10th July 2026

Paul Harper Search: Shaping Your Brand – A Guide to Effective Personal Branding

Gary Vaynerchuk, the highly regarded entrepreneur, author, speaker, and marketing guru once said: "Your personal brand is your reputation and your reputation in perpetuity is the foundation of your career." In this article, I will share some insights on how financial professionals can harness personal branding to gain more traction in the market. Whether you are looking to attract new clients, build industry authority, or secure your next big career move.

What Gary Observed 

Interestingly, I read an article recently where the author asserted that personal brand and reputation are two separate things. Now, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but mine is that your reputation and brand are squarely and firmly the same thing, and both heavily dictate your success. Seems I have Gary on my side on this one, but in terms of conditioning yourself to embrace personal branding, I think it’s easier to grasp the concept if you think of your entire external persona as your brand. In short, how the world sees you.

Your Cake 

Think of your personal brand like a cake, with the ingredients being the elements that form your brand. This includes your online presence, professional network, reputation, written and spoken content, visible accomplishments, appearance, personality, style, values, beliefs, and expertise. How people in your professional ecosystem see these elements helps them form a picture of you in their mind – this is your personal brand.

Unconscious Bias 

I will also add that it’s not free from unconscious (or even conscious) bias, so think about other people’s preconceptions and use this to your advantage. As an example, if I ever go to buy a high-value item such as a car or a kitchen, I always don a pair of trousers, smart shoes, a crisp shirt, and sometimes glasses. I find I get treated differently, perhaps as a more serious buyer, than if I turn up in gym kit. This is an example of proactively shaping your personal brand to manage the preconceptions of your audience.

Your Audience 

So, who is your audience? I would suggest it is everyone in your professional ecosystem, which could be clients, potential leads, employers, recruiters, team members, industry stakeholders, and peers. In short, everyone you interact with on a professional basis. What will shape their view of you when they decide whether to hire you or invest with you?

Your Collateral 

We discussed all the ingredients that are baked into your personal branding cake. In the financial sector, there will be certain things that shape your personal brand more than others. Your LinkedIn persona is crucial, as is your CV or executive bio, and the way you come across in meetings or interviews.

Your CV and Executive Bio 

Like it or not, business and recruitment are competitive. How well-written your CV or professional biography is will determine how successful you are when pitching for roles or high-net-worth clients. It’s no different to businesses and websites – potential customers don’t feel the need to look beyond a poorly designed website with some philanthropic mission to level the playing field. They look at the website and choose the one that presents the most compelling proposition. There may well have been a better supplier with a lesser website, but consumers don’t feel it is incumbent upon them to do this amount of due diligence, and neither do recruiters, employers, or prospective clients.

Your LinkedIn Presence 

The CV element is crucial, but getting LinkedIn right requires more than just a digital version of your CV. Your profile is particularly important, but other elements of LinkedIn play a key role in your visibility and chances of being contacted about opportunities. LinkedIn measures people’s online persona through what is called the Social Selling Index (SSI), a metric for measuring users’ effectiveness at establishing their professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships on LinkedIn. These are all vital things to bring into the personal branding mix.

Your Visuals 

One of the ingredients we mentioned is appearance, so make sure your profile photo is a professional head-and-shoulders shot where you look confident yet approachable. It is also important to have a proper LinkedIn background image (the area at the top of your profile behind your picture) – leaving this blank will hurt your online image.

Your Network 

Building social proof is very productive, so gather plenty of recommendations from people in your network. Then there’s the company you keep. Connect with the right people and actively embrace networking. Not only will this send positive indicators to the LinkedIn algorithm to propel you higher in searches, but networking is likely to result in more opportunities and leads coming your way – that’s just how the universe works.

Your Content 

Now let’s address your LinkedIn activity. What you write, say, and post has a huge bearing on how people perceive you, so focus on positive content that provokes thought, helps, educates, and inspires. You might want to embrace thought leadership, which is just next-level personal branding. If a prospect or employer sees interesting articles, podcast contributions, webinars, research, or your commentary on industry news. These pieces can significantly improve your chances of winning their trust and their business.

A Hand With Your Brand? 

If all this is overwhelming, why not reach out to the team over at PH Career Services for a free and confidential personal branding review? We can take a look at your LinkedIn presence, find your SSI, and even review your CV against modern best practices to ensure you are maximising your market potential. Just email us at hello@phcareerservices.com and we’ll be in touch.

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