Following on from last week’s introduction to personal brand, let’s start with two words that everyone interested in building a personal brand needs to know and remember… Authenticity and alignment.
Let’s start with authenticity. It’s become a bit of a buzz word (which I hate) but the underlying intent of it is still important. Every brand, whether it’s your personal or an organisation’s, has to be built on a foundation of authenticity. Anything else is just too hard to do. You can’t be something you’re not, at least not for any period of time. And if you try, there’s a 99% chance that you will at some point, not too far down the line do something, say something (or not) that gives the game away.
It’s about more than “walking the talk” – who are you really at your core? What do you believe? Why? These are inconvenient questions at times, because they can get in the way and make you look at things you would rather gloss over. But without having a pretty good idea of their answers you won’t have anything to build upon.
Want to be an extroverted, happy person who makes everyone around them feel good? It’s a nice idea, but are you? Want to be known for being ahead of the curve, always at the forefront of new ideas before they become popular? Great, but are you?
Too often brand is just looked at as a way to “get my message out there” (wherever “there” is, I am never sure). But when done right it can be so much more than that narrow view. Think about it as a core operating principle for yourself. Something to help bring all those pieces and parts together into a cohesive set of decisions and actions that support, not undermine, each other. And when you do that the reverberations make each individual thing so much more powerful.
Which brings us to the second word – alignment. Another word that has gotten way to much buzz of late. But again something absolutley key to building your brand.
Now I am not talking about alignment of your communications look and feel here (search brand alignment and this is the majority of what you will find). Sure, that’s a good thing to do, but in and of itself meaningless and pointless unless the actions and intent underneath are aligned.
I don’t know of one cool logo, used consistently across all communications, that can survive the person who has it never doing what they say they will do. So let’s think about alignment with bigger boundaries. The shorthand is that you should align what you say, with what you think and what you do. Another way of thinking about it is align your beliefs and your actions (all of them).
It’s no use being someone who says they are a communications expert who never returns calls or emails. It’s no use talking about the value of relationships and then shopping for the lowest price everytime.
This can seem a bit trickier for personal brands than for organisations, as the separation of church and state (work and rest of life) is much less defined. At what point does your personal life start to impact your work life and vice versa? The not so happy answer is – all the time. Especially in these days of living digitally.
There have been many stories of the Facebook effect – people getting fired or not hired in the first place because of things they have posted online. But beyond that, word still travels and so that thing you did or said that was never meant to get out – well, it’s probably going to. And if it isn’t in alignment with the rest of what people know to be true about you… you can guess what happens next.
So what’s my advie to people who want a personal brand? Here are five things to think about.
1. What is authentic for you? Which of course means you have to figure out:
2. What do you believe, what are your core values? (more about values here and here).
3. What do you care about and why?
4. Align what you find across everything. Which means looking at:
5. Positioning, practices, principles, policies, presentation … and communications.
Yes, it’s a lot. But don’t be overwhelmed. Once you get started, it’s much easier than it sounds. So take a deep breath and dive in. You might not know where you will end up, but the getting there will be a trip!
By the way: For those interested in personal brand, the Churchill Club here in Melbourne is running an event this week called Brand You. Full disclosure – I am moderating the event. But don’t let that stop you from coming along!
See you next week.
Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognize who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.
Smart Company is the leading online publication in Australia for free news, information and resources catering to Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers.
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