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Look, I get it…

Personal branding sounds dumb - possibly also lame.

Peacocking online or elsewhere about how good you are at your job doesn’t sound like the best use of everyone’s time.

But here’s the reality:

Some of the best data leaders I know are practically invisible (others feel the same). Terrified of the idea of personal branding and with no clue where to start, or even why they should.

They’ve delivered massive wins. Built strong teams. Transformed the way their business uses data. But they’ve never made the effort to tell their story, either internally or externally.

They believe their work should do ALL the talking. (Spoiler: It won’t)

Meanwhile, someone with half their experience yet twice as loud is out there getting promoted, winning awards, and landing the top-tier roles, and the grease that goes with it!

It sure ain’t fair, but that’s the game.

💣 Truth Bomb: Like it or not, we’re all in sales now.

If you want to stand out from the crowd and be noticed, it’s time to start investing in your personal brand.

BUT! Before we go any further - this week’s poll👇🏻

_{(check out last week’s polls results below)}

🚫 The limitations of not investing in your personal brand:

1. You get overlooked for promotions and new roles
   If decision-makers don’t know you, they can’t back you. Visibility often outweighs ability in competitive environments. It’s not enough to just be good, your abilities need to be publicised.

2. You miss out on the cool, career-defining projects
   The most interesting work usually goes to the people others trust and recognise, not the ones quietly doing great work in the corner. If you keep your head down and just focus on doing a good job, it’s easy to overlook you.

3. You have to constantly prove yourself from scratch
   How exhausting. With no established reputation, you’re starting at zero in every new meeting, role, or company. That’s tiring and unnecessary, as well as extremely time consuming.

4. Others with less competence but more visibility will leapfrog you
   This one stings. If you don’t tell your story, someone with half the experience will tell theirs and win. Don’t you just HATE those people?!

5. You're invisible to your wider network as well as internally
   If you don’t speak about what you do, even people in your own organisation won’t understand your impact or call on you when opportunity arises. A personal brand isn’t just about how you’re perceived out in the market - it’s also how your perceived internally.

👇🏻 Keep on reading below - as I’m gonna drop the action plan you can adopt to kickstart your personal branding journey!

⭐️ A personal brand walks into rooms before you do

I’m not going to tell you that you should aspire to be an online influencer, or that you should post everyday on LinkedIn (you should at least optimise your profile page tho).

You should view building a personal brand as a wider part of networking. When someone in your network tells another about you, what do you want them to say?

That is what you should aim to curate.

Here’s 6 actionable strategies for you to start building your PB today:

• Define your narrative
  What do you want to be known for? Is it leading impactful data strategy? Building high-performing teams? Translating business goals into data outcomes? Get clear and be consistent.

• Tell one story, often
  Repetition builds reputation. You don’t need to constantly invent new content over and over, just find different ways to reinforce the same story across meetings, updates, and reviews.

• Speak up in the rooms you're already in
  Leadership meetings, stakeholder calls, town halls etc. Treat these as your stage. Share progress, link your team’s work to business value, and show people what you stand for.

• Strengthen your internal brand
  Build alliances with other leaders. Proactively share wins and lessons across the org. Invite others into your team’s narrative and build reputation through collaboration.

• Pick a low-effort, high-trust visibility tactic
  Hate social media? No problem. Try presenting at an internal forum, mentoring others, running a lunch & learn, or contributing to a company newsletter. Or start your own internal data newsletter! Do something visible once a month.

• Document your impact
  Keep a “brag doc” or “win file”. Basically a running record of outcomes you’ve driven. When opportunities arise such as roles, raises, awards, you’ll have your value at your fingertips.

You don’t need to be loud, flashy or “go viral” to build a reputation that opens doors. But you do need to be intentional. Your brand is already being formed, the only question is whether you’re shaping it, or letting others do it for you.

Don’t sleep on this.

💡 And if you feel like you need a hand - hit me up. Through my 1:1 data leadership coaching, this is exactly what I love helping data leaders like you with.

Head here to grab 30 mins with me for a free intro call.

📸 I’m on Instantgram…

Yeah I know that’s not how you say it, but I had a boss once who thought it was and now that’s how I say it all the time…

Yeah anyway, come drop me a follow (I have like sub 150 so every follow counts)

I’ll be dropping data and strategy tidbits as well as little peak into what I’m up to.

Find it here!

⚡️ Previous poll results

Last week I asked you: What’s most keeping your data team stuck in service mode?

Here’s how you responded - quite the mixed bag!

Tristan Burns

Find me on LinkedIn or Book a 1:1 call