Webinar highlights: Creating a personal brand that advances your career

May’s member exclusive webinar tackled the crucial role that personal branding plays in driving career advancement. We were joined by former agency creative director Reuben Milne who led the discussion, drawing on his industry expertise to reveal how professionals can effectively position themselves for their next major career move.

Milne has a range of experience across both B2C and B2B brands. He is also a passionate advocate of the value of development, helping individuals understand and manage their personal brand to unlock their full potential both inside and outside of work.

At the start of the session, Milne explained that his goal during the webinar was to inspire attendees to enhance their personal brand and provide simple ideas to help them further develop their professional presence.

Read on to find out his five top tips for building a personal brand.
 

Why is personal branding important? 

Milne began the webinar by quoting Jeff Bezos' definition of personal brand: “It’s what people say about you when you're not in the room.” He encouraged attendees to consider this quote, asking how much influence they have over this perception of themselves.  

Having a strong personal brand is crucial, for building trust and credibility, this is especially important for those of you in leadership roles. If you’re clear about who you are, others will be too.

Developing a personal brand statement 

Milne shared his own personal brand statement: ‘Passionate creative collaborator’ and explained how this reflects both his personal and professional identity. He went on to provide his top tips for developing your own personal statement:

Tip #1: Start with your superpowers

Be honest with yourself about what it is that you do best. List 5-10 things you consistently receive praise for. Are you good at translating complex into simple, idea generation, getting things done?

Think about what you most enjoy at work. Ask yourself whether you have hobbies or side projects that mirror your strengths. Look for patterns in what people say about you in your 360 feedback, peer comments and reviews: are you the strategist, the connector, the fixer, the storyteller, the facilitator?

What you should end up with is a raw list of strengths and behaviours, not aspirational fantasies.

Tip #2: Answer Bezos’ question: ‘What do I want people to say when I’m not in the room?’

Use Jeff Bezos’ definition of personal brand as your design brief. Ask yourself:

• Who is ‘people’?
• In what situations are they talking about you?
• What 3 words do you want to be mentioned about yourself? 

You’re looking for a target perception to aim for that you can build your statement around. Your personal brand doesn’t necessarily have to be you exactly as you are now, but if you build your statement on the person you’re aspiring to be described as, make sure it is still authentic to yourself. Milne’s advice is ‘I think the best version of yourself now, that’s what your brand should be’.

Tip #3: Refine it into 3-6 powerful words

Aim for a short, memorable headline, followed by a short explanation about what that means in practise, who you help, and how.

Here is a practical structure to follow:

1. Headline 
   [Adjective] [adjective] [role/quality] – like Reuben’s ‘Passionate creative collaborator’
2. Support sentence 1 = what you do
   “I help [who] to [do what] by [how you do it uniquely].”
3. Support sentence 2 = value and context
   “I’m at my best when [type of challenge/context].”

This short statement can be used everywhere to describe yourself, on LinkedIn, in bios, intros and CVs.

Tip #4: Use AI as a drafting partner

Milne advises that AI can help you bounce around ideas but warns against using it as the final copywriter. Feed it your superpowers list, roles you’ve loved and a few words you identify with, like ‘guide’, ‘creative’ or ‘analyst’. Then ask the tool to suggest multiple versions of a personal brand statement, varying the tone from professional to punchy. Edit the output to remove anything you don’t relate to and keep the phrasing as something you’d be comfortable saying out loud.

AI can help you remove the fear of a blank page, but make sure the final result is 100% you.

Tip #5: Be true to yourself  

A statement will only work if your behaviour backs it up. Don’t be too aspirational. Authenticity is key. Your personal brand statement must reflect your true self; you need to keep refining it until it accurately aligns with who you are.

Ask yourself: ‘If someone watched me for a week, would this feel true most of the time?’

Fulfilling your personal brand in your professional life

Your personal and professional brand should be variants of the same core identity, the key message Milne repeated throughout the webinar was to always be yourself but adjust your behaviour to be appropriate for the situation you are in.

Flexibility is a key skill to possess, adapting one's personal brand to different contexts, such as team dynamics or client expectations, is important. Milne stressed the importance of having skilful authenticity, where you can adapt your brand while remaining true to your core values.

Once you have built a personal brand that reflects the best version of you today, you must be true to that across all touchpoints, your digital presence, your emails, and how you show up in meetings, pitches, and leadership moments.

During the webinar, Milne outlined the key touchpoints for personal branding, including:

• Digital presence (LinkedIn and other social media),
• Search results, if someone Googles you, does this match your desired perception of yourself? 
• Email communications (including your out of office message),
• How you show up in meetings and pitches,
• Other professional interactions. 

You don’t need two completely different brands; you need one underlying identity expressed with different ‘volume levels’ depending on context (more formal in a board meeting, more relaxed at home, but still recognisably you).

Strong personal branding is about consistently and skilfully showing who you are, so that your credibility, reliability, and integrity become unmistakable, and career opportunities naturally follow.

Final thoughts

Creating a personal brand matters because it shapes the story people tell about you when you’re not in the room, and that story often decides who gets opportunities. It helps you build trust by making you predictable in the best way: people know what you stand for, what you’re great at, and how you’ll show up.