IMAGE AND BRANDING
By: Molly Looman
PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL BRANDING FOR BUILDING ENGINEERS Building engineers are part of a team. They may even wear their company’s logo to work every day. With as tenant-facing as the position is, it is important for building engineers to represent their company’s brand well, but also develop their own image that can both aid their current position and aid them in their future professional pursuits.
WHAT DOES BRANDING EVEN MEAN?
Paul Petricca from Torque consulting said that having a winning image is about being perceived positively and uniquely. For a building engineer, this may mean differentiating yourself to tenants or using your position to differentiate your business and define its values to the tenant. “Having a personal brand is similar to having a winning image,” Petricca said. “By definition, in order to actually have a personal brand, a person needs to be doing something uniquely different.” Much of achieving an effective brand is outward facing and requires consistency. Employees must be clear on what their company always wishes to portray and be sure to act in that vein. For a tenant or outside sources to begin to recognize a pattern or theme, it must be repeated. With building engineers
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having the most tenant interaction, they have the most opportunities to exhibit the unique qualities their company brings to the table.
A VISUAL MEDIUM
Branding is also a visual medium. Maintaining a consistent outward appearance and demeanor is a big signal to other parties. People make split-second judgements as soon as you meet them, so you want to make sure your outward appearance is helping you, not hurting you. “Like it or not, the majority of people form their opinion or perception of us based primarily on how we look or present ourselves, especially immediately after meeting us,” Petricca said. “ In our society, this may seem very superficial, but research supports that what people see influences how they read the image we project.”
