Katie Baird's Quick Coaching Moment: Defining Your Professional Brand
Welcome to our Quick Coaching Moment series with Scout Guide Houston Volume 6 member Katie Baird of Baird Coaching. Once a quarter, our Scouted Expert will check in to share tools + insight she employs with her clients every day. Intended for readers at every stage of their life and career, Katie’s Quick Coaching Moments will cover everything from reflective journaling to beating burnout, offering deeply impactful, industry-leading insight with a healthy dose of good humor along the way. Learn more about Katie and the services she offers and keep an eye on Instagram for the latest updates on Quick Coaching Moments.
Today, we chat about defining your professional brand. We’ll let Katie take it from here…
In my work as a professional coach, I specialize in helping clients approach professional transitions, and it’s my goal to empower them to face those transitions with intentionality, clarity, and graceful confidence. In my experience, professionals are able to do so only if they have a clear and accurate understanding of their professional brand.
What then, is a “professional brand?” Throughout my years as a professional coach, I’ve come to define “professional brand” as the intersection between accomplishments, notable impacts, unique characteristics, and passions. It should align to one’s professional vision.
I emphasize the importance of professional branding because it offers clients consistent, compelling language to share the passions and skills that will help them arrive at their intended destination. With a clear professional brand, you are able to control the narrative about your career and shape how colleagues view you. As no one is more vested in your success than you, you must champion your success first before you can expect others to take notice.
Admittedly, professional branding can be uncomfortable – especially for women. Data and anecdotal experience indicate that, when compared to male colleagues, women show a higher reluctance to claim hard-earned achievements. This habit, as observed in How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen (2018) often limits women’s ability to advance professionally. A reluctance to claim those hard-earned achievements and more habitual use of diminishing language and verbal undercutting can make professional branding seem daunting. But, professional branding is very wrongly mistaken as ego. I work with clients to help them see that owning their impact and celebrating their brand is not boastful. In fact, tactful and successful professional branding is centered in gratitude. As Meredith Freeman, author of Brag Better, eloquently describes, professional branding is about “cultivating respect and enthusiasm for your work.”
Ready to own your professional brand? To get you started I’ve included a few of the questions I ask my clients. Your answers will help you start to understand your strategic advantage and start telling your professional narrative…
What impact do you want to be known for?
What accomplishments are you most proud of?
Write down three (3) of your characteristics, passions, and interests. How do they add to your story?
How do you think you are perceived by others?
