PART I
The Rise of Personal Branding
CHAPTER 1
The Brand Called YOU!
No matter who you are, you have undoubtedly purchased productsâand therefore product brandsâfrom clothing to furniture, technology, and more. As a consumer, you are also personally branded by the various corporate brands you support, whether it be the McDonaldâs arch on your cheeseburger wrapper, the Nike swoosh on your shoe, or the Apple logo on your iPod. Throughout your life, you have made decisions among competing brands, choosing some brands over others, and along the way you have built up attitudes, impressions, and beliefsâwithout even noticing.
What does this all mean? As an individual, you must acknowledge that you are a brand. And who better to market your personal brand than you. This means that at the end of the day, the success of your personal brand lies in your hands.
The Power of Brand YOU
Personal branding is about unearthing what is true and unique about you and then communicating that, through various mediums, to the right people (Schawbel et al., 2012). As a brand, you are your own free agent: you have the freedom to create the career path that links your talents and interests with the right position and the ability to move both vertically and horizontally, now and throughout your career. You can even switch career paths when you feel it is necessary.
You also have the opportunity to stand out and make a nameâthrough your brandâfor yourself. The fact that owning a website is so easy gives everyone a chance to develop and market a personal brand that shows the world who they are and what theyâre capable of. For instance, on the Web, you have the opportunity to promote brand YOU by joining a social network and using your page as a billboard to advertise your talents and goals.
Thanks to technology, you can reap the same rewards as the billion-dollar brand names, from Trump to Gucci, through effective marketing. Creating a brand isnât just about technology, though. By focusing on delivering results, being remarkable, and learning new skills to adapt to our ever-changing world, you can make your brand memorable, and opportunities for success will follow.
Develop Your Personal Brand
Many people may view personal branding as a form of self-promotion and selfishness. In some ways it is, but this doesnât mean itâs a bad thing! Developing your brand makes you a more valuable asset, whether to the company you work for, a potential employer, or your own enterprise. Donât forget, itâs your future weâre talking about. Donât you want to make it a success? Furthermore, by effectively branding yourself, your career success will translate into happiness outside the workplace as well.
Donât think of the brand called YOU as being confined strictly within a single corporate environment. Even if your current job description and title put you in a corner, both literally and practically, you canâand shouldâstand out as an individual with a unique set of talents and marketable skills. Remember, no employment contract spans a lifetime, which means you have the mobility and freedom to shape your career path as you see fit.
- If youâre on a career path that makes you happyâwork it. Make the most of your talents and skill set to achieve maximum success.
- If youâre on a career path that does not make you happyâchange it. Find the right path for you and focus on making it work.
- If youâre unsure about your futureâdefine it. Weigh all the factors that matter to you and find the career path that fits best.
You need to approach your career in terms of differentiation (standing out in the crowd) and marketability (providing something other people want or need). Why would someone choose your brand?
- A robust professional network
- Endorsements from respected colleagues
- Previous accomplishments with cataloged results
- A diversified and unique skill set
The same rules that apply to corporate brands apply to personal brands. The successful brand YOU marketing model has the proper mix of confidence, passion, likeability, determination, and focus. When you look at successful business leaders, such as Warren Buffet or Rupert Murdoch, you realize that each has a self-purpose, a call to action, and a desire to win. They all shared this marketing model, and you should too.
What Is a Personal Brand?
What is a personal brand? Since personal branding is used in public relations, marketing, entrepreneurship, social media, and more, many different interpretations of the term have arisen. I was able to solve this confusion by generating a wiki, which is a website that enables collaboration through real-time editing. I then organized a team of global branding experts, including Krishna De and Mike Myatt, to edit the wiki and develop a definition that accurately summarizes the objectives and goals of personal branding:
What Is Personal Branding?
âPersonal branding describes the process by which individuals and entrepreneurs differentiate themselves and stand out from a crowd by identifying and articulating their unique value proposition, whether professional or personal, and then leverage it across platforms with a consistent message and image to achieve a specific goal. In this way, individuals can enhance their recognition as experts in their field, establish reputation and credibility, advance their careers, and build self-confidence.â
If that definition seems confusing, it can be boiled down to this: the process of finding our special talents and notifying the right people about them.
What It Means to Be You Inc.
We need to keep certain unspoken guidelines in mind when creating You Inc. Successful personal brands need to be authentic, have a good reputation, and be discovered by the right people.
Authenticity Is Required
Why do you need to be real? Because everyone else is taken and replicas donât sell for as much! To be a brand means to be authentic. Marketing spin is counterproductive; people filter it out of their minds and send it into a black hole, never to return. If you are presenting yourself as a marketing manager for a Fortune 500 company when you are really a cocktail waitress at a nightclub, you obviously arenât legit.
You will notice that many individuals who label themselves as âexpertsâ or âworld-recognizedâ professionals are exaggerating. Those who pretend to be someone they are not run the risk of being exposed. Just as good romantic relationships are based on genuineness, openness, and a willingness to be up front from the start, in business your relationships depend on authenticity. Authenticity showcases exactly who you are and what you can deliver. For example, if you brand yourself as a freelance writer, you should be able to back that up with a portfolio of solid writing samples.
There is a misconception that branding is all about changing who you are in order to fit othersâ expectations. While image management is typically just thatâa product of conscious manipulationâpersonal branding is about sincerity.
Beware of False Brand Images
A false image may get you some short-term success, but over time, others will likely see through youâor a formal background check as part of a hiring process will catch you.
Being authentic also includes maintaining open communication and assuming accountability for your actions. Dishonesty will attract more attention than honesty, and the truth always comes out eventually. Rather than constructing a false image and working hard to maintain a deception, you should pay attention to what is truthful and amazing about you and work hard to make the most of it.
A company fails to maintain authenticity when it uses false advertising or when its sales force persuades prospective customers to purchase a product they wonât enjoy. Would you trust someone who sells you an ugly jacket by telling you that you look gorgeous in it? Each salesperson needs to carry an accurate and truthful message, because that sales repâs customer interactions are a reflection of the corporate brand. Any malpractice must be cleared up, and the proper spokesperson should apologize immediately. As your own best salesperson, you need to represent brand YOU authentically.
âAbove all else, be yourselfâbe genuineâand youâll find success no matter what you do.â
âChris Pirillo, Internet personality and founder of Gnomedex
To be authentic is to be transparentâonline as well as in person. Online deceptions are just waiting to be discovered. Thanks, Google!
Here are some examples of brands that maintain a positive online authenticity:
- Comcast: Frank Eliason has become the first non-CEO of Comcast who is a recognizable face at most marketing events and in the national news. Why? He came up with the idea of using Twitter as a customer service âventing groundâ that customers could turn to instead of the phone. Regardless of your problem, you can tweet at @comcastcares, and he will help you out, giving you honest answers or directing you to the right place. He now has a support team behind him and tens of thousands of followers.
- Redfin: Glenn Kelman, known as the âsee-through CEO,â set up a blog, where he posted about the nasty politics and bad practices conducted in the real estate business (Thompson 2007). He publicized Redfinâs internal debates and arguments about its website design. He even spoke about how he was at a college campus and not a single student went up to network with him. As a result of the blog, Redfin was closing many more deals a day, despite the comments section, where old-school agents fought back harshly.
- Southwest Airlines: Southwest started a coauthored blog by 30 employees from the top down to the bottom of the corporate ladder who held conversations relating to work life.
- Zappos: This company has a companywide wiki that acts as a feedback loop between employees and management to get problems resolved.
You need to represent yourself accurately at all times. Just like a corporation, if you donât take ownership of your brand, youâll be stuck forever with how the world initially judges you. To have a successful career and save yourself the agony of harsh judgment, make transparency and authenticity an important concern.
Your Brand Reputation Can Make or Break You
Why do you think customers purchase from certain corporations over others? Why do companies spend the largest portion of their marketing budget on branding? Customers purchase based on trust and are willing to pay more for a product and brand they are comfortable with. Effective branding creates customer loyalty, even evangelism. Companies that maintain reputable brands are more successful in gaining and keeping customer attention.
So what does this mean for you as you think about ways to develop your personal brand? As a brand, you can achieve a positive reputation, much like the reputations of companies you admire. Beyond garnering customer attention and loyalty, a major benefit of maintaining a reputable brandâeither individually or corporatelyâis that people will be much more willing to forgive a historically trustworthy company if it fails to meet a specific expectation, such as fast service, provided it show efforts to fix the problem.
In contrast, when a company has a long history of poor service and there is yet another problem, customers will be likely to seek better treatment from a competitorâand there are always lots of competitors eager for the business. Your brand reputation should operate in the same wayâbuilding credibility and showcasing your character, attitudes, and actions in ways that instill good feelings in others.
It is your responsibility to put your brand in a favorable light without engaging in excessive promotion. Too much self-promotion, whether among friends, colleagues, or potential contacts, can make you come off as egotistical or self-superior and have a disastrous effect on your brand. Your trail of self-promotion will leave behind a dark cloud that is visible to all. For example, an excessive self-promoter who constantly reminds coworkers of personal achievements in a desperate search for attention and gratification actually alienates potential colleagues and allies.
In attempting to brand yourself within an existing corporation, coming off as obnoxious and annoying will only result in repelling others and may make it more likely theyâll either throw you under the bus if a problem arises or try to avoid working with you as projects come up. The workplace is a habitat where the fittest thrive, not by ruthlessly claiming superiority at every opportunity but by strategically positioning themselves as natural leaders. That being said, you canât sit back and watch others take what you deserve. You have to strike a balance to gain the visibility needed to rise to the top.
Making sure your brand reputation is seen as current is also important. When a brand doesnât seem relevant anymore and has no differentiating qualities that make it special, its reputation suffers. People will notice that you seem out-of-date and avoid your brand. You must ensure that your personal brand stays current, yet it must be consistent over time as well. For example, if you walk into a McDonaldâs, whether you are in Japan or in the United States, the product you purchase will be consistent, despite small cultural differences. Your brand must strike a careful balance between keeping up with the times and maintaining a consistency that your audience can count on.
Brand YOUâOnly as Powerful as You Make It
The Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
When promoting your brand, word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing reigns supreme, as your most important contacts are your friends, family, business partners, and acquaintances. WOM marketing is how to get people talking about you, your product, or your business. Typically, businesses succeed or fail based on referrals, and WOM is a proven way to gain more exposure and build trust fast. In todayâs increasingly connected world, people become famous, or infamous, because of WOM.
In the online world, a single message can spread virally ...