The old chestnut of “personal brand” is topical as ever. And this week I joined a Linkedin Live session with Naishadh Gadani and Karalyn Brown, talking about what it means, and if it’s even a thing.
Note – it’s an hour, so if you don’t have time to watch keep reading!
Have you ever thrown a pebble in the water and watched the ripples go all the way from the point of impact out to the edge?
One of the things people forget when talking about a brand is it’s never just about you. There are always ripples, so it’s worth taking a broader, and you could say less personal view.
Here are some ripples to consider:
- Your brand result doesn’t stop with you, it includes others and how you work with them and what you do.
- If your brand result is the face of a business, it can and will impact those others you work with and for – good and bad.
- Perception of your brand result doesn’t happen in a vacuum – it starts with something YOU do (or say).
- No matter what your intentions are, unless your actions align with it, they will tell the real story.
- If the things you say you care about are a masquerade, eventually the mask will slip to show the “real you”.
- Your brand result is not a marketing campaign to trot out when you want to increase your profile or do damage control (and when you treat it that way, see #8).
- Aspiration and hype won’t achieve a brand result people want to stick with – values and purpose are the elements you need to get in place. They are the foundations the result will rest on.
- All brand results are achieved, one action, one decision and one comment at a time. They are destroyed the same way.
When the brand result rubber meets the road, yours isn’t different from organisations. Both are ultimately stores of promises.
So if you want your brand result’s accomplishment to grow, make sure the promises you make are promises you can keep … and then keep them.