comes in. But branding is also an art because brands appeal to your emotions—how you feel about them.
Consider This
Think for a moment about the brands that have earned your loyalty. Maybe you have even traveled out of your way to find and buy that special brand that’s like no other. What if you could harness that same kind of power with your own individual brand as a leader? You can. Building your leadership brand at work can help you have that type of influence on the job.
Branding People?
I firmly believe that people—just like products—are brands, too. Let’s use examples of people we probably all know—starting with celebrities. What do you perceive, think, and feel when you hear the name “Ashton Kutcher”? What do you perceive, think, and feel when you hear the name “Hugh Jackman”? Both of these actors are good-looking leading men, but they create very different perceptions, thoughts, and feelings, don’t they? Now, let’s throw “Jackie Chan” into the picture … you have different perceptions, thoughts, and feelings about him, too.
Think of any category of well-known people—how about singers this time. Consider Taylor Swift … Lady Gaga … Adele. Again, they’re all very different. That’s because each of these individuals has a very specific brand that is absolutely unique and ownable as compared to the others.
“But, wait a minute, Brenda,” you may be saying. “These examples are celebrities, and they have the funds and the means to hire full-time image specialists to manage their personal brands!”
Fair point. But you don’t need high-priced help to define and communicate your leadership personal brand. The system shared in Master the Brand Called YOU™ will help you build your brand without writing checks to a publicist. It’s designed for the millions of people all around the world who may not be famous and certainly don’t plan on turning their individual brand into a global household name. What you want to do is define yourself in your world in order to achieve your personal career goals.
Leadership Personal Branding Is Not All About You
What is this concept called “leadership personal branding”? I like to define it as:
The way you want people to perceive, think, and feel about you as a leader in relation to other leaders.
Just like product brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari exist in our minds, so your own leadership personal brand exists in the minds of others, as they perceive, think, and feel about you in relation to other leaders at work.
Let’s look carefully at this definition, and focus on three key words: perceive, think, and feel. They’ve been carefully chosen for a reason.
Perceive: Perception in branding is reality. When it comes to your own brand, it doesn’t matter who you think you are. What matters is how others perceive you. If others perceive you differently from who you actually believe you are inside, you’re probably not communicating the brand you want.
Think: On the one hand, branding is a fairly rational exercise, so our brains have a lot to do with how we think about brands. There are logical reasons why we choose one brand over another. The same holds true in leadership personal branding—what do others think about you?
Feel: On the other hand, branding is also an emotional process. Earlier in the chapter, you thought about brands that have earned your loyalty over the years. Stop and reflect on one of those brands right now. What is the feeling you have about that brand? Trust? Admiration? Gratitude? We establish connections with brands, and these connections go far beyond what the products actually do for us. We’re loyal to these brands based on emotional connections—and it’s the same with leadership personal branding. The way people feel about you has a profound influence on your success. The stronger the connections you create with others, the more powerful your individual brand will be.
Colleagues’ Brands at Work
Still don’t believe the average person has a brand? Think of someone in your current job who is enjoyable to be around—the kind of person you look forward to seeing and speaking with every morning. Stop for a moment and consider: How do you perceive this person? What do you think about this individual? How does he or she make you feel?
Now, consider a different person you work with who—let’s be honest—you really don’t enjoy working with all that much. It’s that one person who seems to cause you problems and tie your stomach in knots. How do you perceive him or her? What do you think about this individual? How does this person make you feel?
Can you see how these two people have very different “brands”? And their brands have nothing to do with who they think they are. Their brands exist in your mind, based on how you perceive, think, and feel about them. And if they haven’t taken the time to define their best possible leadership personal brands, they may be seriously limiting their success by presenting themselves in a way that is different from how they want to be seen.
The Experience of YOU™
As a brand passionista, I enjoy finding analogies between corporate brands and personal brands. With that in mind, here’s a favorite that absolutely speaks to the importance of creating a powerful leadership personal brand. (See how long it takes you to figure out which corporate brand I’m describing.)
•If you had invested $10,000 in this company when it first went public in 1992, it would be worth more than $1,000,000 today.
•According to an article on Forbes.com, this brand currently has approximately 18,000 stores located in over 50 countries.
•If you haven’t guessed it yet, this should help: Every morning, millions of people start their days by visiting one of this company’s outlets for their favorite cup of java.
Yes, indeed, I’m talking about Starbucks.
Now, a lot (and I mean a lot) has been talked about, written about, and discussed about the Starbucks brand—and for good reason. Starbucks became the game-changer for the centuries-old, staid coffee industry.
But what can Starbucks’ branding success teach you about your own brand? What follows is an analogy originally based on a Brandweek magazine article (with updated statistics to reflect today’s prices):
•Coffee, when it is in its natural bean state, is a commodity that sells for about 3 to 5 cents per cup.
•Add packaging and a brand name to that coffee, place it on a grocery store shelf, and the price rises to 10 to 50 cents per cup.
•That same coffee offered up with service and a smile (say, at a Dunkin’ Donuts) increases the price to about $1-$2 per cup.
•Then there’s Starbucks, which sells its coffee worldwide for anywhere from $4 to $8 per cup. Imagine—people flock there by the millions to spend four times more for a cup of coffee than anywhere else.
How does Starbucks get us to spend so much more of our hard-earned cash—and feel good about it while we’re doing it? Because it offers its consumers so much more than just a good cup of coffee; it provides a rewarding coffee experience. At Starbucks, we’re paying for the pleasure of taking a break during the day—watching the skilled baristas concoct
