That cross-trainer you're wearing -- one look at
the distinctive swoosh on the side tells everyone who's got you
branded. That coffee travel mug you're carrying -- ah, you're a
Starbucks woman! Your T-shirt with the distinctive Champion "C" on the
sleeve, the blue jeans with the prominent Levi's rivets, the watch with
the hey-this-certifies-I-made-it icon on the face, your fountain pen
with the maker's symbol crafted into the end ...
You ARE branded, branded, branded, branded.
It's
time for me -- and you -- to take a lesson from the big brands, a
lesson that's true for anyone who's interested in what it takes to
stand out and prosper in the new world of work.
No matter what age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be
in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are
the CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most
important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.
It is that simple -- and also that hard. And so inescapable.
Giant
companies may take turns buying each other or acquiring every hot
startup that catches their eye -- mergers in 1996 set records.
Hollywood may be interested in only blockbusters and book publishers
may want to put out only guaranteed best-sellers. But don't be fooled
by all the frenzy at the humongous end of the size spectrum.
But the
real action is actually at the other end: the main chance is becoming a free
agent in an economy of free agents, looking to have the best season you
can imagine in your field, looking to do your best work and chalk up a
remarkable track record, and looking to establish your own micro
equivalent of the Nike swoosh. Because if you do, you'll not only reach
out toward every opportunity within arm's (or laptop's) length, you'll
not only make a noteworthy contribution to your team's success --
you'll also put yourself in a great bargaining position for next
season's free-agency market.
The good news, is that everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a
chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a
chance to become a brand worthy of remark.
Who understands these
fundamental principles? The big companies do. They've come a long way in
a short time: it was just over four years ago, April 2, 1995 to be
precise, when Philip Morris cut the price of Marlboro cigarettes by 40
cents a pack. That was on a Friday. On Monday, the stock market value
of packaged goods companies fell by $25 billion. Everybody agreed:
brands were doomed.
Today brands are everything, and all kinds of
products and services -- from accounting firms to sneaker makers to
restaurants -- are figuring out how to transcend the narrow boundaries
of their categories and become a brand surrounded by a Tommy
Hilfiger-like buzz.
Who else understands it? Every single Website
sponsor. In fact, the Web makes the case for branding more directly
than any packaged good or consumer product ever could. Here's what the
Web says: Anyone can have a Website. And today, because anyone can ...
anyone does! So how do you know which sites are worth visiting, which
sites to bookmark, which sites are worth going to more than once? The
answer: branding. The sites you go back to are the sites you trust.
They're the sites where the brand name tells you that the visit will be
worth your time -- again and again. The brand is a promise of the value
you'll receive.
Nobody understands branding better
than professional services firms. Look at McKinsey for a model of the
new rules of branding at the company and personal level. Almost every
professional services firm works with the same business model. They
have almost no hard assets -- my guess is that most probably go so far
as to rent or lease every tangible item they possibly can to keep from
having to own anything. They have lots of soft assets -- more
conventionally known as people, preferably smart, motivated, talented
people. And they have huge revenues -- and astounding profits.
The same holds true for that other killer app of
the Net -- email. When everybody has email and anybody can send you
email, how do you decide whose messages you're going to read and
respond to first -- and whose you're going to send to the trash unread?
The answer: personal branding. The name of the email sender is every
bit as important a brand -- is a brand -- as the name of the Web site
you visit. It's a promise of the value you'll receive for the time you
spend reading the message.
They
also have a very clear culture of work and life. You're hired, you
report to work, you join a team -- and you immediately start figuring
out how to deliver value to the customer. Along the way, you learn
stuff, develop your skills, hone your abilities, move from project to
project. And if you're really smart, you figure out how to distinguish
yourself from all the other very smart people walking around with
$1,500 suits, high-powered laptops, and well-polished resumes. Along
the way, if you're really smart, you figure out what it takes to create
a distinctive role for yourself -- you create a message and a strategy
to promote the brand called You.
What makes You any different?
Starting
right now: as of this moment you're going to think of yourself
differently! You're not an "employee" of General Motors, you're not a
"staffer" at General Mills, you're not a "worker" at General Electric
or a "human resource" at General Dynamics (ooops, it's gone!). Forget
the Generals! You don't "belong to" any company for life, and your
chief affiliation isn't to any particular "function." You're not
defined by your job title and you're not confined by your job
description.
Starting today you are a brand, your very own brand.
You're every
bit as much a brand as Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop. To start
thinking like your own favorite brand manager, ask yourself the same
question the brand managers at Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop ask
themselves: What is it that my product or service does that makes it
different? Give yourself the traditional 15-words-or-less contest
challenge. Take the time to write down your answer. And then take the
time to read it. Several times.
If your answer wouldn't light up
the eyes of a prospective client or command a vote of confidence from a
satisfied past client, or -- worst of all -- if it doesn't grab you,
then you've got a big problem. It's time to give some serious thought
and even more serious effort to imagining and developing yourself as a
brand.
You can start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that
make you distinctive from your competitors -- or your colleagues. What
have you done lately -- this week -- to make yourself stand out? What
would your colleagues or your customers say is your greatest and
clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of note)
personal trait?
Go back to the comparison between brand You and
brand X -- the approach the corporate biggies take to creating a brand.
The standard model they use is feature-benefit: every feature they
offer in their product or service yields an identifiable and
distinguishable benefit for their customer or client. A dominant
feature of Nordstrom department stores is the personalized service it
lavishes on each and every customer. The customer benefit: a feeling of
being accorded individualized attention -- along with all of the choice
of a large department store.
So what is the "feature-benefit
model" that the brand called You actually offers? Do you deliver your work on
time, every time? Your internal or external customer gets dependable,
reliable service that meets its strategic needs. Do you anticipate and
solve problems before they become crises? Your client saves money and
headaches just by having you on the team. Do you always complete your
projects within the allotted budget? I can't name a single client of a
professional services firm who doesn't go ballistic at cost overruns.
Your
next step is to cast aside all the usual bland descriptors that employees and
workers depend on to locate themselves in the company structure. Forget
your job title. Ask yourself: What do I do that adds remarkable,
measurable, distinguished, distinctive value? Forget your job
description. Ask yourself: What do I do that I am most proud of? Most
of all, forget about the standard rungs of progression you've climbed
in your career up to now. Burn that damnable "ladder" and ask yourself:
What have I accomplished that I can unabashedly brag about? If you're
going to be a brand, you've got to become relentlessly focused on what
you do that adds value, that you're proud of, and most important, that
you can shamelessly take credit for.
When you've done that, sit
down and ask yourself one more question to define your brand: What do I
want to be famous for? That's right -- famous for!
What's the sales pitch for You?
So
it's a cliché: don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle. it's also a
principle that every corporate brand understands implicitly, from Omaha
Steaks's through-the-mail sales program to Wendy's "we're just regular
folks" ad campaign. No matter how beefy your set of skills, no matter
how tasty you've made that feature-benefit proposition, you still have
to market the bejesus out of your brand -- to customers, colleagues,
and your virtual network of associates.
For most branding
campaigns, the first step is visibility. If you're General Motors,
Ford, or Chrysler, that usually means a full flight of TV and print ads
designed to get billions of "impressions" of your brand in front of the
consuming public. If you're brand You, you've got the same need for
visibility -- but no budget to buy it.
So how do you market brand You?
There's
literally no limit to the ways you can go about enhancing your profile.
Try moonlighting! Sign up for an extra project inside your
organization, just to introduce yourself to new colleagues and showcase
your skills -- or work on new ones. Or, if you can carve out the time,
take on a freelance project that gets you in touch with a totally novel
group of people. If you can get them singing your praises, they'll help
spread the word about what a remarkable contributor you are.
If
those ideas don't appeal, try teaching a class at a community college,
in an adult education program, or in your own company. You get credit
for being an expert, you increase your standing as a professional, and
you increase the likelihood that people will come back to you with more
requests and more opportunities to stand out from the crowd.
If
you're a better writer than you are a teacher, try contributing a
column or an opinion piece to your local newspaper. And when I say
local, I mean local. You don't have to make the op-ed page of the New
York Times to make the grade. Community newspapers, professional
newsletters, even inhouse company publications have white space they
need to fill. Once you get started, you've got a track record -- and
clips that you can use to snatch more chances.
And if you're a
better talker than you are teacher or writer, try to get yourself on a
panel discussion at a conference or sign up to make a presentation at a
workshop. Visibility has a funny way of multiplying; the hardest part
is getting started. But a couple of good panel presentations can earn
you a chance to give a "little" solo speech -- and from there it's just
a few jumps to a major address at your industry's annual convention.
The
second important thing to remember about your personal visibility
campaign is: it all matters. When you're promoting brand You,
everything you do -- and everything you choose not to do --
communicates the value and character of the brand. Everything from the
way you handle phone conversations to the email messages you send to
the way you conduct business in a meeting is part of the larger message
you're sending about your brand.
Partly it's a matter of
substance: what you have to say and how well you get it said. But it's
also a matter of style. On the Net, do your communications demonstrate
a command of the technology? In meetings, do you keep your
contributions short and to the point? It even gets down to the level of
your brand You business card: Have you designed a cool-looking logo for
your own card? Are you demonstrating an appreciation for design that
shows you understand that packaging counts -- a lot -- in a crowded
world?
The key to any personal branding campaign is
"word-of-mouth marketing." Your network of friends, colleagues,
clients, and customers is the most important marketing vehicle you've
got; what they say about you and your contributions is what the market
will ultimately gauge as the value of your brand. So the big trick to
building your brand is to find ways to nurture your network of
colleagues -- consciously.
What's the real power of You?
If you want to grow your brand, you've got to come to terms with power -- your own. The key lesson: power is not a dirty word!
In
fact, power for the most part is a badly misunderstood term and a badly
misused capability. I'm talking about a different kind of power than we
usually refer to. It's not ladder power, as in who's best at climbing
over the adjacent bods. It's not
who's-got-the-biggest-office-by-six-square-inches power or
who's-got-the-fanciest-title power.
It's influence power.
It's
being known for making the most significant contribution in your
particular area. It's reputational power. If you were a scholar, you'd
measure it by the number of times your publications get cited by other
people. If you were a consultant, you'd measure it by the number of
CEOs who've got your business card in their Rolodexes. (And better yet,
the number who know your beeper number by heart.)
Getting and
using power -- intelligently, responsibly, and yes, powerfully -- are
essential skills for growing your brand. One of the things that
attracts us to certain brands is the power they project. As a consumer,
you want to associate with brands whose powerful presence creates a
halo effect that rubs off on you.
It's the same in the workplace.
There are power trips that are worth taking -- and that you can take
without appearing to be a self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing
megalomaniacal jerk. You can do it in small, slow, and subtle ways. Is
your team having a hard time organizing productive meetings? Volunteer
to write the agenda for the next meeting. You're contributing to the
team, and you get to decide what's on and off the agenda. When it's
time to write a post-project report, does everyone on your team head
for the door? Beg for the chance to write the report -- because the
hand that holds the pen (or taps the keyboard) gets to write or at
least shape the organization's history.
Most important, remember
that power is largely a matter of perception. If you want people to see
you as a powerful brand, act like a credible leader. When you're
thinking like brand You, you don't need org-chart authority to be a
leader. The fact is you are a leader. You're leading You!
One key
to growing your power is to recognize the simple fact that we now live
in a project world. Almost all work today is organized into bite-sized
packets called projects. A project-based world is ideal for growing
your brand: projects exist around deliverables, they create
measurables, and they leave you with braggables. If you're not spending
at least 70% of your time working on projects, creating projects, or
organizing your (apparently mundane) tasks into projects, you are sadly
living in the past. Today you have to think, breathe, act, and work in
projects.
Project World makes it easier for you to assess -- and
advertise -- the strength of brand You. Once again, think like the
giants do. Imagine yourself a brand manager at Procter & Gamble:
When you look at your brand's assets, what can you add to boost your
power and felt presence? Would you be better off with a simple line
extension -- taking on a project that adds incrementally to your
existing base of skills and accomplishments? Or would you be better off
with a whole new product line? Is it time to move overseas for a couple
of years, venturing outside your comfort zone (even taking a lateral
move -- damn the ladders), tackling something new and completely
different?
Whatever you decide, you should look at your brand's
power as an exercise in new-look résumé; management -- an exercise that
you start by doing away once and for all with the word "résumé." You
don't have an old-fashioned résumé anymore! You've got a marketing
brochure for brand You. Instead of a static list of titles held and
positions occupied, your marketing brochure brings to life the skills
you've mastered, the projects you've delivered, the braggables you can
take credit for. And like any good marketing brochure, yours needs
constant updating to reflect the growth -- breadth and depth -- of
brand You.
What's loyalty to You?
Everyone is saying that loyalty is gone; loyalty is dead; loyalty is over. I think that's a bunch of crap.
I
think loyalty is much more important than it ever was in the past. A
40-year career with the same company once may have been called loyalty;
from here it looks a lot like a work life with very few options, very
few opportunities, and very little individual power. That's what we
used to call indentured servitude.
Today loyalty is the only
thing that matters. But it isn't blind loyalty to the company. It's
loyalty to your colleagues, loyalty to your team, loyalty to your
project, loyalty to your customers, and loyalty to yourself. I see it
as a much deeper sense of loyalty than mindless loyalty to the Company
Z logo.
I know this may sound like selfishness. But being CEO of
Me Inc. requires you to act selfishly -- to grow yourself, to promote
yourself, to get the market to reward yourself. Of course, the other
side of the selfish coin is that any company you work for ought to
applaud every single one of the efforts you make to develop yourself.
After all, everything you do to grow Me Inc. is gravy for them: the
projects you lead, the networks you develop, the customers you delight,
the braggables you create generate credit for the firm. As long as
you're learning, growing, building relationships, and delivering great
results, it's good for you and it's great for the company.
That
win-win logic holds for as long as you happen to be at that particular
company. Which is precisely where the age of free agency comes into
play. If you're treating your résumé as if it's a marketing brochure,
you've learned the first lesson of free agency. The second lesson is
one that today's professional athletes have all learned: you've got to
check with the market on a regular basis to have a reliable read on
your brand's value. You don't have to be looking for a job to go on a
job interview. For that matter, you don't even have to go on an actual
job interview to get useful, important feedback.
The bottom line real
question is: How is brand You doing? Put together your own "user's
group" -- the personal brand You equivalent of a software review group.
Ask for -- insist on -- honest, helpful feedback on your performance,
your growth, your value. It's the only way to know what you would be
worth on the open market. It's the only way to make sure that, when you
declare your free agency, you'll be in a strong bargaining position.
It's not disloyalty to "them"; it's responsible brand management for
brand You -- which also generates credit for them.
It's this
simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no
single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the
brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else.
