How to Take Your Personal Brand from Beginner to Brilliant

Expert tips on moving beyond the basics to create a professional persona that gets you where you want to go.

July 3, 2025

When Cher Jones was trying to break into broadcasting after earning a journalism degree from Humber College, she heard a sports radio anchor lamenting on his show that he was so tired of his old car breaking down, he would give it away for a free lunch to anyone who offered. Jones spotted an opportunity. “I sent him an email and said, ‘How about a free lunch and an intern?’” she says. “Within half an hour, I had an internship at CTV.”

It was the first time Jones deployed her “brand” of confidence and proactiveness to achieve a career goal, and it wasn’t the last. Early in her broadcasting career, she created a distinctive email address that captured her expertise —“Ask_SportsChick@yahoo.com”— which the people who hired her later told her helped her cut through a crowded field of applicants to land a gig on Raptors Television. Four years later, when she oversaw communications for the social development division for the city of Toronto, she used her social media prowess to distinguish herself from her colleagues, strategically leveraging her skills to the point where she was helping to make policy decisions and training others on her team.

“My entire career has been about branding myself to get opportunities and to establish my experience and value,” she says. In 2013, Jones launched her own personal branding program, designed to help corporate leaders grow in their careers. Here are some of her top tips for taking your personal brand to the next level.

Communicate your credibility

“We often lean on our job titles to communicate our value and what we do,” Jones says. “But titles are so subjective, and they’re often the worst marketers of what we bring to the table.”

Instead, she recommends articulating the value of the role you’re in rather than the role alone. For instance, the next time you’re on a call or walking into a meeting with stakeholders, Jones recommends doing more than just introducing yourself with your name and title.

“How do you set the stage for people to understand your value in the moment, in context to the reason for meeting?” she says. “Why are you relevant? Take just a few extra moments to establish some context.”

Jones calls this “value wrapping,” where you’re “wrapping” your value around the problem, the situation or the emotional atmosphere.

For example: You’re walking into a tricky meeting with a client who you haven’t worked with before. Rather than just saying, “Hi, I’m the manager of XYZ,” you might start with this: “Hi everyone, I know this is going to be a tough meeting because we have this problem to solve, but my job as manager of XYZ is to help you work through this. I’ve seen it with other clients before, so I’m confident we can figure it out. I look forward to learning everything I can do to help you find the best possible solution.”

By introducing yourself with relevant, contextual experience, Jones says, you set the tone for how your words will be received.

Build your digital profiles

Jones’ philosophy of personal brand building is focused first and foremost on real-life connections. “I have a bit of a spicy take when it comes to personal branding, especially for women in the workforce,” she says. “I think we should focus on building our brands locally before we think about going global.”

That said, Jones recognizes the usefulness of a digital footprint in building your personal brand.

“Your online presence is where people are either going to validate your credibility up front or use it to advocate for you when you’re not in the room,” she says. Just a simple LinkedIn post where someone talks about how great it was meeting you at a conference and shares a link to your profile so others can check your work out helps establish the credibility of your brand.

The key here, Jones says, is evolving from a “here’s what I’ve done” job-seeker style profile to one that clearly articulates what it is you do and why you can be trusted to do it. She recommends finding ways to present your digital self in a way that answers these questions: What problem do you solve? How do you help? And why can you be trusted?

For example, rather than just say that you ran a project, share some of the tangible impacts, like how you brought together a team who’d never worked together and helped them reach their goals ahead of schedule through your leadership.

You’ll also want to share “proof of value,” which Jones says can often be done through content.

“Content is not just for the Internet,” she says, referring to our tendency to think this means we have to start a blog or newsletter. “You can be creating content through stretch projects at work.” It could be as simple as updating your profile on your company’s internal directory, speaking at a women’s networking group, or being engaged in other company events.

Jones calls these “simple upgrades” that can have an immediate impact on your career trajectory.

Always show up looking prepared

Jones stresses the importance of putting thought and care into your appearance and how you engage with others. “Your presence matters — even in virtual meetings,” she says. “Your appearance should say you’re ready to lead.”

She also urges people to pay attention to their body language and level of engagement. “Poor posture, wandering eyes and zoning out are brand-killers,” says Jones. “Lean in, make eye contact (even through the camera lens) and engage with genuine interest. People notice if you’re truly present.”

Tend to your personal brand regularly

You can’t just write a personal branding statement and be done with it. Building a personal brand is a constant work-in-progress, Jones says, and one that needs to evolve as your career does.

For Jones, this means iterating and advancing her own personal brand through writing articles for her Substack newsletter (tagline: “The branded wheel gets the grease. I want to make sure it’s yours!”), refreshing content for one of the workshops on workplace personal branding that she gives, working on her first book and doing some regular connecting on LinkedIn, such as commenting on posts.

“Your job-hunting brand is so different than your day-to-day brand, but most people stop updating their digital profiles once they get the job,” she says. “The problem that most professionals don’t even recognize is that they’re talking about all the things they’ve done, rather than the things they do right now.”

Finally, Jones recommends updating your online profile photos regularly to reflect who you are today, not who you were five years ago. “Your brand will continue to change as much as you do.”