“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.” - Machiavelli
Oprah Winfrey, Brand Goddess
Every job I’ve ever had, I’ve made an effort to brand myself as an innovator, a thinker, a salesman, and someone who could get stuff done. When I was just a management trainee at ICI, my first job out of college, I sent a set of recommendations to the CEO. So he never responded. I never stopped sending those e-mails.
It’s just silly to think you can’t impact people’s personal and professional expectations of who you are. By making the effort, you can break the glass ceiling by expanding people’s view of your capability. What we’re really talking about here is taking charge of your personal brand, consciously and consistently.
The novelist Milan Kundera once reflected that flirting is the promise of sex with no guarantee. A successful brand, then, is the promise and guarantee of a mind-shattering experience each and every time. It’s the e-mail you always read because of who it’s from. It’s the employee who always gets the cool projects.
To become a brand, you’ve got to become relentlessly focused on what you do that adds value. Here are three steps to get you on the road to becoming the next Oprah Winfrey:
1. Develop a Personal Branding Message (PBM) A brand is nothing less than everything everyone thinks of when they see or hear your name. The best brands, like the most interesting people, have a distinct message. Your PBM comes from your content/unique value proposition, as we discussed in the last chapter, and a process of self-evaluation. It involves finding out what’s really in a name—your name. It calls for you to identify your uniqueness and how you can put that uniqueness to work. It’s not a specific task so much as the cultivation of a mind-set.
What do you want people to think when they hear or read your name? What product or service can you best provide? Take your skills, combine them with your passions, and find out where in the market, or within your own company, they can best be applied.
Your message is always an offshoot of your mission and your content.
Your positioning message should include a list of words that you want people to use when referring to you. Writing those words down are a big first step in having others believe them. Ask your most trusted friends what words they would use to describe you, for good and for bad. Ask them what are the most important skills and attributes you bring to the table.
2. Package the Brand Most people’s judgments and impressions are based on visuals—everything other than the words you speak that communicates to others what you’re about. For everyone in every field—let’s be real—looks count, so you’d better look polished and professional.
There is one general, overarching caveat in this step: Stand out! Style matters. Whether you like it or not, clothing, letterheads, hairstyles, business cards, office space, and conversational style are noticed—big time. The design of your brand is critical. Buy some new clothes. Take an honest look at how you present yourself. Ask others how they see you. How do you wish to be seen?
3. Broadcast Your Brand You’ve got to become your own PR firm. Take on the projects no one wants at work. Never ask for more pay until after you’ve been doing the job successfully and become invaluable. Get on convention panels. Write articles for trade journals and company newsletters. Send e-mails filled with creative ideas to your CEO. Design your own Me, Inc. brochure. Develop your brand online. The world is your stage. Your message is your “play.” The character you portray is your brand. Look the part; live the part.
Remember, you have a choice: Be distinct or be extinct. Want people to recognize how much you have to offer? Then it’s your job to do everything in your power to make it easy for them – and that means relentless commitment to quality.
Update: Just saw Dan Schawbel's great post from earlier this week on ''branding by association." Check it out.
IMHO, LinkedIn has tried too hard to be a one-stop shop; all things to all people. When I go there now the site feels glutted and overwhelming, and its initial and very clear value prop (a place to build a respectable, reference-based professional network) muddied.
But are we comparing apples to oranges here? From the POV of user experience, LinkedIn and Twitter excel at two very different things: LinkedIn, at connecting your network in a way that's beneficial to both you and the others in it; Twitter, at creating a dynamic conversation among people and about subjects you've decided are of interest.
Two valuable, very different services. I also suspect Twitter is getting a boost in the polls because it's the new hotness ...
UPDATE: Looking at this post from the day after, I'm more focused on the title of the survey: What's the most important platform for BRANDS to master? Given the specificity of the question, it's seems kind of a "no duh" to me that twitter ranks above LinkedIn (even more so than in that graph - see the comments below) because it's such a great communication tool, one that people are using to talk about whatever and whoever they want. What I find more interesting is that Iphone isn't getting a higher percentage. Can you tell I have one?
What's your take?
Incidentally, Keith cracked 4000 followers on his twitter today. Major increase since he started getting seriously interactive with it.
"We will break with negative influences. But it must be done consciously and specifically to be effective. I can't be around you right now. It's just not the right energy for me. Harsh? Possibly. Healthy? Yes. We cannot think big if we are surrounded by small thinking, negative influences and bad habits: the friend who supports us, but doesn't believe in us; the partner whose lifestyle is unhealthy; the business colleague who takes comfort in mediocrity."
This is a version of my Who's Got Your Back discussion about "plucking the weeds, tending the flowers." The weeds are individuals who bring you down, who take up energy and time with little in return. The flowers among your relationships are those people who bring brightness, color, ideas, support, and meaning into your life. Sometimes we need to distance ourselves from people who are holding us back, even if we love them.
I know from experience that people really have trouble with this one. How about you: how have you dealt with a weed in the past - by picking it? Or have you been able to turn a weed into a flower?
My piece on that topic is up as a slideshow front and center at Reader's Digest.com today - go check it out and vote five stars if you like it! (otherwise, don't vote! kidding... )
Just got the link for an article Success interviewed me for, on creating better friendships for a better life. Check it out.
From the piece:
If being busy is an excuse, try replacing the word “balance” with “blending,” Ferrazzi suggests. For career-minded Type-A personalities, he suggests thinking about ways to combine work, hobbies, friends and family. Do things you love while inviting people who are important to you; plan get-togethers that involve kids, too.
Ferrazzi suggests that, as you build up your social network, you shouldn’t be afraid to share it. Find someone else with similar goals and objectives and say, “Let’s introduce each other to people; let’s get together and share the chores and the planning.” Dinner parties are a great way to do this, because they can be tailored to fit any financial situation. “Breaking bread together has long been a powerful mechanism for bonding people throughout history,” he says.
I was working on some questions for Guy Kawasaki's blog and got to thinking about the origins of the word "overshare." Thanks to google, I found out that "overshare" was Websters "Word of the Year 2008." Who knew? Fun video below.
Note: The relationship building approach in Who's Got Your Back doesn't start with vulnerability for exactly this reason -- oversharing can send people running. Instead, it starts with generosity. Generosity opens the door to a deeper relationship; it gets you permission to share.
