What Is Your Personal Sales Leadership Brand?

As a sales leader, have you ever stopped to think about your personal leadership brand, and whether that brand is enabling you to create the future you are looking for? I understand that, as a sales leader, especially in the early days, your focus is almost 100% on your team, looking for opportunities to assist them to lift their capability and establish some traction. Whilst this is very noble, and in my opinion, essential to sustainable success and team engagement, it is also critical that you carve out some time for you, to consider and start formulating what your personal sales leadership brand is and how you can strategically manage this moving forward. You see, everything you do, everything you say, and everything you don’t do and say, creates your personal sales leadership brand. So, as a sales leader, it is essential to be consciously aware of the perceptions and impressions you are creating, as once an impression is created, it can be extremely difficult to change it.

So what is a personal sales leadership brand? According to David McNalty, author of “Be your Own Brand”, a personal brand is ‘a perception or emotion maintained by somebody other than you, that describes your outstanding qualities and influences that person’s relationship with you’. In other words, your personal sales leadership brand is not what you say it is. Whilst this is true, you do have however, the ability to influence the perceptions of others and therefore build your personal sales leadership brand. How can you do this? Here is a start :

1. First and foremost, determine what your goal is. What is the outcome you are looking for? The number 1 success principle is ‘know your outcome’, so when it comes to your personal sales leadership brand, what brand do you want to demonstrate? What do you want to be known for? To do this, look at what you value, what is important to you, and what your beliefs are. Run a personal introspection session.
2. Look at your strengths and areas for development. Based on the goal you are looking to achieve, there may be some elements of yourself that you do not wish to show, as they may affect your brand. This is certainly not being misleading or deceitful, it simply means that you will focus on the elements of you that will accentuate your strengths, based on the environment, role and situation you operate in.
3. Conduct some analysis on perception. To gain a really good understanding of the perception of you, ask the following powerful questions:

• How do you perceive yourself? This will be based on your belief systems, your values and your self esteem. How do you think you come across to others?
• How do you want to be perceived? This is a question that leaders often neglect to ask themselves, however, it is very powerful. Particularly if you have uncovered an element following the 1st question that you do not like, really focus in on how you would ideally like other people to think about you.
• How do you think others perceive you? This question is a good one as it will provide you with insights and perceptions based on previous feedback from others, as well as what people say about you and how they interact with you. But remember, this is your perception, so it only provides you with 1 dimension.
• How do others perceive you? Rather than just thinking about how others perceive, really find out. This can be achieved through asking questions on the spot, conducting a formalised 360º feedback survey or asking people for specific feedback.

Once you have asked these questions, you will have a pretty solid perspective of your perception and hence an insight into your personal sales leadership brand.

4. What perceptions and impressions do you want to create? You know that when it comes to creating first impressions, you only have a very limited amount of time to do it, between 7 and 60 seconds depending on your gender. So it is really important to focus on creating the best first impression you possibly can and you can do this through the following :

• Use positive and empowering language in your communication.
• Dress professionally and consistently with your intended personal sales leadership brand.
• Be mindful of the gestures you use. Ensure that any gestures have purpose and meaning. For e.g. avoid crossing your arms when speaking with your team as it can create the impression that you are closed off and not interested; instead, be open as it creates the impression of openness and willingness to engage.
• When you speak, focus on the volume of your voice, along with your pitch and pace – put energy into your voice.
• Ensure that your posture is upright and symmetrical. Symmetry and balance allows your message to also have symmetry and balance. Especially as a leader, an upright posture and symmetry also commands authority, presence and credibility, even before saying a word.
• When you move, move with purpose and a sense of urgency.
• Focus on maintaining great eye contact with your people, along with complimentary facial expressions. The eyes are the windows to the soul and eye contact is the quickest way to build a connection. Do this well and you will create a great impression.

5. Model Excellence. Identify a person who you admire and who demonstrates the behaviours and attributes that you would like to be perceived for, and model them, i.e.copy what they do. Understand though that this is not a case of ‘fake it until you make it’ – it is a case of ‘act as if’. Become your model and embrace what they do. You will pretty quickly create a great impression.

6. Constantly ask for feedback. I have often said that ‘feedback is the breakfast of champions’, however, only when you ask for specific feedback. Asking for generic feedback like ‘can you please provide me with some feedback on how you think I’m going’ will not necessarily provide you with the information you need to move forward. By contrast, asking something like ‘can you please provide me with some feedback, specifically on how I close the weekly sales meeting, as it is an area I’ve identified as needing some development’, will provide you with great information to improve.

So when it comes to your personal sales leadership brand, are you happy with your current brand? If you are, and you are achieving the outcomes you desire, congratulations. Keep doing more of that! If however, you are not satisfied with your current brand, take on board and implement the above 6 focus areas and really develop your personal sales leadership brand and constantly check in to ensure you are on track. After all, your leadership is an evolving discipline, and you must evolve with it!

To your personal sales leadership branding success.

Darren

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post – I greatly appreciate it, and welcome comments and feedback. Please feel free to comment below, to follow me on LinkedIn, or to connect via Twitter, or Facebook.

Darren is a Sales Leadership and Sales Performance Coach, Facilitator & Speaker.  He is an experienced and committed coach with a background of sales leadership success in large organisations. He applies a genuine focus to coaching and developing high performing sales leaders who are looking to unleash the potential of themselves and their teams.