If you’re a Workplace Warrior – you put in your time on the job, but you don’t feel passionate about your work – you’re probably perceived by your coworkers, supervisor, and customers as dependable but unremarkable. If you’re a Management Maverick – you implement solutions without the support of your coworkers, supervisor, and customers – you’re likely perceived as a rogue. Each of these perceptions damages your career and prevents you from fulfilling your potential.
Highly successful Intrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs use others’ perceptions to their advantage. By creating their own personal brand and marketing themselves – much in the same way companies position themselves and their products in the marketplace – people with Career Intensity increase the perception of their value in the minds of those they serve.
When you use personal branding to define yourself in the marketplace – either within your company or as the head of your own company – you differentiate yourself from your competition by creating value for those who use your services. Through value creation and demonstration, you will create a demand for your services, which ultimately will attract success.
The Importance of Perception
A brand is the perception of a product or service in the mind of the consumer. Each of us has our own personal brand. Each of our target audiences has a perception of us. Sometimes this perception is exactly what we want it to be and it serves us well; other times, this perception is dramatically different from how we wish to be seen and works to our detriment.
Companies take great care and spend millions upon millions of dollars to influence the perception of their target audiences. They conduct sophisticated research studies and test and retest all forms of marketing communications. They craft exactly the right message and precisely select the correct medium to reach a specific audience in the appropriate way.
Does all of this care and dedication make a difference? Absolutely! We often subscribe to the point of view the marketing professionals want us to believe. In many cases we have no choice, since we are bombarded by a variety of marketing communications about a product or service. Television commercials, billboards, direct mail brochures, radio ads, magazine ads, newspaper ads, product placement, celebrity endorsements, and sports sponsorships constantly assault us. Aggressive public relations professionals are pitching stories right now that will shape tomorrow’s news. Buzz marketing companies are working over your friends and relatives to get them to recommend their products and services to you. It’s no wonder that most kids can name 20 different types of candy but they can’t name five Presidents of the United States. The candy gets more media attention.
So what does all of this have to do with you and your mission to develop career intensity? Everything! You need to start managing yourself and your career as a brand. You need to consider the perception of your target audience before you craft a message. You need to make certain that your target audience sees you exactly the way you want them to.
Personal branding is not designed to help you create a false perception. It can’t cover up the reality of who you are. The first rule of branding is to start with a quality product. In creating a personal brand, you are the product and you must be able to deliver. Let’s say that you are identified within your company as the person who always gets things done on time. That is your personal brand promise. Your customers are other employees. You must deliver on that promise in each and every interaction with your customers. If you fail to get a task accomplished on time for a colleague, you have broken your brand promise. You have chipped away at your customer’s perception of your value. You can’t be late. Not even once. Your personal brand is unforgiving. That’s why your brand must be developed based upon reality.
While you can reflect upon the essence of who you are and see the positive qualities that make you a good person, most people are not fortunate enough to see your inner beauty and greatness. Instead, they make decisions based upon what they see, hear, and feel when they interact with you. As such, you deserve to be positioned in the best light. If you are happy with yourself, then you should use personal branding to present your best qualities to the world. Every point of contact should be designed to help you make a positive impression on your customers.
An owner of a brand controls its reputation by managing all the points where the audience comes in contact with the brand. The starting point for managing these contact points is the brand’s strategy – knowing what kind of reputation he wants the brand to have in the minds of its audience. What reputation do you want to hold in the hearts and minds of your audience? What reputation will give you the greatest advantage over your competition?
Businesses employ entire teams of marketing professionals to help position them. What resources do you have? How can you take on the competition without a wealth of resources? The good news is that you can be as effective as the big guys with the resources that you currently have. You can develop a very effective personal brand, develop a personal communications strategy, and conceive and execute creative tactics that will effectively position you exactly as your customers should see you.
Your Personal Branding Challenge
As you develop your personal brand, your challenge is to make sure you are at the top of the list in the minds of your customers. In this context, the term “customers” refers to anyone who has a choice for a product or service that you provide. The product could be a tangible item, a day’s work, friendship or a warm meal. If they have a choice, and there is mutual benefit in the relationship, consider them customers.
Branding is not about you; it’s entirely about your customers. The experience they have when they interact with you – whether via email, the telephone, or in person – forms an impression and creates an expectation in their mind. You want that interaction to be a positive one that leads to future interactions and referrals.
Establishing a personal brand strategy keeps the needs and the desires of your customers in the forefront of your mind. It helps you remain focused on that which is important to a group of people who can have a huge impact on your future – your customers.
You goal in personal branding is to get your target market to see you as the preferred choice. You can do this by articulating what you do differently from everyone else and why that difference is better. However, making the promise –articulating the difference – is only half of the bargain. You must deliver on that promise each and every time. In other words, don’t write checks you can’t cash.
The personal branding process isn’t about overwhelming advertisements, media plans, fancy logos, and catchy jingles. As you devise a specific strategy for creating a personal brand, you can expect to:
- Differentiate yourself from your competition
- Position your focused message to your target customers
- Develop consistent, focused marketing efforts
- Project credibility
- Strike an emotional chord
- Create strong loyalty
There are five rules to remember as you begin the process of developing your personal brand. They are:
You are what you are. Popeye would be proud. Anytime you represent yourself to be something that you are not, you run the risk of losing a customer forever. You have great qualities that can help position you as different and valuable. Those qualities must be your own. You must be honest with your customers – and with yourself.
Consistency is critical. Regardless of the business you are in, your customers must be able to count on you. If you want to impress your boss, don’t complete an assignment early one time – beat your deadline every time. Your boss will know that you are the go-to person if she must have a critical project completed on time.
There are no “do-overs.” First impressions are critical. You can’t take back something you said to a customer. Everything is on the record. You should be yourself, but always remember that your reputation takes a lifetime to build and just a few minutes to destroy. Follow the Golden Rule in every interaction: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. No one ever truly wins an argument with a customer.
Clarity is a gift. Too many people use complex language in order to appear intelligent and just wind up confusing people. Often, complexity makes the speaker seem pompous and condescending. Keep every interaction and every point of contact clear and simple. Be transparent. Communicate simply and directly.
Show, don’t tell. If you explain a concept to a customer, he may understand it intellectually. But, if you tell him a story, show him a picture, or perform a demonstration, he will make an emotional connection to the event, to the experience, and to you. The more of his senses you can involve, the stronger the impression you will make. The key word here is impression. Make an impact or you’ll fade like a distant memory.
As you move forward to craft a strategy for your personal brand, everything you do should be in alignment with these rules. Likewise, once your strategy is complete and you begin to focus on creating tactics to implement it, your tactics should adhere to these five basic rules.
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