Personal Branding for Doctors

You’ve certainly heard or read this before: You are a brand.

But for someone who spent 8–12 years of graduate and post-graduate education, yet received no business, sales or marketing training in those years, this is a hard-to-grasp idea.

You think you get it. But, do you?

Do you know exactly what it entails? Would you know how to create “brand you”?

Yeah… I didn’t either.

In this article I’ll share more about it and specifically:

1. What it means to create a brand as a practicing healthcare professional.
2. Why you’d be smart to do so. And sooner rather than later, too!
3. Yes, even if you’re a hospitalist or currently employed.
4. How you can start building your brand.
5. A challenge to you. But you will probably not take it… 🤷🏻‍♂️

If you don’t think this is something you’d like to learn, then this article was not written for you.

Let’s get to it…

What is a personal brand?

Well…

Let me first tell you what it is not.

A personal brand is not:

• A pretty logo,
• A website,
• A LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or (god forbid!) TikTok profile,
• A podcast,
• A blog…

All of these can be part of your personal branding strategy but neither one of them is your brand, in and of itself. In fact, not even all of them, are your brand.

So… What is a personal brand?

A personal brand is the perception of an individual within a community.

Or basically: ‘Your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not around’.

In other words, a personal brand is a verb (personal branding), not a noun.

It’s something you have to do consistently.

Which is why, paying someone to put together a website that you never update is not personal branding.