Top 5 key branding tips for security professionals

Suzanna Alsayed

Suzanna Alsayed is a trilingual emergency management and security specialist, supporting security companies and professionals develop their branding standards to expand their client reach. Highlighting her work in the industry, Suzanna was also ranked #2 in this year’s IFSEC Global Influencers in Security and Fire, in the Security Thought Leaders category. Here, she offers five tips for security professionals to evolve their personal brand and reach their goals.

Personal branding is beginning to be considered an essential tool, especially online. Nowadays, we find ourselves living in the digital world most of the time, and it is becoming a place where we showcase our skills, market ourselves and our businesses, and network with professionals and potential clients.

Due to our day and age, our online reputation is automatically fabricated by just one simple Google Search. Thus, creating a strong personal brand online can aid any professional in advancing their personal and professional goals. Beginning your personal branding journey can be difficult and might take weeks or months, since you have to ask yourself questions that you did not ask before. This brief article will provide five key branding tips specifically for security professionals that want to take control and create a strong online personal brand.

Key Branding Tip #1: Pinpoint Your Area of Expertise

In the security industry, individuals acquire specific skills and education in order to execute their job. However, some of these skills might be deemed special or can aid others in their professional journey. Hence, before building out a personal brand, it is crucial to identify your differentiator, your top skills, where you excel, what motivates you, what you want to be known for, and build out your brand around that. This will give you and your brand a sense of certainty.

Additionally, finding your focus is essential to building out your personal brand, because it is more than just a reflection of who are you today, it will also act as a roadmap of where you want to be, how you want to be recognised, and who you will become in five to 10 years’ time.

Key Branding Tip #2: Identifying Your Target Audience

When you are developing your brand, you will need to identify your target audience within the security industry and consider what will attract these individuals to your brand. Ask yourself how your audience will receive your message and what will be the main focus, and once you answer these questions, you can begin creating your brand strategy.

Key Branding Tip #3: Build Your Network

Building your network and digital presence does not happen overnight, however, it is never too late to start! One of the most popular online tools where you can have a professional account is LinkedIn. Actually, many security professionals have an online presence on LinkedIn these days. Having and maintaining a LinkedIn profile can further and improve your online reputation, showcase your security credentials and certifications, interests, associations, and expose you to a variety of other perks.

Key Branding Tip #4: Solidifying Your Value Proposition

When you are thinking of starting your personal brand within the security industry, you need to ask yourself:

1. What value will your services bring to your clients?
2. What business problems do your services address?
3. How will your service benefit your clients and what is the return on investment?

Once you find answers to those critical questions you will then have to brand it – find a way to describe yourself as the preferred problem solver. Remember, in the end companies do not pay for your time, companies and clients pay for the value you bring in.

Key Branding Tip #5: Brand Consistently

In reality, creating a brand is only a small portion of the process. In fact, managing a brand and remaining consistent with your message will be the hardest part. However, it is easier to create your brand around your actual lifestyle, work, value proposition, with a real human element, and authenticity.

It is important to note that a personal brand, especially in an ever-changing trade, such as the security industry, is a consistent and evolving process. When you will create and work on your brand, failure will be inevitable, and generally it is hard to avoid – thus, embrace it and do not give up! It is part of the journey! At the end of the day, your consistent online brand will potentially make a difference between “Who are you again?” and “We are so glad to have you here” in your career. It is worth the time and investment.

About the author

Suzanna Alsayed, MDEM, is a trilingual emergency management and security specialist based in Toronto. She has over seven years’ experience in various roles within the public and private sectors with expertise in facilitating multi-disciplinary projects involving internal and external stakeholders. In 2020, Suzanna founded Evolutz, an independent brand, design, copywriting, and website development agency. The aim is to elevate the security industry branding standards and help security companies and professionals put their best foot forward, expand their client reach, and increase revenue. Suzanna also founded Hilt International Security, a holistic security firm – with the goal to work with different international platforms, in order to protect people and assets worldwide.

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