Personal Branding

The Brand Called You

Be real, be memorable.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

By Scott Lahde

Remember all the talk in the late '90s of the “brand called you”? Well, much has changed in the past 10 years – including the way we conduct a job search and the way we network with each other. But the original concept of branding yourself, especially in today’s competitive marketplace for plum roles and positions, is more relevant than ever.

Sure, you have a LinkedIn page. Perhaps you’ve signed up for Naymz and one of your colleagues invited you to join NotchUp or another business social network like Ryze. More and more online business networkingopportunities are sprouting up every day. You may have even designed a personal Web page with your professional credentials.

That’s a good start, but is that enough to build your own personal brand? No.

Focus on No. 1

As executives in marketing, advertising and sales can certainly attest, marketing a company’s product or service, generating sales leads and enhancing the brand are paramount to company success. So why wouldn’t you use that same approach for yourself? Sound too self-serving? Think again.

Really successful executives, the ones who are consistently written about, quoted as experts, and asked to partner with top executives and companies, do one thing and do it well. They promote themselves and their expert opinions.

Creating an online profile in a number of places and monitoring your online presence is definitely important, but if you ignore your real-worldpresence, you’re cutting your own legs. Busy executives pour through hundreds of e-mails and view scores of Web pages each day. Will your digital communication or Web presence stand out among the deluge of daily digital information? Well, it’s a big challenge.


What will be remembered is poignant, real-world interaction.

Make It Real

You can generate this sort of interaction and attention for the “brand called you” in a dozen different ways. However, the three ways that have had the biggest impact and are often a catalyst for more opportunities are:

1. Participating in industry trade groups and associations
2. Speaking at prominent industry events
3. Writing well-crafted, by-lined articles in trade publications

In a sense, think back to basics. Some may scoff at the notion of participation at the trade level. Whether it’s engineering, finance or technology, the trades are not nearly as glamorous as being featured inForbes or Fortune or speaking at Davos. But let’s be realistic: Only a handful of people are invited to participate at those high levels.

So don’t scoff at them – embrace your trades! It will be your entrance to bigger and better things. Everything is cyclical – a trade article could lead to being selected for a speaking engagement, which leads to being quoted in a news article, which leads to a panel opportunity, which leads to being interviewed on television as an industry expert. You never know. Your participation with Beer Advocate magazine could have led to being asked to comment on the mammoth Anheuser-Busch/InBev merger.

Be Memorable

The same holds true for conferences, conventions and industry association events. You certainly don’t need to attend every single gathering in your industry, but select a few key events and really focus on your personal interactions. You may be a salesperson for your organization, so of course one of your goals might be generating sales leads, but don’t make the mistake of ignoring your other goal – selling YOU.

Focus on real-world interaction with people. Have the kind of conversations that will make people remember you, not run in the opposite direction because you are hounding them. Be genuine. Be thoughtful. Find ways you can help people as much as they can help you. These tenets may seem natural to some, foreign to others, but they will go a long way in building your brand.

In Short

Create this simple litmus test: Is what I am doing improving mybrand, both online and offline?

Remember: Networking is not about collecting as many business cards as you can. It’s about quality over quantity.

I recently attended a conference and during the networking portion I was approached by a gentleman who quite frankly told me that his boss told him to attend the conference and hand out his business cards. He then offered me his business card and walked away.

Obviously, his business card was immediately filed the same way I file random online invites when I receive them. Do yourself a favor – don’t be that person.

Kevin Brown www.kbsinsight.blogspot.com