How to Assess your Personal Brand using SWOT Analysis

So you’ve probably heard the term “personal brand” an infinite amount of times but what is it? A personal brand simply describes the way you package yourself and tell your story. It lends insight to others on your unique set of skills, attitudes, experiences, and personality traits! Having an airtight brand is essential because it allows you to market yourself in many different settings both virtual and in-person. We want to give others a clear picture of who we are that speaks for us so that we don’t have to.

When brands want to evaluate their position in the marketplace, they will often do a brand audit: Fancy terminology for an analysis of their current performance; they assess their goals and where they stand in relation to them as well as how well they are communicating with their target audience across channels such as social media, print, and digital advertisements!

From there, they can determine whether they are on the right track and how they can best adjust their course of action to achieve the goals that they set out for themselves!

Sounds useful, right?

Well, mega corporations are not the only ones who can have a brand identity! Remember we’re discussing “personal brands” So, if we can view ourselves through this lens, then why not take the time to perform an audit on ourselves?

This in-depth self-analysis might be useful if you are moving into a new phase of life. Perhaps you are starting a new job or internship, you might feel stuck in your current life position and unsure of what your next step should be, or you might even feel as though you can’t define your brand identity even though you really want to.

We have a solution:

SWOT

When brands need to do strategic competitive analysis, they execute a very specific audit called a SWOT analysis: an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

I’d like to pose the idea that this is something that you can perform on yourself as it can reveal a lot about you and where you stand in relation to your personal goals.

So whip out a pen and paper and let’s begin!

Strengths

This is a great place to focus on all that is positive about you so don’t be shy! Some things you might want to focus on are:

what makes you unique?

what are some things you do well? what areas of your life have you found most success in?

Write them down and evaluate all of the skills and personality traits that have allowed you to win in life thus far. Maybe you might see some overlap between your personal and professional life! This is important because your soft skills matter a lot in the workplace too and are definitely something that you want to utilize in order to advance in your career and get promoted to the next level.

What is your competitive advantage?

In other words, after analyzing all of your strengths, what are those skills that you have that you believe make you different from your competitors? (AKA people with a similar profile to you looking to achieve similar goals) What makes you stand out?

This may feel uncomfortable at first but boost yourself up! Like all successful brands, you have your own USP or Unique Selling Point that makes you different and you will certainly find it!

This will also help you a ton during interviews! When asked what value you can add to a team or what makes you a standout candidate, you want to have anecdotes that you can pull from!

Weaknesses

This is the part that makes people a bit uncomfortable but understanding your weaknesses or (“areas for improvement” as I like to call them) is pivotal! Understanding your previous setbacks helps you to pinpoint where in your life you can make effective change and become a better you. It might even help you realize the ways that you’ve already done this!

One major benefit is that this puts you leaps and bounds ahead of peers who haven’t done this deep work to understand themselves and their habits! – take pride in your “weak spots”, they are building blocks in the overall masterpiece that is you!

Also, you are also almost guaranteed to be asked what your personal weak points are during an interview but if interviews aren’t your strong suit, don’t worry! we’ve written a complete guide to getting you started on the right track and interviewing with confidence!

Some questions you might want to ask yourself when reflecting are:

What are some issues that I seem to constantly have?  this might reveal traits in you that are worthy of addressing and changing

What are some not so great things about me that I hear from my peers?

pro-tip: you can literally ask your peers to tell you this

I once did an analysis of my personal brand by asking friends to anonymously submit my positive and negative traits via survey and compared it to the way I perceived myself!

This is a great activity because it allows you to see if your perception of yourself is warped by personal bias (don’t be discouraged, it often is) and what exact areas of your life and habits that you need to adjust.

Opportunities

This is the fun part, where we get to manifest and visualize a bit. Opportunities are what they sound like, spaces where you have the potential to grow! After assessing your areas for improvement, and getting the wheels turning in your head about how you can address them, this is where you put those changes into action.

some things to consider while reflecting:

Who is someone that I can connect with that would be able to give me the push I need towards my goals? How can I reach them?

What are some resources that I can use to address the areas I’ve identified as weak spots? Are they books? Online courses or seminars? A networking event? An informational interview with someone in my field of interest?

The world is truly your oyster! the opportunities for you to improve and get in alignment with your ideal self are everywhere! Don’t just sit on your areas of improvement. Qeaknesses only remain weaknesses when we don’t act on them!

Threats

The professional growth journey is exciting because we see ourselves taking steps to becoming the boss we always knew that we could be! However, it would be silly to think that the road to our goals is always going to be straightforward and obstacle-free.

However, by accepting and acknowledging this early on, we can prepare ourselves to face some of these challenges on the road ahead.

Some things to consider while reflecting are:

Who are my competitors in the space that I want to enter?

What are some things that they are doing to get in alignment with their goals? Are they taking any specific courses, enrolled in any programs, connecting with any influential people or thought leaders in my field?

Take note of these things and add them to your list of opportunities! By observing what other people are accomplishing in your space, you’ll start to take note of the similar work that you can do for yourself! So get to it.

Any trends that I should be taking note of in my industry?

Hiring freezes, barriers to entry such as accreditations or qualifications that I need and don’t have yet?

These are all things that can stand in your way while looking to start a job hunt or application process. Taking note of them from an early stage can be a major time saver!

The journey to our goals is rarely an easy one. It also never ends as we constantly add new tasks to our list and strategize in order to accomplish them! However, when we are in periods of great change or development and facing overwhelm, rather than allowing this to hinder us, it is a great idea to take stock of where we stand and get ourselves on the road to evolution by doing a deep dive into who we are. If this post helped you, share with a friend on social by hitting one of the buttons below or pin this post to your professional development board on Pinterest!I can’t wait to see where your SWOT analysis takes you.