In 1997, Tom Peters wrote an article for Fast Company, titled ‘The brand called You’ which was probably the first articulation of this idea. In it he wrote ‘It’s time for me — and you — to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work’
Most people think about personal branding as a result of necessity. Suddenly they find themselves between jobs or careers, and recognise for the first time the need for branding, of the personal type. Usually that is the second best time to start thinking about it, the best time was years ago.
The nature of work is also changing, lifetime employment is a thing of the past. No longer are there any ‘safe’ jobs, economically and socially we have recognised that we need to look after ourselves, and the digital revolution has provided the tools to do so. The book End of Jobs is a compelling read, and persuasively makes the point after having looked at all the research. In these circumstances, you have become a commodity with something for sale: your time, expertise, experience and connections. In order to get the best price for that commodity, the lessons learnt over 100 years of product branding can be applied to personal branding.
The standard 4 step brand planning process that works for soap, also works for you.
First: What is the current ‘brand’ position? What do you do well, what do you do poorly, how do others see you, and what do they say when you are out of the room. You may need to ask a few friends and acquaintances for the honest truth, and be prepared for some surprises.
Second: What you would like it to be? You really need to think hard about how you want others to see you, leaving it to chance is not usually a good idea.
Third: How do you set about bridging the gap. Once you know the objective, you have a chance to plan and execute activities that contribute to the achievement of that objective.
Fourth: Implementation. This is the hard part, being proactive, consistently, over time, while reviewing and revising as necessary.
There are some pretty simple steps that can and should be taken by every professional to effectively implement a personal branding routine. None of it is particularly challenging, but does take a little bit of time.
- Register your name or digital handle as a domain if possible, but you need an ABN in Australia to register a .com.au domain. Without an ABN, make sure you claim the ‘domain’ on the social platforms, particularly LinkedIn. Each platform does it a bit differently, but it is worth the small effort to figure it out. In my case, I have allenroberts.com.au and StrategyAudit.com.au as my domains, and Strategyaudit is the handle I use throughout the digital channels to give me leverage.
- Apply disciplines to yourself. Having determined the sort of brand you want, ensure that everything you do on line adds a little to the project. No cat photos on Linkedin please, and have a separate Facebook page for your brand if you feel compelled to post those photos of yourself being compromised in some way. Best not to be in that situation at all now that everything is potentially public, no matter how hard you try to be private.
- Build a library of content that reflects what you are good at, and what you like to do, the sort of things you would like people to think of as ‘yours’. This does not necessarily have to be extensive, but it has to be curated and representative of your personal brand. Spreading the content across platforms gives you leverage, and an opportunity to repurpose the things that work well for you. In my case, the primary vehicle is the bank of 1400 plus blog posts on the StrategyAudit website, as well as an active presence on Linkedin, Facebook (as StrategyAudit) Twitter, and other digital platforms.
- Every digital platform is different, serving a different purpose for its users. It is reasonable therefore to vary the branding approach. Different narrative, photos and content are the start.
- Recognise that ‘browsers’ of platforms see ‘headlines’ just like the old days of newspapers. They may move beyond the headline, dig a bit deeper, if their interest is piqued. In most cases, your photograph is a significant part of your headline, so having them taken professionally makes good business sense. Many skip this simple step, as it is so easy to take your own and just upload. However, it is nowhere near as good as having a session with a professional. It will also give you options of using different photos on different channels, reflecting the character of the channel and yourself.
I recently had a session with Sam Affridi from Hero Shot Photography, a photographer I met through a business network. He suggested I rethink my headshot and the message it’s giving to my different audiences. As a result of the conversation, he took a series of photos for me, all designed to better reflect the differing messages I try and send on different platforms. He did a great job, and I now have a ‘bank’ of different shots that can be used as an additional communication tool in my headlines in various digital spaces. This replaces the one photo I had, that at the time I felt was pretty good but had over time proved to be sub optimal. It was enlightening to see how much thought went into the session and how my ‘brand’, what I want my clients and potential clients to feel about me, was a deliberate element of each headshot. As Sam puts it “creating a flattering portrait is the easy part. Creating one that’s specifically engineered to appeal to your ideal customer is worth spending time on” If you’re looking for an update, I’d give him a call and please do mention my name.
While it seems a bit narcissistic to have 4 of the many good photos posted, these all say something different about me, or at least I think so.
What do you think?
Commercial environments evolve, sometimes very fast, and staying still is death, which is why the successful brands are allowed to evolve in response to the job they are being asked to do. Similarly with personal brands, we have the opportunity to evolve what we do and say in line with the progress of our lives, but it should be a managed process, not one left to adhoc activity and chance. Developing your personal brand can be time consuming, and is necessarily an incremental activity, but putting aside 30 minutes a week as your investment in yourself seems pretty sensible.
