Rebranding Your Personal BrandIt is Time - Career Pivot

Rebranding Your Personal Brandâ€"It is Time - Career Pivot Rebranding Wikipedia defines rebranding as: Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors, competitors, and other stakeholders. I am going to define personal rebranding as: The process of creating a new, updated personal brand that is related to your previous personal brand. There are times when a personal brand needs a faceliftâ€"often by taking past experiences and relating them to the current world we live in. Rebranding in the Corporate World Companies need to update their image from time to time. A classical example is Apple. When Apple was named Apple Computer, their logo looked like this: When Apple Computer rebranded itself as Apple, they changed their logo to: Apple had transformed from a computer manufacturing company to a consumer electronics company. They needed a new brand logo, but notice that the new logo still resembled the old. Listen to the most recent episode This is not a new brand, but a rebrand. For More:What is a Personal Brand? â€" Guest Post Rebranding â€" Your New Personal Brand My favorite definition of a personal brand is as follows: “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room” â€"Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon Sometimes we just need to move on from our jobs, industries, or professions. We need to translate our talents and skills into a new arena. I recently went through a rebranding process with a client, and I want to use his story as an example. Jim retired early from a company that made sensors for the transportation industry. This is a very niche industry that, while it is stable, only has room in it for a few players. After aa while he decided that retirement was boring. He decided to go back to work in a sales or business development position. He did not want to return to the transportation industry. In his previous life as a business development and product manager, Jim had grown his sensor products from zero to $20M in revenue over a 4-7 years. He had a pretty decent track record, so we just had to figure out the best way to translate this experience to a new industry. For More:Talents versus Skills â€" Do you know the difference? Translating Experience As it turned out, that translation was pretty easy (might have been easy for me because of my technology experience). The sensors he worked with did the following: Communicated data over a network to a central controller Generated alerts when error occurred Updated software via the network Monitored sensors from the central controller My first thought was that this sounded a lot likethe latest trend ofInternetof Things (IoT). After doing some research, we found a subset ofIoTcalled Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). IIoT mapped very closely to what Jim had worked on previously. Rebranding Statement We came up with the brand statement of: I was doing IoT before it was called IoT! His LinkedIn profile has IoT and IIoTeverywhere it makes sense and it tells the story on how what he did for the last 10 years of his career maps directly toIoT. When Jim went to networking events, he felt comfortable telling people, “I was doing IoT before it was called IoT!” He felt comfortable saying this becauseit was true. This rebranding process landed Jim a contract business development position with an IoTtechnology startup. We will use this position to develop somestreet credin theIoT andIIoTspace. The rebranding or mapping of his talents and skills directly into this new space made it clear he had the expertise. For More:Changing Industries to Smart Grid Conclusion This was a fairly easy translation of Jim’s experience from one industry into another. It is not always this easy. You will likely need to get help from someone who works in your target industry. Between your expertise in your previous industry and the expertise from the person who is helping you, you can develop your own rebranding statement. Have you gone through a rebranding process? Please tell us your story in the comment section below. Marc Miller Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights! Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...