As a learning and development (L&D) leader, your personal brand could be the difference between earning a seat at the table and being left out of crucial conversations. It could be the difference between an at-capacity training room and an empty one. It could even be the difference between taking the next step in your career and remaining stagnant.

In other words, your personal brand matters.

Training Industry’s L&D Career and Salary Study found that the most common career goal among L&D leaders is to move into a director of training or chief learning officer (CLO) role. Personal branding can help learning leaders advance into these roles by marketing their unique strengths and accomplishments.

Here, we’ll share personal branding tips and recommendations for learning leaders. First, let’s consider what “personal branding” means in practice.

What Is Personal Branding?

According to Harvard Business School Online, “Personal branding is the intentional, strategic practice of defining and expressing your value.”

Anita Ann Mihelic, CPTM, director of learning and development at ConstructConnect, says personal branding refers to the “special quality” that you bring to your interactions with your learners, your stakeholders and, ultimately, with everyone. It’s about “how people see you and how you make people feel when you’re interacting with them.” Your personal brand is shaped by the “lasting impression” you leave on others, Mihelic says.

Your personal brand also represents your expertise, says Amy DuVernet, Ph.D., CPTM, director of training and development at Training Industry. It encompasses your unique strengths, but it could also encompass areas where you’re not as strong, she says. The quality of your work — and whether that’s consistent or inconsistent — also factors into your personal brand, because it shapes others’ expectations. Your personal brand is a promise of the quality and consistency of your work and expertise.

How to Build Your Personal Brand

It takes time to cultivate a personal brand reflective of your unique skills, values and strengths. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you get started.

Listen and learn:

When Mihelic moved into an official L&D role in 2017 (before that, she took on certain team training responsibilities, such as training new hires), she was suddenly responsible for training employees across all teams in her organization. Much of the training she delivered was voluntary, so she worked hard to market her programs and communicate training’s value. “At that stage, my biggest concern was that I wanted to be really reliable [and] really consistent, taking everybody into account because we have a distributed workforce. So, the virtual and hybrid experience of learning was really important to me,” she says.

After establishing a “baseline of quality and consistency,” Mihelic was ready to begin building her personal brand from there. First, she considered what she wanted her personal brand to look like. She still wanted to be seen as very dependable and reliable. But mostly, Mihelic says she wanted others to see her training programs as relevant, immediately applicable and ultimately, “worth everybody’s time.”

To build a personal brand that reflects her ability to deliver strategically aligned, job-relevant learning programs, Mihelic makes a point to ask her stakeholders thoughtful questions and to listen to their needs. This allows her to shape her stakeholders’ vision into a quality learning experience and to act as a true partner.

If you’re looking to build a personal brand reflective of your ability to act as a strategic business partner, making time to listen and learn is a great place to start.

Share your expertise:

Sharing your thought leadership is another way to build your personal brand and position yourself as a subject matter expert (SME) in the L&D space.

As a learning professional, there are many ways to share your thought leadership, including:

• Writing for industry publications or journals.
• Guest speaking on an L&D podcast — or even starting your own, if you have the time and bandwidth to do so.
• Starting a blog where you can share your L&D insights with your peers.
• Posting regularly on LinkedIn to share your perspective on trending training topics and challenges.
• Speaking at an industry conference or event.

Celebrate your wins:

When it comes to personal branding, often, “the work you do is going to speak for itself,” DuVernet says. However, your work as an L&D professional isn’t always visible. As a result, your “wins” (both big and small) can go unrecognized. Consider sharing your achievements with your network on LinkedIn. Or, you might send out a quarterly email newsletter to your organization highlighting your training team’s recent achievements. (This can also help build team morale.)

Although promoting our wins can feel uncomfortable, DuVernet says, it’s critical for establishing credibility and trust within both your organization and your broader peer network.

Create an elevator pitch:

Creating an elevator pitch that sums up your unique skills, qualities and achievements is a great way to promote both yourself and your training services. Mihelic says that when building an elevator pitch, remember: It’s not about you. “It’s about how you can be a partner to the business” and help it achieve key goals.

Thus, it’s important to have multiple elevator pitches adapted to different scenarios in your toolbox, DuVernet says. For example, if you’re speaking with a stakeholder from an organization going through a major change initiative, such as a merger or acquisition, your pitch might focus on a successful shift you helped facilitate in your own organization.

Or, if you’re in an executive-level business meeting, you may find that you have just 30 seconds to explain who you are and the work you do to your executive team. “That’s a huge opportunity to position yourself as a trusted business partner and to create a lasting impression on your stakeholders,” DuVernet says.

An effective elevator pitch tells a story about the value you bring to the business in a clear, concise way.

Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine:

As a learning leader, a personal brand that positions you as a true business partner is invaluable. However, don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through.

Professionalism is an important quality to infuse in your personal brand. “But it’s also OK to be fun, to be light and to laugh,” Mihelic says. Those attributes are part of Mihelic’s personal brand for two key reasons: First, learning can be intimidating. When you add fun and play into the learning process, “It can break up the nervousness, and people are more relaxed and more open to learning.” Second, Mihelic says, “I actually really like my job, and I enjoy what I’m doing. And if I’m having a good time, I feel like other people are invited into that, too.”

Final Thoughts

In L&D, your brand is your promise. An influential and strategic personal brand can lead to more career opportunities and new connections over time. Or, it can be the reason why you were passed over for a coveted opportunity.

As Mihelic shares, “Your brand exists,” whether you’re aware of it, or actively shaping it, or not. By building your personal brand, you’ll be more in control of your own career narrative — and one step closer to achieving your L&D career goals.