Everything in life has an opportunity cost associated with it. By choosing one thing you are as a result unable to chose another — choose to spend one hundred dollars and you give up the ability to save one hundred dollars — choose to go to the movies and you can’t go to the beach at the same time. The choices you make about building your personal brand are no different.
Lost opportunity costs
Here are some of the lost opportunity costs you choose by not creating your personal brand.
- Your achievements will go largely unnoticed by those who can help you.
- You will not have a way to promote yourself effectively to superiors and decision makers.
- Unsolicited opportunities will be unable to find you.
- You will receive fewer opportunities to advance your career.
- It will take you longer to reach your self-defined goals.
- You will not have a way of differentiating yourself from the pack.
- Google will not index you and your page rankings will suffer and go unnoticed.
- You will have less credibility than those who do have a powerful personal brand.
- You will constantly be searching for the next opportunity instead of letting them find you.
- You will fall behind those who have personal branding savvy.
- You will not have a forum to share your expertise and advance your thought leadership.
- You will make less money than you could otherwise.
- The top ranking person for your name will own your search results.
- Others will shape your personal brand, despite whether it’s true or not.
- Promotions at work may go to less qualified candidates because you couldn’t show your unique value.
- You will have a smaller social network and social network safety net.
- You will meet less people and build fewer relationships.
Did any of those sound good to you? Of course not! Who would want to have any of the above happen to them? No one in their right mind. It simply doesn’t make sense to not begin building your personal brand right away. There are too many great opportunities to be had to wait any longer!
