Building a brand is work that is never completely finished. But, the fact that branding is an ongoing process should not discourage you from managing your professional life as a brand. Any skepticism about the benefits of personal branding can be addressed by asking the classic question “what’s in it for me?” Although great brands are remarkable because they are not about the brand owner as much as having an outward focus on customers and community, understanding the personal benefits that a well-developed brand can have for you serves as added motivation to embrace the role of Chief Marketing Officer for Brand You.
Three ways that actively managing your brand will provide benefits include:
- Provides cues about brand values and quality
- Expresses brand personality
- Tells unique stories that are your life experiences
Your brand either possesses these traits or it does not- which state do you prefer?
Provides Cues
One way in which brands benefit us is that they serve as mental shortcuts, giving off signals about what to think about a brand or associate with a brand when encountered. Think about product brands that possess distinctive cues:
- Michelin = Safety
- BMW = High performance
- Campbell’s Soup = Good-for-you food
We glean a great deal from these small bits of information, using cues like these to make broader judgments about the quality and capabilities of brands. Likewise, building a personal brand can lead to creating brand cues that immediately connect one’s professional brand with a desirable trait. For example, Gordon Graham is a professional writer known as “That White Paper Guy,” a reference to the genre of research report writing that he does. Graham has earned this brand association by having written more than 170 white papers for business-to-business technology companies. Of course, many professional writers write white papers, but Gordon Graham owns a distinctive position among writers and the clients for whom they write white papers as an authority.
You may not be at a point in your career where you are an authority or known for a particular skill or ability, but that does not mean you cannot use personal branding to develop cues associated with your brand. Your actions and habits can serve as cues to others encountering your brand that signal what they should think about you. Seemingly simple behaviors like arriving to work and meetings on time, always meeting deadlines, and volunteering to help with projects can create cues of “dependable” and “focused.” Wouldn’t you rather have colleagues describe you to managers who have not met you in these terms rather than “indifferent” or “inexperienced?” Use your brand to send positive signals on your behalf.
Expresses Personality
In addition to sending immediate associations via cues, brands can be developed to express personality traits. This characteristic of branding is almost awkward for some people to embrace. How can something that is not a living being (like a hammer or an auto insurance policy) have a personality? The answer is actually quite simple: We associate human personality traits with objects and intangibles. Jennifer Aaker’s research into brand personality traits found that a vast majority of brands are described by one of five personality dimensions:
- Sincerity
- Excitement
- Competence
- Sophistication
- Ruggedness
Do these descriptors sound familiar? They should because we use similar language to describe people that we encounter. Projecting a distinctive personality holds even greater significance in personal branding than for products or services. Why? You are the brand, putting the “person” in brand personality. Personal interaction is very influential in forming business relationships. Even when one company is buying from another company, the relationship is usually carried out by people representing both firms. Human nature is to prefer to do business with companies (and their people) that we trust and like, emotion-based states that can be influenced by how our personality is perceived.
Tells Unique Stories
All brands share the characteristic of possessing unique stories- providing a backdrop for a brand’s existence, its successes and failures, and how it connects with people who come into contact with it. A distinctive brand story is powerful in that it can create brand awareness, differentiate a brand from competition, and build customer loyalty. Think about brands that have risen to cultural icon status. It is not because of reaching a certain dollar level in sales (people do not care about that); it is because they have stories that people find interesting or worth associating with.
The inspiration for creating Starbucks is a very powerful story. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz fell in love with the coffeehouse concept on a trip to Italy in 1983. He wanted to bring that experience back to the United States, giving people a place to gather for conversation and be a part of a community of people who also appreciated the experience. Schultz was so inspired by his experience that he opened his own coffeehouse, Il Giornale. A few years later, he bought a small coffeehouse chain called Starbucks. Today, Starbucks has more than 18,000 stores in 62 countries
Starbucks is a great brand not only because it has great products, but it also has a brand story that resonates with people. Brand storytelling is not only applicable to personal branding; it may be more relevant than telling the stories of product brands. Why? Your brand is defined by the stories that you have lived. What you have done, who you have known, and how you have handled life situations have shaped your personality, character, and achievements.
Think About Your Brand
Take control of your brand by clarifying the cues, personality traits, and story lines you want others to glean from their interactions with you. Although a brand is based on perceptions people have about it (or you in the case of a personal brand), you have some sway in how your brand is perceived by managing the cues, personality, and stories associated with your brand.
