others lives? Do you want to actually make some money? What is the ROI that you’re seeking here, broadly defined?

That is the ultimate measurement of the “so what” question.

This is the framework that I would suggest you should ponder and strategize and pursue for your personal brand. It should be personal, it should be pointed and very, very, very clear. It should be purposeful and it should be correctly prioritized. If you do all of those things, you’ll be successful in the ultimate goal of personal branding — adding values for others.

You already have a personal brand, either local or global. It’s already being worked on for you by others or by yourself, whatever you do. So be more purposeful, be more pointed, make it more personal, and prioritize it appropriately amongst everything else you’re doing in your life.

That is powerful personal branding.