In Chapters 8 through 11, you explored Step 2: Express in our 1-2-3 Success! process—a step that focused on communicating your brand to your target audience. This chapter turns to the subject of how to manage your brand environment, which consists of the activities you carry out, the objects in your surroundings, and the people with whom you associate. Your brand environment comprises elements of your appearance (such as your clothing and accessories as well as voice and body language), your office and business tools (including PDAs and briefcases), your brand identity system (the colors, fonts, and images that you use consistently), and your professional network. All of these things say something about you—and thus communicate a message about your brand.
Managing your brand environment means aligning the elements in that environment in ways that reinforce your brand message—your unique promise of value. Strong brands ensure that everything that they do and all that surrounds them—the technologies they use, the clothes they wear, the way they speak, where they conduct business meetings—communicates their brand message.
Corporations also manage their brand environments. Consider Apple Inc.: This organization is all about “thinking different.” Apple applies this brand mantra not only to its products, but also to its packaging and retail outlets. If you’ve ever visited an Apple store, you probably saw instantly that the store was unlike any other electronics or computer retailer. Everything in the place—from its open, clean layout to its Genius Bar—trumpets Apple’s signature message: “Think Different.” Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California, also proves just how different the company really is. Smoothie bars in the cafeteria, hardwood floors, a bring-your-dog-to-work policy—all of these elements encourage employees to “think different” and to deliver on the corporate brand promise.
To be effective, your brand environment must be comfortable for you and appealing to your target audience. For instance, if your brand is all about “style and contemporary design,” you might decide to meet with a potential new client in the lobby of a W Hotel instead of a more traditional hotel, and to wear stylish attire rather than the more conservative business suit. That’s what we mean by aligning your brand environment with your brand.
You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success— or are they holding you back?
— W. Clement Stone, businessman and advocate of positive mental attitude
Your brand environment communicates your brand even when you aren’t there, for example, when someone goes to look for you in your office, even if you aren’t sitting there when they arrive, they are forming an opinion of you from what they see. The question you must ask yourself is: How much is my brand environment helping me move toward my goals—or preventing me from achieving them? Note, though, that managing your brand environment doesn’t have to mean perfect consistency among every element in that environment. You may have strategic reasons for displaying some inconsistent behaviors. For example, William’s accountant John (not his real name) is remarkably skilled at his profession. But his working style is the opposite of the organized, detail-oriented, and buttoned-down manner many people expect from an accountant. When William first saw John’s office, he was shocked. Mounds of files teetered on the desk; papers lay strewn across the floor, some of them stained by coffee rings. John says he does his best work under these relaxed, informal conditions but that he realizes he also needs to instill confidence in his clients. His brand—what makes him successful—centers on knowledge, confidence, and flawless execution. Thus, he holds client meetings at the swank little coffee shop around the corner, rather than in his office. In this way, he manages his negative brand attributes and ensures that his clients’ interactions with him are always on-brand.
As stated, your brand environment comprises four key components:
When you align all these elements so that they work together, you create a symphony that trumpets your personal brand. And that symphony is music to the ears of hiring managers, customers, peers— whoever makes up your target audience. If you neglect to align these elements, you create a cacophonous message that confuses those around you who can help you advance your career. In the sections that follow, we examine the first two elements of your brand environment: your personal appearance and your office and business tools. Chapter 13 explores your visual brand identity system, while Chapter 14 shines the spotlight on your professional network.
When you meet someone for the first time, that person forms an instant impression of you. If you want him or her to change that impression, studies show that it will take an additional 18 encounters. Clearly, making the best impression at that first meeting is critical. Aligning your appearance with your unique promise of value reinforces your brand message for that initial encounter. If you are creative, quick-witted, and dynamic, your appearance must reflect these qualities, for example, by dressing more colorfully or always wearing a different signature accessory. Likewise, if you are conservative, fastidious, and methodical, your clothes and body language need to communicate those attributes. Your apparel, gestures, posture, and movements all communicate something about you.
In addition to being on-brand, your appearance needs to be appropriate for your target audience. A vice president at Right Management, a talent management and outplacement consultancy, told us about a well-qualified executive client who was interviewing for C-suite positions. Every suit he had looked like it had not been drycleaned in years. He was extremely competent, had an Ivy League degree, and had a proven track record of growing companies. However, his “rough around the edges” business wardrobe distracted and disturbed the board members who interviewed him. He got many first interviews but seldom made it to the second round. Unfortunately, he apparently had forgotten the maxim “Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.”
In evaluating your appearance, consider how you might use trade-marks. Trademarks make you memorable. Think about Elton John— with his thousands of pairs of colorful eyeglasses. Or Steve Jobs, who always wears a black polo shirt with jeans. We’re not recommending that you develop a trademark, but we are suggesting that you flaunt any trademark you have. For example, Sue Brettel, a Reach Certified Strategist, uses her love of the color purple to make herself memorable. Purple stands for creativity and mystery according to color experts—two of Sue’s personal brand attributes. No matter what she is wearing, you can be assured that one element or another will be purple—a blouse, a scarf, a pin. Sue also carries around purple folders and a purple briefcase. People associate her with the color.
Your trademark need not be an article of clothing, an accessory, or a color. It could be a phrase that you use all the time or the way you walk. William used to work with a woman who took phrases that were invented elsewhere and made them her own. For example, “What’s special about this product that you can’t find on the other side of the net [from our competitors]?” “Let’s get the space-shuttle [high-level] view of this situation for a minute.” In every meeting she attends or presentation she delivers, she uses many such phrases. Others in her company have started using them and attributing them to her. And when they do, they help extend her brand even further. It’s like Martha Stewart’s, “It’s a good thing.”
Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.
— Gore Vidal, American novelist, essayist, and playwright
According to a study by psychologist Samuel Gosling and his colleagues at the University of Texas, people are “remarkably accurate” at guessing one another’s personality by looking at their work spaces.1 Your office, desk, and business tools provide a potent opportunity to reinforce your brand attributes.
When William arrived at his new office at Lotus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he saw immediately that his surroundings were not on-brand for him. In his office were two desks, each shaped like an L. The room faced the Charles River and Boston skyline. But even with the impressive view, the space wasn’t consistent with William’s brand. It was impossible for him to hold meetings there. Yet, one of his most prominent brand attributes is “collaborative”: William rarely works alone.
One night soon after he started the new job, William removed one of the desks from his office and replaced it with a round table surrounded by four chairs. He also placed a large bowl of Granny Smith apples on the round table. (William is also passionate about fitness; he wrote a book called Health without the Health Club.) These changes made his office more functional and communicated his belief in teamwork—an entirely appropriate message in a company whose tagline was “Working together.”
The story that follows provides an additional example of how one person changed her office to better communicate her brand.
It’s not just the items in your office that shape what people think about you. Every business tool you use sends a message, including communication and organization technologies. What kind of phone do you carry? What’s your ring tone? Do you have a paper calendar or a Palm Pilot? What does your screen saver say about you? Consider what your chosen technologies communicate about your brand, and don’t underestimate these tools’ power.
One reason Kirsten was pegged as technology master at the Career Masters Institute (now The Career Management Alliance) is that she was taking notes at one of their conferences with a PDA and foldable keyboard at a time when those tools were novel. When she was preparing to deliver a presentation at a different conference, she learned that the organizers had planned to provide overhead projectors for the presenters. Kirsten knew she had to purchase an LCD projector out of her own pocket, or her career technology presentation would be completely incongruent with its delivery method. Had she stuck with the provided equipment, the audience would have immediately questioned her technological expertise. Kirsten also brings a remote to easily forward her slides and animations (even if a laptop and projector are provided). Sporting her own remote sends the message that she’s a seasoned presenter who’s comfortable and familiar with the latest technology.
Whether you’re giving a presentation, participating in a meeting, or writing a report, never leave your brand behind. Always ask yourself how you can express your brand more clearly in every situation. Consider the following example.
Now that you’re more familiar with how to use your appearance as well as your office and business tools to reinforce your brand message, let’s turn to another important element of your brand environment: your visual brand identity system. The next chapter explores this subject in detail.