Top Tools for Telling Your Personal Brand Story

The right messaging elements help leaders express their personal brand and effectively connect with their audiences.

As a leader, you may have observed that the people in your audiences expect you to do the messaging work for them! Your audiences want to trust you—and their trust will be built on your ability to express who you are and what you stand for in ways that respond to who they are.

We keep this in mind as we help leaders like you develop these three key tools—and others—for expressing who they are and their individual “why”:

1. Overarching brand statement. This defines the one thing a leader wants the audience to know. It can be stated in this format: “I exist to serve by __________.”
2. Value summary paragraph. This is akin to the description of an author found on the inside cover of a book. It includes bullet points with metrics of the leader’s three to five defining career accomplishments.
3. Big relevant change you want to make in the world. This is the mission, cause, crusade, market force or personal interest that’s most meaningful to the leader.

Leaders’ messaging tools must be developed with care and thoughtfulness to ensure that they connect with their key audiences.

For example, as people listen to a leader, they are hoping to find that this leader is in tune with their interests, attitudes and opinions; understands their personality and values; and has taken their lifestyle into account.

Leaders can know their messaging tools are likely to help them communicate effectively if they can answer “yes” to each of the following questions:

• Is my messaging clear?
• Is my messaging distinctive?
• Is my messaging consistent?

How is your brand messaging right now? Would developing these tools help you tune up its effectiveness?

Mary E. Maloney, FACHE

An executive advisor, educator, speaker, author and producer, Mary E. Maloney is the founder of Revealing Genius and the expert that accomplished leaders trust for positioning, messaging and brand strategy for themselves, their teams and their organizations. A former CEO and CMO, Maloney guides healthcare C-suite leaders, founders, physicians and board directors to powerfully and strategically message their expertise and “why” so they lead with conviction and achieve their most coveted goals. She is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE), one of only ~8,000 in the world to earn the credential, the benchmark for board certification in healthcare management.