The idea of having a personal brand, using your name and your identity to influence other people, has already been out there for a long time.
As a student of advertising and branding, I have seen enough evidence of that.
It dates as back as the 1760s, where a pottery company used royal endorsements to promote its products.
Personal Branding – Starting with the right question
We didn’t call it personal branding at that time. It was called celebrity branding, because a personal brand at that time was nothing but a by-product of being famous.
People didn’t actively seek to build and create their personal brands.
Probably, because the channels of media back then noticed you only if you were incredibly famous. A normal person didn’t have any chance of getting noticed by the traditionally prevalent mediums of TV, Print or Radio.
But things are different now.
You don’t need to be a celebrity to get noticed anymore. Digital channels and particularly social media have made it super easy for absolutely anyone to access a reach of thousands of people.
Consciously through our own posts and content or indirectly through our friends’ tags and mentions, we all have a digital footprint – a presence on the Internet. As a matter of fact, a study shows that 92% of children under the age of two already have a digital footprint.
And everybody is evaluating this digital footprint.
From your potential employers to your potential partners to your potential clients if you are a freelancer, everyone expects to see some sort of an online presence.
“Do I need a personal brand?” is probably not the right question anymore. That ship has sailed.
The more appropriate question is
“How do I choose to build this existing digital footprint further? How do I to grow this personal brand?”
What two years of business branding classes has taught me is that before any company starts growing their brand through marketing activities, they indulge in an important precursor activity. This activity is basically a brainstorming session on identifying the WHY of the company – it’s core identity – which plays a crucial role in the success of the brand’s subsequent communications.
In this blog post, my attempt is to provide a mental model, a tool to help you in brainstorming your own WHYs, your own identity. This is the important step that we need to get right before we start intentionally growing our personal brand.
What does Personal Branding mean to you?
Wikipedia defines Personal Branding as the “practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. The ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others.”
While technically there is nothing wrong with this definition, it doesn’t help normal people like us. I think it’s not the most helpful way of looking at your personal brand, especially when you are just getting started.
Let’s take an example from Bollywood to really understand why this definition doesn’t do much for us.
Before you read further, kindly have a look at the short clip from the movie Love Aaj Kal.
Now, what the key takeaway from this scene is that this Wikipedia or generic definitions of Personal Branding are like fairy tales (Amar Kathas). Somebody before us will read it, we will read it and somebody after us will read it.
It doesn’t really do much for us, the mango people. We all are not looking to become famous celebrities. Some of us just want our personal brands to help us in our normal daily lives like maybe our next job or maybe for our small business or maybe for our next freelance gig.
The point that I am trying to make here is we should not be asking
“What is personal branding?”
We should be asking “What does a personal brand mean to me?”
It’s a little shift in perspective, but it allows us to look at the idea of a personal brand in a much more contextual way.
I like to think of Personal Branding as a simple question that I ask myself
When somebody hears or reads my name, what are his first thoughts about me? What is his first impression of me?
Now to understand and answer this question, we need to take a step back.
Start With Why
Recently, in a local networking event, I was invited to speak on the topic of Personal Branding. The audience at that event included an interesting mix of entrepreneurs, professionals, freelancers and students.
After a brief discussion on the definition of Personal Branding, I asked the group
Why do you want a personal brand? Why do you want to form an impression in the minds of the other people?
Some of the answers that I received were
“I want to use my personal brand to create better employment opportunities for myself”, said a student.
“I want to use my personal brand to expand my business and bring as many new clients as possible”, said a small business owner.
“I want to build my personal brand to bring more investment for my start-up.”, said an entrepreneur.
Now, at first glance, these seem like legitimate reasons for wanting a personal brand. However, if you look more closely, these answers describe the consequence or the result of having a personal brand.
They do not answer the question WHY do you want a personal brand but they answer the question WHAT do you want your personal brand to do?
When we think about having a personal brand, we need to take a step back and the ask the question WHY.
Your why is your purpose, a vision statement for yourself. It is bigger than what kind of work you do.
How is having a purpose related to Personal Branding?
We think that Personal Branding is something that has to do with ourselves. But it’s not. Personal Branding is what other people think about us. What are the impressions they form about us? What is their image of us? What is their perception about us?
And people don’t believe in what you do, they believe in why you do it.
Simon Sinek, a world-renowned author
“When we can communicate from the inside out, when we start with why, we’re talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do.
If you don’t know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get people to be a part of what it is that you do.”
– Simon Sinek
The Power of Purpose
Let me give you a simple example of how starting with your purpose can make a big difference when you talk about yourself in front of others.
At that networking event where I was a speaker, I had deliberately postponed my introduction to the audience.
After talking to them about “Starting With Why”, I decided to give them my introduction in two different ways.
This was the first way
“Hey everyone, my name is Nirmit. I have a Masters Degree in Strategic Marketing, Branding and Communications. I love telling stories and today I am going to share some stories from my personal life to explain to you how you can think about creating and growing your own personal brand.”
When you read this, it seems uninspired and shallow. I am telling you what I did and I am telling you what I am going to talk about today, but it doesn’t compel you or inspire you at all.
And as expected, that was the same unexcited reaction I received from the audience.
But I mentioned before that “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
Let’s try and see that in action. This is how I introduced myself the second time.
“Hey everyone, my name is Nirmit. I am passionate about inspiring and helping people in their journeys. I believe in the power of stories and think that if the right story reaches the person at the right time, it can change their lives for good. To become better at telling stories, I studied Strategic Marketing, Branding and Communications. Today, I wish to share my learnings, my stories and my experiences to help you create a better personal brand for yourself.”
You see the difference?
I started with my purpose. I started with what I am passionate about. I started with my beliefs.
And as expected, I got a different and a much positive reaction from the audience.
One of my favourite TV shows of all time is Shark Tank. For those of you who don’t know about Shark Tank, it’s a reality show where aspiring entrepreneurs from around the world pitch their business models to a panel of investors and persuade them to invest money in their idea.
As expected, it’s a high stakes game and a lot of times, the investors on the other side of the table are ruthless with their questions before they commit to invest their money.
But one of the best product pitches and my personal favourite is the one by a man called Johnny Georges. Johnny is the founder of Tree-T-Pee, a product innovation that could help farmers save a lot of water and cut down on a lot of costs.
However, the sharks were surprised to find out that Johnny wasn’t charging a higher amount from the farmers. This led to a lot of hesitance to invest from the Sharks.
Johnny’s response to this was
“I have always tried to be right by the farmers. They work hard. People need to realize that the food doesn’t grow on shelves on the grocery store. I put my beliefs first. I want to truly help the farmers.”
Even though his business model didn’t leave much room for the investor margin, he signed a deal that day and here is what the investor John Paul told him
“I am going to give you everything you are asking for. What you are doing is right and you deserve a chance to make it big and do a lot of good. I like everything you stand for and so I would like to be your partner.”
Before you market it
The key takeaway I want the readers to have from this post is that we need to start at the right place.
We might eventually get really good at marketing and selling our personal brands. There are hundreds of other tricks on the Internet to help us exponentially grow our personal brand.
But if it’s not grounded in a solid purpose, a foundation of WHY, we will find it very difficult to sustain that effort and make others believe in us.
