Chapter 3
Brand Yourself for Career Success
Personal branding enables you to profit from what distinguishes you from others with similar skills and abilities. Made popular by management guru Tom Peters in his 1997 Fast Company article “The Brand Called You,” personal branding is not a fad. And it’s not just for CEOs. In the decade since personal branding emerged, thousands of companies and independent consultants have begun offering personal branding services to career-minded professionals in virtually every country around the globe. Indeed, ExecuNet called personal branding the number one tool for executive job seekers.
In the six years since the founding of Reach, we have certified more than 150 career coaches, human resources executives, image consultants, and resume writers to deliver to their clients the Reach Personal Branding methodology that we present in this book. Moreover, we have helped tens of thousands of professionals build their personal brands through our workshops, newsletters, e-learning programs, and teleseminars. Personal branding is so powerful that Fortune 500 companies—firms single-mindedly focused on their corporate brands—are helping employees build their personal brands. Companies like JPMorgan, IBM, Microsoft, Disney, British Telecom, Warner Bros., and American Express have incorporated Reach’s personal branding workshops into their professional development programs.
Simply put, personal branding has gone mainstream. It’s the most effective and innovative strategy you can use to achieve professional success and fulfillment. Once a luxury, now a necessity, personal branding is the constant in today’s rapidly changing world of work.
But before we go into greater detail about personal branding, let’s talk a little about branding in general—especially the many misconceptions about what it is and why it’s valuable. We’re sure you’ll appreciate the true power of branding once you replace myths with truths.
- Myth 1: Branding is just for giant corporations and products on the grocery store shelf.
- Truth: Branding isn’t just for corporations and products. Look around you. The Red Cross, New York City, Silicon Valley— they’re all brands. So are Richard Branson, Tom Ford, and Oprah. In fact, Oprah showed up in the top-10 North American brands in Brandchannel’s Reader’s Choice Awards—between Coke and Amazon.com. The lesson? Everything, every place, every organization (whether it offers products or services), and every person can be a brand. And yes, that means you!
- Myth 2: Branding is the latest fad.
- Truth: Branding wasn’t invented by the Nikes or Coca-Cola companies of this world. Since before industrial times, people have used branding to develop strong, enduring relationships with customers. Medieval townspeople and villagers who frequented Mr. Alain’s pie shop knew that his pies tasted especially good and were always handed out with a warm smile. Mr. Alain made customers feel so special that they didn’t mind taking the long walk, waiting in line, and paying the extra two pence the pies cost. Today, branding still provides those same benefits—though on a larger, more global scale.
- Myth 3: A brand is a logo or tag line.
- Truth: According to whatis.com, a brand is “a product, service, or concept that is publicly distinguished from other products, services, or concepts so that it can be easily communicated and usually marketed.” A brand is a company’s most valuable asset. Branding is not just a logo or tag line. And it’s not just a bunch of marketing activities (advertising, direct mail, and so forth). It’s the sum of an organization’s or person’s actions, communications, offerings, and interactions.
The brand is the amusement park. The product is the souvenir.
—Nick Graham, chief underpants officer, Joe Boxer
- Myth 4: Branding is about creating an image.
- Truth: Consumers today are too sophisticated to be fooled by mere images of the unique value a company has to offer. Successful brands don’t just create images: They deliver on their unique promise of value. For example, Volvo differentiates itself from other car makers by its promise of safety and security. If Volvos began exploding on impact during collisions, consumers would no longer connect Volvo with safety—regardless of the number of ads they saw in which actors claimed that their Volvo was so safe it “saved my life.” Similarly, people would not associate Disney with wholesome family entertainment if the company decided to open a chain of gambling casinos and adult entertainment centers. Just as Milli Vanilli disappeared once their fans learned they were lip-synching, brands can survive only by consistently delivering on their unique value. Branding is not about creating an artificial image of unique value for the outside world. It’s about actually providing that unique value.
A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
—Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com
- Myth 5: Branding requires big bucks.
- Truth: It doesn’t take multimillion dollar ad campaigns to build strong brands. Just look at Starbucks. It is one of the world’s strongest brands, and it is never advertised on television. Branding is more of a philosophy than it is a marketing expense item. Done right, branding is part of the DNA of a company or a person. It is built through every activity, every interaction, every decision. Successful branding requires commitment and consistency not cash.
Corporations benefit from strong branding in many ways. Branding enables them to:
- Charge a premium for their products and services. Ever think about why you’re paying so much for a Starbucks coffee, when the coffee shop next door charges about half the price?
- Increase their market valuation. Only 10 percent of Coca-Cola’s market valuation derives from the company’s physical assets. The strength of its brand accounts for almost 90 percent of that valuation. Coke is currently the world’s strongest brand, according to an Interbrand study.1
- Extend their product or service lines. Marriott has used its strong brand name to create new chains of hotels (such as Marriott Courtyard) for a different target market (in this case, business travelers who wanted a more homelike experience, or families traveling with children). If Volvo wanted to get into the home-security business, it could probably do so relatively effortlessly by bringing its brand value into its new endeavor.
- Thrive during an economic downturn. Strong brands survive difficult times. Consider who survived the dot-com bust. It was the strong technology brands with enduring customer relationships—such as IBM and Apple. The smaller, younger dot-coms who expected to prevail have virtually disappeared.
- Attract and retain quality employees and partners. Do you know anyone who would rather work for a struggling, unknown company than for a strong brand? We all want our resumes to boast lengthy experience with strong brand names. When we associate ourselves with these brands, our own professional reputations shine.
Branding is valuable to companies because it helps consumers distinguish among seemingly similar offerings. Do you drink Coca-Cola or Pepsi? Do you shop at Target or Wal-Mart? Do you get your coffee at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts on the way to work in the morning? Would you rather live in Los Angeles or New York? Do you fly Virgin Upper Class or British Airways Club World?
People also feel strongly attached to the brands they’ve chosen. Some Pepsi drinkers wouldn’t even consider drinking another cola. And try getting an Apple evangelist to touch the keyboard of a PC. The next time you are in the grocery store, note how you almost automatically reach for certain brands despite the huge number of alternative products that are available. Ask yourself why you made that brand choice.
In fact, people’s consumer brand choices provide clues about their own personal brands. Think about it: What do your car, home, watch, wardrobe, eyeglasses, favorite restaurant—every brand you’ve chosen—say about you?
Personal branding is vital to advancing your career. After all, there are many other people out there who share your desired job title. If you work in an organization, you want your boss, hiring managers, and executive recruiters to choose you. And if you’re running your own business, you want your customers to choose you. Even more, you want them to seek you out.
That’s where personal branding comes in.
The 1-2-3 Success! Personal Branding Process
Personal branding is the most effective way to clarify and communicate what makes you different, special, and valuable to employers and customers—and use those qualities to guide your career. It’s about unearthing your unique attributes—your strengths, skills, values, and passions—and using them to stand out from your peers or competitors. Thus, through personal branding, you clearly communicate the unique promise of value that you have to offer. Think of your personal brand as your reputation. It builds over time and becomes synonymous with how people describe you.
Over the past six years, tens of thousands of professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs have undertaken the powerful process of self-understanding, positioning, and communication described in the remaining chapters of this book. They have emerged from this process with a clearer understanding of who they are and how they can expand their success through the consistent expression of their personal brands. The process they’ve followed consists of three steps: Extract, Express, and Exude. (See Figure 3.1.)
Figure 3.1 The 1-2-3 Success! Process
In the chapters that follow, we give you the tools you need to begin behaving as a brand. And we help you adopt the Career Distinction mindset necessary to benefit from this potent technique. In the Extract phase, you embark on a mission of self-discovery, whereby you describe the unique and valuable brand called you. In the Express Phase, you build a plan to increase your visibility and credibility among those who will help you reach your career goals. And in the Exude phase, you ensure that everything about you and everything that surrounds you sends a consistent, on-brand message about who you are and what you bring to the table.
As we’ve noted, your personal brand is the one constant in today’s ever-changing world of work. Like a trusty beacon, it guides you to your destination: a satisfying, successful career.
Turn to Chapter 4 now to discover how to begin unearthing your unique promise of value.