Identifying Your Brand
Discover the Brand that is You. A straight-forward guide to identitying what makes you special. By Philip Khan-Panni.
What do the following have in common: Bono, Roy Keane, Margaret Thatcher, Mother Teresa, Pat Kenny, Coca Cola, Macdonalds and Volvo cars?
The answer is that they are all brands. Love them or hate them, when you hear their names you have an impression of who they are. In an instant, you recall the sum total of your impressions of them. That's branding.
The interesting thing is that we are all brands. But most of us are unknown or ineffective brands. Ask someone you know well to say who you are, then ask someone you know only slightly, and youll almost certainly get a different answer. And, if you do, your brand is weak. You need to create and project a consistent image of yourself.
Why be a brand?
Why should we bother? Why should you or anyone bother to create The Brand Thats You?
Because its the way to overcome mediocrity. Its the way to stand out from the crowd, to identify what makes you better than anyone else, to give you the competitive edge in your chosen field. If you are the person driving your business (or your part of the enterprise), you need to establish your personal brand to be really effective, to put your own stamp on what you do.
Its about identifying the added value that you provide, and knowing what makes you different from and better than others in your field. I recommend three ways to do this:
1. Elevator Speech
2. Three Buckets
3. Seven Steps
Elevator Speech
The Elevator Speech is a 15-second statement of who you are and what you do. Imagine getting into an elevator with a stranger who asks you the usual question, What do you do? In the 15 seconds it takes for the elevator to go from ground to first floor, can you reply in a way that encourages him to say, Tell me more?
Among other things, I train people in communication skills, but I do not answer that question by saying, I am a trainer. Thats a ho-hum answer. Instead, I might say: You know how some people are scared stiff about speaking in public, while others give presentations that are really boring? It means that they dont give the best account of themselves. Well, what I do is to help them gain the skills to speak without fear and in a way that makes others want to listen to them.
You must have an Elevator Speech. You may never actually deliver it in public, but you must prepare one to help you understand your own role and what you bring to the party. Its the first step on the way to developing The Brand Thats You and becoming the CEO of Myself Ltd.
Along the way, it will help you to avoid the Engineers Mentality the attitude that says the facts speak for themselves. But do they? Is one lawyer the same as another? Are all estate agents, surveyors, teachers, insurance agents, salesmen, hairdressers, carpenters, and builders, the same as one another? Obviously not, so its not enough to describe yourself by label.
Three Buckets
You are already the worlds leading expert on one thing: your personal point of view. Now try to become the Tiger Woods of some aspect of the work you do. Thats where the Three Buckets come in.
Think of your business activities being distributed in three buckets.
Bucket 1 is labelled Brilliant Basics and contains all the things you do in your daily life and your job, to express the person that you are butcher, baker, and candlestick maker. They include your professional skills, your knowledge, your systems, your aptitude, your competence and your culture. If the bucket represented the total of what you could do, the Brilliant Basics would probably fill three quarters of the bucket.
Most people (and most companies) devote all their time and energies to the Brilliant Basics striving to get better at them. They form a pecking order according to their skill and effectiveness, but there isnt much to choose between several near neighbours in the line-up.
Bucket 2 is for your Compelling Differences. These are the things that make you better than others doing the same job. They are the things that demonstrate your uniqueness and your special expertise the things that would persuade others to choose you rather than some other butcher, baker or candlestick maker. And they could apply to your work or to the way you are as a person.
Your Compelling Differences include your creativity, energy, personal attractiveness, your bounce-back from failure, the added value you offer, your focus on others and your communication skills. You need to develop your Compelling Differences, and then express them in some tangible way because they will give you the edge.
In this bucket you have quality, not quantity, so it fills the bucket only a little.
Bucket number 3 is even more interesting. Its called Changing the Game because the other two are about how well you operate along conventional lines. This one is about being a pirate. This is where you place your ideas for doing things differently and being perceived differently. Its what you do when you break the rules and do what others have never dared to do.
Being a Pirate
When I was appointed Classified Sales Manager on a national newspaper, some years ago, my brief was simple: double the revenue in the first year or get fired. I accepted, on condition that I could do things my own way. When I implemented certain initiatives that had never been done before, I was repeatedly challenged by the Assistant General Manager.
Each time I simply pointed to the growing sheaf of performance records, and invited him to be elsewhere! Did I double the revenue in one year? No, I tripled it in ten months. I was a pirate, and I changed the game.
Walt Disney said, Do something better than it has ever been done before, and you will get rich. Charles Handy said, We must not allow the past, however glorious, to get in the way of our future. Bucket No.3 contains very little, but its nuclear powered.
Seven Steps
The third phase in discovering The Brand Thats You is a 7-Step Programme, indicated by the acronym I C U SAVE:
Identify
Connect
Uniqueness
Speaking style
Act
Values
Experience
Identify: Through your Elevator Speech, remind yourself of who you are and what you bring to the party. Think in terms of what you can do for others, and the way in which that expresses you.
Connect: Notice how people react to you. Standing in a group, do they come and talk to you, do they sit by you at a meeting, do they readily make eye contact with you? It reveals the kind of vibes you give off. Try to make it enjoyable to meet you. You cannot project your brand unless you connect with people, and they with you.
Uniqueness: What's your promise of value? What do you offer that no one else can? Why should people deal with you and not someone else? If you were a product, what would be your unique selling proposition? This is central to any brand.
Speaking style: You are judged by the way you speak your accent, your vocabulary, and the attitudes you express. Do people like to listen to you speak? Or do they look for an excuse to break off and go somewhere else urgently? Your voice and your speaking style will determine the tone of your brand.
Act: Are you reactive or proactive? When you are sure of your brand, you must project it in everything you do and say. Live your brand. Be the brand. Dont merely make it an act.
Values: Think integrity. Your face reveals the person you are, and the things you say indicate where your focus lies. Notice how honest people are always attractive, whereas we shy away from those we consider shifty, and those whose focus is themselves.
Experience: Whats it like being in your company? Think of someone whose company you have really enjoyed recently, and ask yourself if you offer the same pleasure to those who spend time with you. The experience you provide is the ultimate test of your brands acceptability.
Finally, choose a brand you really like - a car, clothing, some foodstuff, anything. Write down it's compelling attributes. Now - be honest - how many of those apply to you? As for the ones that do not ... that's your target. And remember: be distinct or extinct.
Your Brand must not remain a secret. Live it, talk about it, speak with power and passion about The Brand Thats You. Put your mark on everything you do, use the Brand to create a personal style, so that everyone will know who and what you are, and understand what you stand for.
