One of the competencies I've noticed, even been beat over the head with, during my six month blogging novitiate is that there is a terrific amount of blogging on personal branding. Everyone and his brother is jumping on the personal branding bandwagon. I find that a bit strange. I can't really believe that self-packaging--personal branding--is the panacea for our sins or for our vocation. Still, when you google personal branding there are 84 pages of stuff on the subject. I assume there will be redundancy on those pages but I lacked the interest to check it out.
It's obvious that Tom Peters had his finger in all this, dating from an article he wrote in 1997. Many people don't know how to read that marvelous guru. I have a great deal of admiration for Peters. He's the greatest business popularizer of the 20th century, able to get the attention that Peter Drucker, the master, couldn't get. (In many ways, he's much like the great New York Times popularizer, Thomas Friedman.) Peters also has a big heart for the underdog, blue collar and hard working, many who regularly get screwed by business. That's why you occasionally get a rant about Wal-Mart and other businesses from Peters.
The key to reading and understanding Peters is to never take him literally, about nearly anything. He writes and speaks to get the attention of closed ears, using hyperbole and exaggeration, all done to create a strong impression and evoke strong feelings. He is what one of my former Southern colleagues called a "yeller:" an outrageous personality needed to get the attention of the establishment when they're way off track. Peters' first blockbuster did precisely that. It refocused business on the customer, although not all business got the message.
FYI: The American auto business never did get Peters’ customer-centric point which is a major reason why it faces bankruptcy today.
With that frame of reference in front of you, let me redefine personal branding in its most basic form. Hopefully, that will enable you to analyze the stuff on personal branding to make some useful decisions about the process.
- There is only one purpose for a personal brand and that's to evoke a response from a potential customer. It may make you feel good about yourself, give you something to put on your website or business card, or even some new language for Twitter, but if what you're creating isn't for the purpose of evoking a response from a potential customer, forget it.
- Your personal brand only matters if it results in sales. Whether you’re an independent consultant or an internal organizational professional, you want clients to have awareness, favorability and purchase of your expertise. The expertise that you’re selling may take the form of products, services or even ideas, but it’s those results that you’re concerned about. You can create rather simple metrics to measure the results of your brand, even mere revenue figures, statements of value from your clients or requests for your service. What all that implies, though, is if there are no sales, your personal brand is a waste of time.
- Customers only buy what they perceive to be relevant. If your personal brand doesn't offer something that customers perceive to be relevant, you're screwed. If your claims are hollow, then it's impossible for you to seem relevant for very long. That means that I'm always listening to what my customers have to say about my service, both those on the web and those that I meet face-to-face. And boy, they'll let me know whether or not I'm relevant to them.
- Ultimately, your customers define your brand, not you. That's why smart firms and smart people are always listening, observing, questioning and measuring their customers. Inevitably, they're adjusting their brand to their customers' definition. I'll happily confess that it took me ten years into my business to understand my brand with some clarity. I was very fortunate. Some of the smartest people in some of the best companies told me exactly what I bring to the party and what they want from me.
I have to believe that there's some agreement and a lot of disagreement with this definition, so I'd like your input.
P. S. Tom Peters has a recent blog in which he declaims on what is NOT personal branding.