6 Steps to Build a Personal Brand For Architects
In this article, I’ll show you how to build a personal brand for architects and designers step by step!
As architects, we often spend our time building spaces for other people, but what about our career and business? What about our lives?
Personal branding has created so many new opportunities for me that I would otherwise not have. It has helped me:
Go from a small firm that forgot about me to Gensler where I got promoted to be Associate
Build a community of 2000+ women architects building careers they love
Get on podcast interviews to share my story
Speak about personal branding at the Young Architect Summer Series
Book 1:1 coaching clients for my Strategy Session
Make connections and push me out of my comfort zone
You can do the same by following these 6 steps for building your personal brand as an architect:
What is a Personal Brand for Architects?
A personal brand is a representation of who you are to other people.
"Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room."
- Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon
For architects at work, your personal brand would be what your employers, coworkers, and peers see of you in your industry.
If you’re a business owner at an architecture firm, your personal brand will likely be tied to your company brand.
Sometimes it’s even the same as most architects work under their own name.
But building your personal brand is more than just putting up a portfolio site or posting project photos on Instagram.
It requires strategy and intention - and that leads us to the first step in building your personal brand…
1. Uncover Your Brand Strategy
A brand without strategy is like a building without a foundation - it’ll eventually fall apart.
When it comes to branding, most people jump to the fun part - designing a logo and making a website.
But that’s just 10% of your brand, the strategy behind it is actually 90% of your brand.
Before we go into the pretty part of branding, we have to know:
What is your purpose?
What makes you unique?
Who are you talking to?
Why should they listen to me?
Your brand identity is just the icing on the cake.
What is Brand Strategy?
A brand strategy is compiled of:
Deciding on your 5P’s Formula
Defining a clear Ideal Client Persona
Discovering your Brand Archetype and Personality
Developing your Brand Voice
Drafting your Brand Story
This is what we work through inside the Strategy Session.
Within the 1:1 coaching call, I help you set up a strong foundation for your personal brand, so you don’t end up with a brand that falls apart.
2. Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
Your LinkedIn profile is the gateway to your personal brand online as a professional.
It’s usually where employees or your clients first land when they google your name.
It’s also where recruiters find candidates which might lead to opportunities that you might not encounter otherwise.
So how do you optimize your LinkedIn profile?
Here’re 3 simple steps you can start today.
Add Keywords in Your Headline
LinkedIn is very much like Google or another search engine - it uses keywords to rank different profiles.
So if you want to show up higher in search, you need to find appropriate keywords to optimize your profile.
One simple way to do this is to add the keywords in your headline.
Let’s say goodbye to the boring generic job title and fill it with keywords!
Customize Your URL
Make sure the URL of your LinkedIn profile is customized to show your name. Just like this:
Having your name in your URL will boost your LinkedIn profile rank higher on Google search results.
And like we said before, everyone googles you these days! Having your LinkedIn profile show up first puts your professional front forward.
Request Recommendations
When you build a personal brand, social proof is one of the most important factors.
It’s the same reason why we have Amazon and Yelp reviews - people trust what other people say about you.
Recommendations on your LinkedIn profile is one of the things that recruiters or employers love to read.
Because getting someone to write you a recommendation is hard enough - getting them to post it publicly is another big hurdle.
3. Build a Personal Website
Your online presence needs a home - aka a website!
While it’s great to post on your social media, you always need that home to send your visitors to at the end of the day.
A personal brand website for architects is actually pretty simple.
A lot of time it’s just like moving your physical portfolio online.
If you’re a recent graduate looking for a job, you can probably pass with a simple portfolio website.
But if you have a business or you want to be seen as a thought leader in your industry, your website should focus on showcasing your expertise instead of only posting project photos.
That means:
Writing copy that resonates with your clients
Create content that positions you as an expert in your niche.
I know starting a website sounds overwhelming. But here is my one quick tip for you:
Start with Squarespace!
I’ve been building multiple websites for myself and other clients on Squarespace for the past 10 years.
It’s the easiest platform to use if you’re a visual person like me.
You can always go the more complicated WordPress route later.
But I’ve been building websites for 10 years now and I have not had the urge to move to a different platform.
4. Create Consistent Content
Content is what bridges the gap between your brand and your clients.
Creating content that relates to your clients can really showcase your personal brand as an architect.
It builds connections with your clients by giving them value and advice through your content
It builds your authority by showing that you actually know what you are talking about
It builds trust with your people because you’re willing to help and listen to them
To start with, pick 1 long-form content platform and 1 short-form content platform:
Long-form content
Blog
Podcast
Youtube
Linkedin Articles
Short-form content
Instagram
Facebook
Linkedin Posts
Twitter
You want to start with 1 of each because if you start with everything, you’ll get overwhelmed and stop creating content.
Dominate one content platform first. Once your audience base grows, then move onto other platforms later on.
5. Share Personal Stories
No matter what platform or what types of content you decide to make, you have to share personal stories.
But not just any stories…
Because your personal brand is actually not about you.
It’s about your client’s perception of you.
So your brand story is also not about you - it’s about your clients and using your own stories to resonate with your audience on a deeper level.
Craft Your Personal Brand Story as An Architect
Write down all your milestones, pivotal moments, childhood lessons, life events... Anything that defines you to be who you’re today.
Choose a story that relate directly to what you offer to your clients. What would they resonate with? What would strike their emotion?
Once you’ve selected your brand story, start outlining it with a complete storyline from “beginning”, “pivot” to the “end”. Where were you? What happened? How did you prevail in the end?
Keep practicing your story until you get it super clear and concise.
Share, share, share! Your story will become part of your personal brand from now on. Share it in all your content platform, your about page, your speaking engagements. it will help you attract your ideal clients along the way.
6. Value Your Clients Deeply
To build your personal brand, you need to first adopt the Care Mindset.
You have to truly care about your clients.
You have to give them value even if they don’t hire you at the end of the day.
You have to genuinely want to help the people you’re intended to help with your content.
What does that look like?
It looks like this:
Show up even when you’re not selling.
Educate with valuable, helpful and practical content.
Respond to every DM and email you get.
Engage with their social media daily.
Reach out and ask them how you can help them.
When you provide tremendous value to your clients, you’ll start getting great feedback on your content.
And you can use these as testimonials going forward!
The best way to take is to give.
Now It’s Your Turn!
There you have it: my 6 steps to building your personal brand for architects.
Now I’d love to hear from you:
Which strategy from this list are you going to try?
Are you going to optimize your LinkedIn profile?
Or start sharing more personal stories on social media?
Let me know in the comment section below.
