Brand you: part 1

The idea of “brand” as something that individuals should be thinking about for themselves probably first entered the broader consciousness via Tom Peters in around 1997. He revisted the idea a decade later in a Fast Company magazine article, and in the last couple of years it seems you can’t turn around without people talking about “personal brand”.

It’s certainly been a topic of conversation here in Australia these past few weeks. From the mis-steps of Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull to what could kindly be termed poor judgement by shock-jock Kyle Sandilands, personal brand has probably never been so much on the minds of so many.

And among all the hype there is just as much hullabaloo around company and product brand definitions and theory. Makes it pretty hard to know what you should be doing or not doing to build your own personal brand.

To my way of thinking, personal brand is really not all that different to an organisation’s brand (we’ll leave product brand out of it for today as I’m not sure inanimate objects ever truly have their own brand…). Whether you are one or many, a brand is still the result of what you believe and what your actions show (all your actions, not just the deliberate marketingy ones!).

So for all of you struggling out there trying to figure out whether you need a personal brand, my message to you is – YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE! You might not know what it is. You are probably not using it or doing anything to consciously construct it. But you have one – the very act of being a certain way, of holding certain values and combining them with your day-to-day actions means you have a brand.

You might never need it, or want to use it and that’s just fine. I don’t subscribe to the idea that everyone has to be out there competing for their five minutes in the marketplace. But even if you are the quiet retiring type, a little brand knowledge can be a good thing.

Are you looking for a job? Promoting your endeavours? Figuring out who to partner with? Deciding if social networking is for you and how to use it? Pitching new business? Working for yourself? Looking for office space? Sending an email rather than making a phone call? Deciding what product or service to buy (or not)? Writing your “elevator” pitch?

This list could go on through the myriad of decisions and actions that we take in our personal and professional lives. How we respond to them are all pieces of our brands.

For many people the question right now is: ‘what’s next?’ It’s a great question full of possibilities and different options. And also completely overwhelming for nearly everyone. So if personal brand can help make these types of decisions less daunting, how do you figure out what yours is?

Come back next week and we’ll do some more ‘Brand You 101’.

See you then.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognize who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.