Helpful Insights Online» Brand

Re-branding Yourself (Part 2): More On Personal Branding and Some Great Resources

Gil Pizano — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:14:09 +0000

At the request of many who wrote to me about my “Re-Branding Yourself” post I’ve written a continuation on the subject of “Branding/Re-Branding”. Thanks for all the emails and comments received!

Radio City Music Hall was packed to capacity with many of the entertainment industry’s elite and television crews were ensuring that 27 million people were able to watch live. The show was not even an hour old when WOW, what a shock! The people in attendance and watching on TV the 2009 Video Music Awards (VMAs) witnessed Kanye West interrupt Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Female Video to basically say that another artist nominated for the same award should have won. Do you think Kanye West’s brand was affected by what he did? You better believe that it was.

The branding process for a person, including myself, is a never ending, ongoing process that a person needs to be aware of. Why? Because everything we do and say, and everything we don’t do and say, affects our personal brand. (Author’s Note: There’s no need to be paranoid, just be aware of it. )

Taking a look at what a brand is, here are some definitions for “brand” that I found online:

According to Bizzia.com:

Intangible asset similar to your reputation:
Generated through a consistent message of that reputation communicated through advertising, customer service , community relations, consumer experience/word-of-mouth, etc.,
And thereby creating awareness of that reputation among consumers

According to BusinessDictionary.com:

Entire process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product (good or service) in the consumers’ mind, through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

What is Your Brand?

Brands enable companies to differentiate themselves: How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

A personal brand needs an outlet in order to showcase a product or service: What are you doing to showcase who you are and why someone should work with or be associated with you?

A brand shows the vision of the enterprise: What is your vision and your long term plan to achieve it?

“Every human being is a brand, the way you socialize, who you know, what you say.”

– Jerry Seinfeld

I recently wrote a brief article called “Re-Branding Yourself”. I’ve received many great comments on the article, both from people visiting my blog as well as from friends and colleagues on social networking and professional association sites and I am truly grateful. One group of comments that had valuable insights to the topics of Branding and Re-Branding came from the LinkedIn group “Harvard Business Review”. With permission, I’m sharing some of these comments below.

“We are all part of a business community of some sort, just as products are part of an industry. One must renew and update their brand or lose market share (branding). When I was a child — now I am really dating myself — we referred to athletic shoes as KEDs, copiers as Xerox machines and hot tubs as Jacuzzis. These products were branded. They lost market share. Why? Did they think that once they reached the top, they would stay there?

LOL One needs to stay current, educated in their field and become an adventurous and innovative leader. I had a company motto that assisted in my branding, “Do it first. Do it right. Do it now.” The phrase that followed me in my community was, “She gets things done.”

Is there a phrase that is used in describing you in your workplace? Is it the same as the vision that you have for yourself?”

- Jacalyn Smith, Executive Vice Chairman / President of BCI

“Branding is a perception. For brand to last long, it must have something inside that lifts it up just like air inside the balloon and something that draws your attention just like the colour on the outside of the balloon. You must maintain the air level (generic value) within and adjust your colors outside as viewers like (brand renovation).”

-Prakash Dudhat, Experienced Administrator in Education Consultancy.

“There are many reasons executives take a hard look at their personal brands. I am working with an exec out of California who is (truly) a leader in his field. His name and picture have been plastered across notable business publications. Now he wants to shift his focus.

How can he do this so that it is credible and genuine, without seeming fleeting? This is personal branding, too. As long as the motivation and marketing is based in authenticity, it can be done effectively. Another example: One of my clients on the East Coast has built a very visible reputation as the CEO of a leader in their sector. However, if you ask people what he stands for, few can articulate his values, his passions, his mission. They all know him as “a great guy” who leads a successful company. This also indicates the need to grow his personal brand.

Personal Branding is the practice of developing and marketing your reputation. Since perception is formed on behavior, we have to start with actions. Then, we look at all the ways your brand comes to life — through your brand character, personality, posturing, relationships, etc.

Feedback is critical as we can often think we’re perceived differently than others see us. This isn’t always bad! Often times, when I work with clients on the feedback portion of our process, we uncover brand gems that reveal opportunity we couldn’t have foreseen. Feedback is always a gift — it reveals opportunity to make progress towards our desired brand.”

-Lida Citroen, Owner and Principal of LIDA360, LLC

“For famous brands like Mercedes or McDonalds, it is easy to make surveys to know what the customers think of your products and services.

How do you test your personal brand if you are a small business owner?

If you ask only people who know you in your network you miss the general impression you give by responding to conversations, by making bogs and websites. There is one tool, www.onlineidcalculator.com that gives an idea of your presence on the web but it is not qualitative.

I would like to emphasis that building your personal brand is not only for small business owners or people who have been laid off and looking for a job. Start building now before you need it.

How do you influence the way people perceive you on the internet?

1 — What you do and say on the web will stay forever, so make professional comments. Be aware of your language, and jokes: ask yourself if it is compatible with the image you want to project?

2 — Start to use tools in LinkedIn: participate in groups, ask and answer questions that position you as an expert. Build your reputation in your field. Use Slideshare, polls and blogs on your home page. Use the social media that reflects your potential client or employer interests.

3 — Make a professional blog, with Blogger it is very easy. You can also join a Yahoo group or create one. Put links on your web site from expert blogs and websites to gain credibility.

4 — Volunteer to make events such as presentations and trainings to your local industry chapters or your potential clients association. This will be mentioned by others than you. It is always better to be referred by word of mouth.”

-Anne Egros, Owner, International Business Coach at Zest & Zen International LLC

Some Great Articles and Online Resources

“The Return of the Personal Brand” by Gill Corkindale

“11 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand” by Gill Corkinda

“Personal Branding 101: How to Discover and Create Your Brand” by Dan Schawbel

“Personal Branding Becomes a Necessity in Digital Age” by Mark Glaser

“4 Steps to Personal Branding Success” by Dan Schawbel

“The Brand Called You” by Tom Peters

“Building your Personal Brand” by Kevin Liebl

“Me Incorporated, Your Own Magnetic Brand” by Randall Frost

The Personal Branding Blog

A Branding Glossary

Personal Branding & Career Self-Marketing Tools for Job-Seekers and Career Activists

Personal Branding: Strengths Assessment Tool

10 Best of Personal Branding Strategies, Lessons, and News

What is personal branding and why is it so important?

You Brand, Inc.

Some Online Tools That Can Be Used for Monitoring a Personal Brand

What are some of your favorite online tools, books and articles on personal branding?

How do you see yourself?

How do you want others to see you?

How do you want others to think of you or the unique services your provide?

Re-Branding Yourself

Gil Pizano — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:38:51 +0000

I was recently at a great networking and professional development event in downtown Hartford, CT. Nope, not the “getMotivated tour” with Colin Powell, Steve Forbes and others (even though I heard that was a great event in itself), but another one a day later organized by a few local professional organizations. The main keynote speaker gave a presentation about “Re-Branding Yourself: How Do You Rebrand Yourself in this Current Business Environment?” and it made me think about how many people today don’t realize the importance of how their brand is seen.

If you don’t know or aren’t aware of what I’m talking about, a brand is how another person or organization sees you and the services you provide (or don’t provide). Your “personal brand” is key to the success of whatever you wish to do with your life. How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?

Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you don’t have a brand ‘cause we all have one!

According to William Aruda, author of an excellent book on personal branding called Career Distinction, a brand is a “unique promise of value”.

Recently, I witnessed a person introducing someone else at a business function by saying, “John, this is Lisa Smith. She’s our marketing analyst.” What was interesting is that later at the same function I had a chance to have a conversation with Lisa and what I realized is that she didn’t think of herself simply as a marketing analyst and she shouldn’t. During the course of our conversation, I discovered that she was a lot more than a marketing analyst. In fact, she had experience running her own marketing company as well as organizing and running marketing campaigns for multiple clients. That’s more than a marketing analyst usually does.

The reason I share the above story is that Lisa allowed someone else to create her brand. Whether we’d like to admit it or not, first impressions are important. So regardless of how Lisa perceives herself, she has been branded as a marketing analyst in the minds of the person who introduced her and those she was introduced to. The good news is that although Lisa was branded by someone else, she has the option to re-brand herself! Have you ever found yourself in a similar scenario where someone introduces you with a title you did not necessarily expect or want?

If you don’t purposefully create your own brand, others will create your brand for you.

Here are some questions to ask yourself in order to gauge how your brand is being perceived:

How do people see you when they think about you?
What is the first thing that comes into a person’s mind when they see your picture?
What is the first thing that comes into a person’s mind when they meet you?
What image do people perceive when they hear your name mentioned? Is it negative or positive?

For myself, the above questions help me gauge how my personal brand is seen by others. I’m always looking for ways to improve my own personal brand so I actually pose the above questions to people I know and trust. If you want to know how your brand is seen, ask someone that you trust to tell you what is the first thing that comes to mind when they see you (this doesn’t have to be only someone in your network. For this exercise, someone you trust to give you a sincere and honest opinion may be someone you do not even know. You want sincere feedback about how your brand is seen). If it’s something you did not expect or did not want to hear, then it may be time to start re-branding yourself.

Some Great Examples of Branding

Successful individuals formulate a strategic intent and execute to that intent for market success. Whether your business is in providing a product or service or whether it’s being seen as an expert in a particular nitch.

What comes to mind when you see the pictures below?

For each of the individuals above, what ever comes to mind, you can be sure that the same thing comes to the mind for a large portion of the population in the North America. Why? Because these people have purposefully created their own personal brand and regardless of what your opinion is of them, there image automatically brings their product or service to mind. That’s the power of a strong personal brand!

What does your personal brand tell others about what you do?

What does your personal brand tell others about what you can provide? What do you want your personal brand to say?

Any ideas on how someone can improve or change their personal brand? What are your thoughts?

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