What's Your Brand?

In a world seemingly full of influencers & social media personalities, the conversation around personal branding has become too popular. The best well known brands don't advertise their product, they market it by building a solid story. See some of my recent insights I have learned around becoming the author of your own story.

In a recent podcast I listened to with Seth Godin, like always, he offered some modern prophetic wisdom that is cultural shifting (see Rich Roll Podcast - Seth Godin). If you don't know who Godin is, he is a cultural wizard that has shaped much of the creative media industry since its existence. His book Tribes, I read in two days, & is pretty much the foundation of modern branding we all experience today.

He frequently talks about how advertising & marketing are both mutually exclusive.

Advertising is spending lots of money to put a mediocre product under the noses of consumers so that people will continue to buy it.

McDonalds & Heinz have large advertising budgets simply to remind people that they are still in business - because they know that people will continue to consume their products.

Marketing however is about attracting people to buy into their story by building a solid brand. Modern brands like Apple, Nike or Salomon spend less on advertising per se, & more on communicating an attractive story, that:

1. Draws in like minded people who can buy into that story for themselves.

2. Of whom will share that story with their friends & invite others to buy in to their brand.

The best social media 'ambassadors' or athletes are the ones who embody the brand they are marketing. The worst however annoy everyone with advertising, with the spam of a discount code that frustratingly clogs up everyone's feed.

In the modern media world that we are all highly engrossed in, we are evolving to be repulsed by advertisement - shop now for a 10% discount code, sign up today to get a free pen blah blah blah.. How many of us listen to the adverts at the beginning of a podcast? Or who don't skip after 5 seconds on Youtube adverts?

We are however becoming more & more engrossed in a good story. I buy Salomon running shoes because their content, along with their athletes who represent the brand, communicate an empowering message that is attractive to me. Are they the best on the market? Probably not, but their story is enough to keep me coming back for more.

So what has this got to do with building a personal brand?

Branding is less about advertising & more about building a consistent story that 1. people can expect. 2. that they will share among their friends. There are parallels to life.

Nobody likes an advertiser. Look at my new car. Look at how awesome my kid is. Look at how sexy my arse is. Look at my expensive jumper.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of advertisement among your 'friends' as you showcase your successes (see my previous post - The Art of Friendship), but relentless spam advertisement is... well, fill in the blanks..

Instead, Godin suggests a series of questions that can form the foundation of how to build your own personal brand:

1. What do people say about you among themselves (when you aren't there)?

2. What do people expect of you when you walk in the room?

These are challenging but great questions to truly ask yourself. It is difficult for any of us to truly know the answer, but we can use them as the basis by which we can begin to shape our lives around what we hope could be the answer.

Godin notes that people are going to judge us regardless of we what we do. It is up to us however to dictate how they judge us.

For myself I am intentional to make the answers to these questions as positive & consistent as possible. We all know of people who portray one thing, yet fail to consistently live it out in their daily lives.

A good brand is consistent in that people can expect to see their story unfold the same way, in many different arenas & over a prolonged period of time. When we can no longer expect the same story, the brand becomes irrelevant.

Summary

What is your perceived current personal brand? Does it align with reality? If not, What is the new story you want to communicate? How will you shape your life to convey an attractive personal story that people can buy in too?

You are the only person who can answer this. After all, its your brand, not mine.

Much love

Rossi,