When a Personal Brand is not Authentic its a No Win Game

It's a common misconception that personal branding is the same as personal marketing - it's packaging a person like you would a product. Being a personal branding strategist, when I read an article or hear someone supporting this notion....well it just gets under my skin a bit.

So I wanted to write about something that I always talk about when explaining personal branding to people. In my training as a Reach Personal Branding Strategist, I was taught that personal brands, unlike product brands, are uncovered, not created.

Successful personal brands are authentic. They are a true expression of a person's unique qualities, values and strengths. Powerful personal brands exist where a person's unique qualities and strengths intersect with a target audience's needs, vision and objectives. It is often the quirks, the uncommon combination of qualities, that demonstrate that what a person is offering can meet an organization's needs in a way that no one else can. It also helps to clarify whether or not there is a 'fit' between the person and the organization.

A personal brand that is crafted for a professional or executive will ultimately fail. Why? Because if a leader is to lead, if a professional is to perform, s/he must bring her/his vision, values and into her/his work. If s/he is too worried about monitoring everything s/he does to conform to a desired image, s/he will not only exhaust and frustrate her/himself, but inevitably violate that image in the process of being themselves (as being someone else 100% of the time is just not possible).

If a professional or executive has positioned themselves to be something that they are not when they are hired, the charade must continue long after the interview is over. This leads to a very unhappy professional, as trying to be someone you are not is exhausting and ultimately unsatisfying.

It can also lead to an unhappy employer if the person is unable to regularly deliver on the promise of value they put forward during the hiring process. This may lead to a person quitting or being fired, and would not likely result in a strong reference from the employer.

In the end, nobody wins.

Your success tip: Your success is based on using your authentic, differentiating qualities to communicate your promise of value to an employer. Not being authentic leads to a no-win situation. So as you are writing your bio, CV, resume or any career marketing materials, ask yourself, "Does all of the language I am using truly reflect who I am, or I am including it because it is what I believe the employer wants to hear?"

This is also posted on the Career By Choice Blog.

Comments

[David Sandusky]

I almost completely agree with this good post. I take it a little further with "No 'ing' in Brand"..what do you think:
http://www.yourbrandplan.com/forum/personal-brand-career-strategy/972-there-no-ing-brand.html

[Walter Akana]

Hi Megan! Great post! I think you’ve made great points about brand discovery as distinct from brand creation. In fact, in my experience, a solid brand discovery process is also needed for authentically communicating corporate brands. Still, at the individual level, a brand that’s “created” becomes a façade that takes significant effort to maintain. I agree with David that the “ing” really adds to confusion. The process is not “branding.” It’s discovering or extracting one’s brand.

[Bill Dueease]

What a refreshing post to hear someone in the “Branding” community express your disgust with the packaging theory of personal branding. I was beginning to think the personal branding industry was a lost cause of spin, and faking it.

Your point that personal brands are uncovered and Not Created and are based upon the uniqueness and differences that true authenticity discovers is priceless. And you said it all so well. Great success tip. Authenticity! What a concept!

[Megan Fitzgerald]

Thanks to all for those great comments!

David - I know how problematic (and at the same time wonderfully rich) language can be. If I could choose the language to describe what I believe personal branding to be, I might not choose the word branding because of the image and connotations that already exist around the term. (Images of clever packaging and painful burning are some of the less pleasant pictures that come to mind.)

But why not embrace the language as it does exist rather than fight it? Imagine in five year's time...the term branding bringing up images of radiating energy and authenticity from a person or object in the average person's mind? We can tell our young children when they ask what branding is that back in the old days people used to say that branding was about marketing or clever packaging....or even searing an animal's skin. But now branding is about unabashedly expressing who you are to make a difference in organizations and people's lives. Given the evolution of language today, that does not seem like an unreasonable possibility.

I personally like the idea of branding as an action because nothing in life is static.....even our personal brands. We are evolving, changing, growing...ever act, every choice we make is an act of branding. One could say that personal branding is both about uncovering what is unique and compelling about ourselves and communicating that in an authentic and compelling way. The uncovering process in many ways takes place over time...very few of us get 100% clear about our brands instantly. I don't believe it is as simple as moving from A to B....

Strong personal brands are clear, consistent, and constant. But are they static?

Something to ponder....

Thanks for the thought provoking post!

Megan