Acknowledgements
Foreword
People who like kale rarely overlook opportunities to tell you how much you’re missing out if you don’t eat kale.
People who like kale swear its importance transcends the banal categorization of “vegetable,” that it has near-magical powers that will improve your life in ways unknown and not yet understood.
Personal branding is post-modern kale that is grown, harvested, and eaten in public—often online.
People who like personal branding understand it isn’t optional in the modern age and they usually make that connection innately, at the molecular, DNA level. They don’t need to be told to build and polish a personal brand. They just do it, like salmon returning to the same spawning ground each year (if that tributary was Instagram).
To those of you who already believe in the power of personal branding, my message is simple: do not be afraid. There are treasures in these pages. This book will ratify your belief in personal branding and teach you fine points and new techniques that you haven’t implemented in the past.
In ways both digital and analog, I’ve been building my own personal brand since approximately 1994, when I discovered that being smart isn’t a viable currency unless you are also consistent and memorable in equal measures. My personal brand is codified and carefully curated to emphasize my few strengths and mask my myriad of weaknesses. I’ve built multiple companies based—at least in part—on personal branding, and my consulting firm helps companies and executives dig deep on these same issues.
You could say I’m something of an expert on the subject. (Ask anyone!) Yet, I learned A TON from reading The Road to Recognition. Seth and Barry give no quarter, pull no punches, and tell no lies. This book is current, useful, and a blast to read. You’ll love the exceptional graphics.
So if you’re already on board with personal branding, you SHOULD read this book.
But, if you’re a denier, a critic, and a cynic of personal branding and/or leafy green superfoods, this is a book you absolutely must read.
The Road to Recognition is not a sermon, treatise, manifesto, or proclamation. The authors are not trying to convince you personal branding is important and then sell you expensive coaching services. They have no skin in the game other than a couple bucks’ worth of book royalties and knowing they told the truth and helped some people.
They wrote this book for the right reason: because they’ve experienced the thesis first-hand and want to share what they’ve learned with an audience wider than a core group of social media and online marketing fetishists.
They wrote this book because their own lives have been changed for the better (for real, that’s not puffery) by personal branding (as has my own).
I’m not suggesting that everyone who reads The Road to Recognition will become the best-known expert in their chosen field. For some of you, even after reading this terrific book, you’ll think, “I totally get why this is important, but it’s not for me. I’m just not comfortable with the whole idea of putting myself out there.” And I get that. My wife would rather eat broken glass than think about her personal brand, and even with this scintillating foreword by her betrothed, she wouldn’t read this book at the point of a bayonet.
But you will, and I don’t even need a sharp, metal object.
And even if you decide to pass when you get to the letter Z, you’ll still know exactly why personal branding is as powerful as kale, capable of changing the trajectory of what you’re doing day to day, and why the authors and I are so passionate about the topic.
Whether you’re a personal branding pro or a personal branding pup, you’ll be glad you read The Road to Recognition. So get started right now.
Jay Baer Author of Youtility and Hug Your Haters President of Convince & Convert
Preface 1
I’m Barry Feldman. And you are?
It’s fitting to begin this book with a letter. The Road to Recognition uses the alphabet as a narrative device. A is the first point on the roadmap. Z is the last. Simple. Now, back to my letter….
I’m going to give myself a letter grade in personal branding: F.
F is for failure. Yeah, if I’m to look back on my career from a personal branding point of view, I deserve the harsh grade. Why?
I was a laggard. I failed to get serious about developing my personal brand until I was in my 40s. Ironically, I’ve been writing marketing copy for thousands of brands since I was in my 20s. In the early going, I wrote for chiropractors, contractors, and all sorts of personal brands.
But I neglected mine. I was simply trying to make a living as an advertising copywriter, satisfied with the anonymity of the vocation. There was rarely a day (okay, there was never a day) when I woke up and said, “Today’s a great day to develop my personal brand.”
Guess what, my friend?
Today is the best day to develop your personal brand. Not tomorrow. Today.
I suppose I didn’t realize I was lagging in the ways of personal branding. The term might have been tossed around a bit, but it wasn’t a course offered in school, the subject of books, or anything more than an idea slightly ahead of its time muttered by the likes of author Tom Peters and echoed occasionally by eclectic business writers.
Even when personal branding began to gain some traction, I came around slowly. I had a website for fifteen years before I began blogging. I reluctantly joined LinkedIn so as to not be left out. I got going in social media just a few years ago. Podcasting’s a new pursuit.
I’m mostly pleased with what I’ve been able to accomplish in a short time. When I search my name on Google, I like what I see. I’ve created a sizable digital footprint. I’ve established a reputation. I’m recognized in the field of digital media and marketing.
Still, I wish I started much earlier. The truth is, publishers don’t throw book deals at me. There’s no line outside my door of event organizers waiting to pay me to keynote big conferences. And even though I now write for many high-profile websites and blogs, get interviewed often, and land a few spots at the podium, these gigs seldom fall in my lap.
I make them happen. I make connections and ask for opportunities that help build my brand and forward my career. Sometimes I’m rejected; sometimes I’m welcomed. It’s not the steep climb it once was, but it’s far from an easy ride on cruise control. It’s work.
Personal branding is an ongoing class in the school of continued professional education. It’s a learning experience, which we’re about to share with you.
This book began (unknowingly) about two years ago when I had the idea
