Daily Archives: December 8, 2011

Dealing with Austerity – Personal Branding: the Next Frontier? – Concepts – Part 2

December 8, 2011 By in Coaching, Consulting, Executive Interim Management, Neoliberal, Personal Branding, Unemployment Tags: , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Personal Branding FormulaImage via Wikipedia
85-percent-rule-personal-branding-update
Personal Brand Plan Model
Image by stefano principato via Flickr

A. INTRODUCTION

This is the second of three linked blogs on personal branding. For the busy reader who did not reader Part 1, here is a recap of the challenge:

…………..Against this background, individuals face agonizing challenges, uncertainties and increasing risk. This includes youth unemployment and older workers displaced by technology or offshoring. Public sector workers are being targeted and family owned businesses are being told that they do not know how to run their businesses in the national interest. Social mobility and a post-war belief in education is being challenged like never before. Minorities with privileged education and their privileged networks will perhaps be spared some of the worst of the pain.

The Public Sector and large corporates are increasingly treating individuals as commodities. Individuals face an agonizing choice between being “a commodity” or an “individual” based on personal branding. In the field of interim management, many traditional interims managers are either giving up or becoming contractors.

Personally, I have always been a passionate fan of Dale Carnegie, and Positive Thinking. There is now a huge “self-help” industry and advice abounds on personal marketing. Personal branding is a specialized type of personal marketing. The concept of personal branding was probably first introduced by management guru Tom Peters.

This week’s focuses on clarifying the concept of personal branding including:

  • Definition of personal branding
  • Why personal branding matters?
  • Do you have what it takes to build a personal brand?
  • How ambitious are you for your personal brand?
  • So is personal branding right for you?
  • Towards the next frontier?

B. DEFINITION OF PERSONAL BRANDING

A personal brand is defined as:

the public projection of certain aspects of a person’s personality, skills or values that stimulate precise, meaningful perceptions in its audience about the values and qualities that person stands for (Montoya 2002)

C. WHY PERSONAL BRANDING MATTERS?

In my opinion, the alternative to a personal brand is to be seen by stakeholders (customers, suppliers, competitors, politicians, bureaucrats etc.) as just another commodity product. There is an increasing trend towards commoditization and globalization which has been driven by neoliberal economic policies.

D. DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD A PERSONAL BRAND?

There are four basic qualities that you need to build a brand (Peters 2007):

  1. Be a great teammate and supportive colleague
  2. Be an exceptional expert at something that has real value ability
  3. Be a broad gauged visionary, a leader, a teacher, a far-sighted “imaginer”, and
  4. Be a business person, obsessed with pragmatic outcomes 

A more detailed checklist has been expressed as the eight “laws” of personal branding (Montana 2002):

  1. Specialization – including by ability, behaviour, lifestyle, mission, product, profession, service
  2. Leadership – managing uncertainty, clarifying path, commanding authority, demonstrating excellence, over delivering, and building on successes
  3. Personality – being a realist, demonstrating human weakness, fallibility, positive orientation and an authentic quality (reliability, trustworthiness, genuineness, undisputed credentials etc.)
  4. Distinctiveness – expressing oneself differently from contemporaries
  5. Visibility – strongly promoted, marketed and leveraged, constantly seen and repeatedly
  6. Unity – the branding must be realistic
  7. Persistence – building the brand may take years and it will be important not weaken the brand by passing fads and trends
  8. Goodwill – a tolerance built up over years of effective service

E. HOW AMBITIOUS ARE YOU FOR YOUR PERSONAL BRAND?

There are three levels of aspiration or influence (Montoya 2002):

  1. Advocate – associating with trends which might be short-lived
  2. Trendsetter – influencing thinking with specific trends but retaining a presence in a larger sphere, so that the brand remains when the trend finishes
  3. Icon – probably famous and able to influence organically trends across multiple and evolving fields

F. SO IS PERSONAL BRANDING RIGHT FOR YOU?

Personal branding is not a panacea, neither is it right for everybody. It potentially offers any individual the opportunity to improve his/her marketability by adopting a structured approach to personal branding. To be successful requires major commitment over many years. With youth unemployment at record levels, e.g. 46% in Spain, and Governments increasingly committed to policies of austerity, individuals who do not have privileged educations and privileged networks will need to use their own imagination, creativity and drive to build their careers. Austerity will mean increasing commoditization, with the big rewards limited to the privileged few. Probably the most exciting area of personal branding is at the iconic level where the individual is highly influential and effective in one field, and as a result of effective personal branding is able to project influence across multiple and evolving fields. If you do not want to be exploited as a commodity, you probably need to think about building a successful personal brand. Peters sums it up:

The good news – and it is largely good news – is that everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark.  

H. NEXT

Next week’s blog focuses on how I developed the Dr Alf Oldman brand – it is longitudinal case study over twenty years. It is hoped that other may be able to use it as a benchmark to leverage their own personal brands.

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