By: Erica Woods | Updated: 2015-02-25 | Comments | Related: More > Professional Development Branding
Problem
Our recent 'Developing your Brand as a SQL Server Professional' webcast mainly focused on reasons why it’s beneficial to engage in intentional branding in the community, and the importance of branding yourself prior to embarking upon a job search. However, branding is a strategy you also want to consider if you’re interested in expanding your skill set and responsibilities to grow within your current organization. So, what are the major benefits of branding, and how can it help you grow your skill set and career at your company?
Solution
There are several ways branding can help you within your current organization, including:
Helping grow your skill set
A big aspect of branding includes identifying admirable traits or skills, determining which of those skills you want to focus on and be known for, and then taking measures to build out and communicate those skills. In doing this, you’ll enhance your skill set and increase your marketability at the same time.
Networking benefits
Another potential result of branding is that it’ll give you an opportunity to meet other individuals within the organization you may not have worked with yet. It’s always a good idea to form relationships across multiple verticals or groups. You never know when those relationships will come in handy!
Cross-functional learning
If part of your branding plan leads you to working with individuals in other groups, you’ll likely learn from them. This can be extremely beneficial with learning a new area of the business, or even a new skill or technology. The result will be an increased knowledge base around the business as a whole, including a deeper understanding of the overall goals as well as specific goals of other business units. The more aligned and knowledgeable you are of the big picture, the better!
Increased visibility
Branding often results in increased skills development and/or involvement in an organization. For example, if you asked your boss “I’d like to get more involved in the technical strategy of our team/group. Are there any steering committees that I could join?” If you ended up joining a technical steering committee of some sort, you’d likely interact with higher-level individuals.
Building your internal reputation
A large part of your brand is how you’re perceived, both from a verbal and nonverbal standpoint. If you’re perceived to be passionate, interested, and involved, this can greatly aid in improving not only your overall reputation, but it can assist in future promotions. You are in control of your reputation. Once you’ve developed your brand and identified how you want to be seen, take a proactive approach to maintaining it and you’ll make a big impact in how people perceive you.
Career Development
Determining traits and skills you want associated with your ‘Desired Brand’ can help guide you in creating a development plan in an effort to become the best version of your professional self!
Next Steps
- At this point, hopefully you understand the benefits that can come from engaging in branding at your company. Now what? You can walk through the 4 steps we recommend: Brand Identification, Brand Determination, Brand Development/Communication and Brand Maintenance in the webcast.
- Check out all of the MSSQLTips.com Professional Development Tips.
About the author
Erica Woods has nearly a decade in the IT staffing world, an MBA, and is a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches.This author pledges the content of this article is based on professional experience and not AI generated.
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Article Last Updated: 2015-02-25
