Above All Else, Your Personal Brand is a Story

  • 1 min read

People love stories.

Humans learn most effectively through stories.

Friends are made by sharing stories.

Sales are closed through stories.

You are missing out on the value of your personal brand if it isn’t a story.

Stories are one of the most effective forms of social currency. They build powerful connections between ideas, people and action. They give context and robust understanding to information. They generate urgency and motivation. And, most importantly, stories create value — a lot of it.

And, to be most effective, your personal brand needs to be a story. But, not just any story, it needs to be a succinct, powerful, captivating story. It needs to make you relevant, make you powerful and inspire your audience to act. No small order.

To accomplish these lofty goals, your personal branding story needs to achieve these six things. It must:

Describe the future

Your story shouldn’t focus on your history, rather it is a story about your future impact. Its emphasizes where you are going and why you are the person who will successfully get there.

Convey relevance

Your story isn’t really about you. Its about how you are going to help them (or someone). The best stories make the audience’s benefit amazingly clear.

Lead people through a thought process

Your story walks people through a learning curve, where they find out the most important pieces of information and develop an understanding of how that will impact them.

Create an emotional connection

Beyond educating, the best stories forge a bond between the story-teller and her audience. Whether through vulnerability, candor or shared experience, stories where the audience walks away with heightened emotional intimacy is the story that wins.

Differentiate You

No matter what you are selling (service, products or yourself!), chances are there are 1, 5 or 500 competitors who are also “qualified.” Personal brand stories that differentiate, that explain exactly why you are best choice out there.

Your personal brand story changes your personal brand from history and information into a powerful unifying force for the future. It helps people understand how and why you can impact them and motivates them to action.

Picture of Rebecca Rapple

Rebecca Rapple

Rebecca Rapple has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Keith Ferrazzi’s My Greenlight and more. Your can learn more about the fundamentals of a remarkable job search on her site, The Resume Revolution.

TRENDING AROUND THE WEB

The signs of a hard childhood rarely look dramatic by adulthood, therapists who work with trauma survivors say; more often it is a habit of apologizing before speaking, flinching at a raised voice that was never aimed at them, or checking that everyone else is okay before letting themselves relax.

The signs of a hard childhood rarely look dramatic by adulthood, therapists who work with trauma survivors say; more often it is a habit of apologizing before speaking, flinching at a raised voice that was never aimed at them, or checking that everyone else is okay before letting themselves relax.

Global English Editing
A national survey found that the share of men reporting they have no close friends at all climbed from 3 percent in 1990 to 15 percent by 2021, with the steepest rise showing up right around the age most men leave the workforce

A national survey found that the share of men reporting they have no close friends at all climbed from 3 percent in 1990 to 15 percent by 2021, with the steepest rise showing up right around the age most men leave the workforce

Global English Editing
People who apologize before anyone’s said what’s wrong may be doing more than displaying extra manners — research on parentification has found that children who grow up feeling responsible for a parent’s emotional state can carry that habit of anticipating, managing, and taking responsibility for other people’s feelings into their adult relationships, long after the household that taught it is gone.

People who apologize before anyone’s said what’s wrong may be doing more than displaying extra manners — research on parentification has found that children who grow up feeling responsible for a parent’s emotional state can carry that habit of anticipating, managing, and taking responsibility for other people’s feelings into their adult relationships, long after the household that taught it is gone.

Global English Editing
People keeping a secret reported hiding it in conversation far less often than it simply came to mind on its own, and it was those uninvited moments that went with feeling worse

People keeping a secret reported hiding it in conversation far less often than it simply came to mind on its own, and it was those uninvited moments that went with feeling worse

The Vessel
Picture next week and notice which way it runs, left to right, or toward you, or away, because whichever answer you just got, there are people who grew up finding a completely different one every bit as obvious as yours

Picture next week and notice which way it runs, left to right, or toward you, or away, because whichever answer you just got, there are people who grew up finding a completely different one every bit as obvious as yours

The Vessel
There are things about a life that are worth keeping to yourself even with people you trust completely, not because there is anything shameful in them, but because privacy is one of the few forms of ownership nobody can take from you once you have given it away.

There are things about a life that are worth keeping to yourself even with people you trust completely, not because there is anything shameful in them, but because privacy is one of the few forms of ownership nobody can take from you once you have given it away.

Global English Editing
Load more
CATEGORIES
Explore