Your Brand Had Me at “Hello”

February 8, 2012 By 2 Comments

This is the first part of a 2-post series on tips for how to use your personal brand to make an awesome first impression and leave a memorable one.

What’s Your Brand’s First Impression?

Does your personal brand capture others at “Hello” when you enter a room? We all probably remember that infamous scene in the movie Jerry Maguire when Dorthy interrupts Jerry as he is professing his love to her and says, “Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at hello. You had me at hello.”

I often recall this scene when I remind my clients that their personal brands help to capture people’s attention and send off a powerful first impression. Whether you are interviewing for a job, meeting potential clients and partners at a networking event, or even commenting on someone’s blog, how you use your brand to say “hello” and engage others will provide the differentiation you need to stand out.  The first impression you make goes a long way towards defining how others perceive you, and remember, we don’t get a second chance to make a first impression!

3 Tips to Make Your Mark Offline and Online

1. Maintain eye contact

In the real world we need to look people in the eye at first meeting and maintain good eye contact throughout the discussion. Especially at a networking event, once you are engaged in a chat don’t let your eyes wander towards the person at the other end of the room you really want to be talking with. Keep your focus on the person in front of you until you find a polite way to move on.

We maintain eye contact in the virtual world with our professional head shot – one that has a full view of your face, eyes, and smile!  Use Gravatar to link your head shot to the avatar that shows up when you comment on other’s blog. And don’t be an “egg head” on Twitter! Nobody wants to engage with an egg or a silhouette image.

2. Seek first to understand…

…rather than to be undersood! Too often we get caught up with proving our brand to others by boasting about our credentials, experience, ability, and skills. Our personal brands speak for themselves, so let your brand do the talking!  When meeting people, be the first to ask questions and find a common ground. Listen actively to what others have to say by acknowledging their input and responding sincerely.

Even in the virtual world we need to be listeners. Social media channels are a wealth of insight, ideas, and thought leadership.  Use an 80/20 rule – maximize 80% of your time as a listener and 20% as a talker. By following this rule, the contribution you eventually make will give off an impression of value to your target audience.

3.  Use people’s names and personalize your connections

What’s in a name? EVERYTHING!  People like to hear their own names so make an extra effort to use someone’s names in every interaction. After leaving a chat, thank the other person for their time -  “It’s been great talking with you Peter.”  When commenting on a blog use the person’s name and recognize their contribution before giving your comment – “Thank you Peter for this great post.  I really agree with what you said about…  I often feel that…,”.  A great way to personalize your request is to avoid the standard canned request when connecting with others on LinkedIn. By making your request personal it will demonstrate your sincere interest in connecting with that specific person rather than simply increasing the number of connections you have.

Stay tuned for my next post where I will share 3 tips to leave a lasting impression!

 

Peter Sterlacci, Founder of BeYB – Believe. Become. Be Your Brand, combines personal branding strategy with cycling imagery to empower on-the-move careerists in global companies in Japan to shift gears, get out of the saddle, and sprint to career success.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Strong Personal Brands Tagged With: , , , ,

Substitute

January 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

But I’m a substitute for another guy
I look pretty tall but my heels are high
The simple things you see are all complicated
I look pretty young, but I’m just back-dated, yeah

                                                               ~ The Who

Back in the day, when I first became a certified Personal Branding Strategist, I learned that personal branding was about having permission to be yourself. And personal brand was synonymous with your reputation.

Actually, it still is. 

To be even more specific, there are still many people who use the term personal brand to refer to an authentic expression of who you uniquely are in terms of the attributes, vision, purpose, values, and passions that you bring to what you do. It is the you-ness you add to your professional competencies that makes you more valuable to your clients, and your broader professional community.

In many ways, then, your personal brand is the experience you provide while you are doing what people hire you to do. So, the skills that you bring to your work may be the same skills that others in your profession use, but your approach is unique to you. For example, I have a friend who injects her fun, vibrant personality into meetings where she is delivering accounting and tax advice. She brings who she is to what she does. She didn’t cultivate a personal brand. She is just being herself, and her clients love her!

Today, however, there seems to be a lot of personal branding advice that tends to overlook the you-ness element and treat “your personal brand” as a distinct entity that you have to care for and manage. Kind of like a bonsai tree. So, we get articles and blog posts that provide advice on building, revamping, or reinventing your personal brand!!

While much of the advice these authors provide is actually useful, it has little to do with who you are. It is much more focused on tactics for gaining visibility and attracting clients. In fact, there is much great business information for promoting yourself right on this blog.

Yet, in my opinion, you need to make a very clear distinction that changing how you express and exude who you are is not the same as revamping or reinventing “your brand” – but just the way you communicate it. Indeed, it is only the first stage of the Reach 1-2-3 Success process that gets to your brand…to your you-ness. So, to engage in any exercise that is construed as “working on your brand,” but leaves out YOU, is akin to caring for some abstract entity. It’s like creating a proxy. A substitute.

I think it’s really important to be clear on this – and even more so, today!!

Seeing the notion of personal brand become more mainstream is a good thing. It signals the end of mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Even more it supports the growing recognition that we all have the capacity to serve specific tribes. It helps us see that our true value comes not merely from the commoditized functions our skills are based in, but from the very weirdness that makes us appeal to our niche.

Of course, personal brand has also become subject to criticism. And frankly, based on the approach of many “personal branders,” it’s criticism that is well deserved. If you have any doubt about this, you should read Olivier Blanchard’s very well-argued critique of personal branding. Blanchard notes, “People are people. They aren’t brands.” And ironically, one of the tips he offers is, “Just be you.” I think this is great advice! It’s a great post, actually; and if you haven’t read it, you should!

As you might surmise, I reject the idea of personal “reinvention.” This does not mean, of course, that I believe who we are and the reputations we develop don’t evolve. They do. Yet, they change because we have gained new insights into who we are, what we want to do, who we want to serve, and the difference we want to make for others – and impact that has on how we do what we do. This is very different from throwing out a new value proposition to see if it sticks.

So, insofar as our “brand” is concerned, the real task is the application of introspective insights to our work. And often, it is a process that is best done with a well-qualified coach who can help identify the themes that matter to you and to your audiences. Investing this kind of effort fosters a personal clarity that can help align what we know about ourselves with a communications strategy that will bring meaningful visibility and credibility.

Frankly, as I see it, bringing anything less than who you are to what you do means you may as well have been born with a plastic spoon in your mouth.

 

Walter Akana is a Reach Certified Personal Branding and Online Identity Strategist. Founder Threshold Consulting, he works with mid-career professionals and executives. His career advice has been featured online at marketwatch, cnnmoney, and online.wsj. He is a long-time blogger, and avid user of social media.

 

Filed Under: Expressing Your Brand, Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers

Be a Personal Brand Mechanic and ‘Tune-Up’ Your Brand!

January 17, 2012 By 6 Comments

On cold winter mornings it can be a challenge to crawl out of bed, jump on the bicycle and go for a ride. Granted the first few pedal strokes are hard as your body adjusts, but once you get moving the joy of the ride takes over and you soon forget about the cold. Some cyclists ‘retire’ for the winter months and put their bicycle into storage waiting for the warm spring weather to dust off the frame, oil the chain, and adjust the gears. Without a spring ‘tune-up’ the bicycle will squeak, creak, and chatter.

Just as a bicycle needs a tune-up, so does your brand. You do not want to ignore your brand and put it into storage. An effective personal branding strategy really requires consistent and constant brand maintenance throughout the year. However, in reality the end of the year is often filled with finishing last minute projects, preparing for the holidays, and spending time in hibernation!

Your Brand is not Broken.  It Needs a Tune-up!

If you have put your brand into storage, don’t worry. Your brand is not broken! It simply needs a tune-up and will be ready to ride again. Start off 2012 right by dusting off your brand and applying these three tune-ups demonstrated by three people I am officially dubbing ‘Personal Branding Mechanics.’

 1. The ‘Alignment Tune-up’ from Mechanic #1:  Jonathan Fields

After a season of riding and racing, your bicycle’s derailleurs, gears, and chain are often out of alignment. The joyful experience of a ride can be ruined by your chain skipping between gears. Taking the time to align these parts will ensure that your shifting is crisp and your chain spins smoothly.

Jonathan Fields 2011 annual report on his blog immediately caught my eye as a perfect way to tune-up your brand. In this report, he says the core driver for success is alignment between these 4 elements:

  • What makes you come alive
  • Your preferred mode of service
  • What you either are good at, or are interested in becoming good at, and
  • What people will line up to pay you enough to live well in the world for.

After reading this it made perfect sense to me why we run the risk of hanging up our brand and putting it into storage! Without this high level of alignment between who we are and what we do, we will walk away from our brand out of frustration, desperation, or suffocation. Jonathan advises to seek alignment by reviewing what we are passionate about and asking others for feedback. He calls it his “Killer App Exercise” and by doing this for himself he was able to get the alignment he needed to tune-up his brand for some exciting changes.

Download Jonathan’s annual report to learn more about alignment, and see how his brand is being realigned for 2012.

2. The ‘Reposition Tune-up’ from Mechanic #2:  John Falchetto

Having the right position on your bicycle is key to top performance. For example, a saddle or seat post in the wrong position will still allow you to ride your bicycle, but will also lead to inefficient pedaling. By slightly repositioning your saddle forward or backward, or changing the height of your seat post you will drastically improve your ride.

John Falchetto is a great example of how to reposition a personal brand. You might know John as the ‘Expat Life Coach.’ As an expat myself, I started following John on Twitter some months ago as I was interested in what he had to say. John has recently repositioned his brand from the ‘Expat Life Coach – Abroad but not Alone,’ to ‘Life Coaching with John Falchetto – Making Everyday an Adventure.’

He has not put his life coaching into storage, but has rather adjusted his brand’s position beyond the expat label to allow for a more efficient use of his brand from 2012. Truth be told, while I was initially interested in John’s expat message, it has been his Adventure Mindset brand and approach on life coaching that has intrigued me more.

Check out how John is “going to roll” this year in this great video and contact him for help in your own brand, business, and life reposition!

3. The ‘Upgrade Tune-up’ from Mechanic #3: Kimberly Bordonaro

Each year I like to make some upgrades to my bicycles by replacing parts that still function well with new parts that function even better. Technology in cycling changes frequently so upgrading to a lighter, stronger, or cooler part is always worth the investment.

Kimberly Bordonaro has done an amazing job upgrading what is already an awesome brand with cooler parts! This month she tuned-up her Brandspiration brand by launching ‘Club Brandspiration.’ This upgrade provides personal branding workshops that are 100% content, without the pitches to buy products or services. This shiny new part on her website gives you training of tried and true strategies to help you upgrade yourself and your business.  What I love about this upgrade is that each class comes with a worksheet to help you plan your next steps.

Check out Kimberly’s Club Brandspiration upgrade and join the Club to upgrade your own brand!

By following the tune-ups from these three mechanics you can remove the dust and rust from your brand because underneath is a personal brand ready shine and ready to ride. Are you a Personal Branding Mechanic with other tune-up tips?  Please share below.


Peter Sterlacci, Founder of BeYB – Believe. Become. Be Your Brand, combines personal branding strategy with cycling imagery to empower on-the-move careerists in global companies in Japan to shift gears, get out of the saddle, and sprint to career success.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Strong Personal Brands Tagged With: , , , , ,

5 Tools to Repair Your Brand

January 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

Imagine you have worked hard to build “brand you”.

  • You have established a firm belief in your brand by uncovering your brand attributes, strengths, and unique promise of value.
  • You have developed the tools you need to become your brand including a personal brand statement, a branded bio, and both an online and offline brand communication plan.
  • And you are clearly, consistently and constantly managing your brand environment and brand identity to be your brand every day.

One day a “Google alert” pops into your email inbox.  You are eager see if your brand visibility and credibility is growing.  To your surprise you see something about you that is off-brand.  People in your brand community begin to comment on this, tweet about it, and share it.  Before you know it your brand is in question.  You might consider just blowing this off hoping it will disappear in cyberspace.  However, by not taking action your brand is derailed.

A ‘Derailed’ brand

In the world of cycling, when your chain is derailed your bicycle will not move forward – you cannot pedal, you cannot shift, and you run the risk of crashing. When this happens, you need to pull over, assess the damage, take out your tool kit, and make the necessary repairs before you try to pedal on.

It is almost inevitable that you will go off-brand, but if you have the proper tools and the right training you can repair your brand.  This reminds me of a Lance Armstrong commercial called “What am I on?”  Lance’s brand credibility was being questioned in the face of doping allegations in 2001. In response to the critics trying to derail his brand, Lance and Nike released this powerful commercial.

Repair Your Brand

By constantly maintaining and tuning-up your bike you can prevent derailments.  The same holds true for your personal band.  Here are 5 tools you need to have in your tool kit to keep yourself tuned-up and on brand.

Tool 1. Maintain consistency across all channels and touch points

If you are not setting your own reputation, someone surely will.  Take control and establish a strong on-brand presence.  Always make sure your personal brand is expressed in a consistent way.  This includes your social media accounts, your website/bog, your business cards, your office, and even your physical appearance.  Even if one of these elements is off-brand it will eventually get noticed and can derail your brand.

Tool 2. Remember, one size does not fit all

When dealing with your brand derailments, offer an individualized solution depending on the context, person(s) involved, and the issue at hand. If needed, reach out to the person who derailed your brand one-on-one, keep the conversation on the issue at hand, and listen to what they have to say. Also, as your family and friends share information about you online, take the time to educate them about the photos they tag you in, the images they post, or the comments they make about you.

Tool 3. Don’t take it personal

This tool really goes hand-in-hand with Tool 2.    Always remember that what you say online stays online, so be constructive.  Never play the “blame game”. Handle it professionally and absolutely avoid fighting negativity with your own negativity.

Tool 4. Manage your SEO

While Lance has the money to hire Nike’s marketing department to help manage his on-brand message, the average person still has enormous power to control their personal brand message with little to no financial investment.  Post and publish your own on-brand content with strong SEO on a regular basis in a blog, website, video, and social media channels.  This will elevate your on-brand message in your search engine results, while pushing down any off-brand content. You want to absolutely make sure nothing off-brand appears on the first page of your search results and ideally nothing on the first three pages.

Tool 5. Set up  a “Vizibility” account

Even if you are diligent about managing your SEO, something still may appear online that is derailing your brand.  Imagine if you could control your search results and avoid mistaken identity.  Vizibility helps you organize and share your entire online identity in one click, from your curated Google results to your hand-picked online profiles, mobile business card and more. Each vizibility account comes with a personal SearchMe link, button and QR code, instantly directing people to your true online identity.

Remember, it is your brand and you can do whatever you want with it – push it,  study it, tweak it, listen to it, and use these tools to stay on-brand!

 

Peter Sterlacci, Founder of BeYB – Believe. Become. Be Your Brand, combines personal branding strategy with cycling imagery to empower on-the-move careerists in global companies in Japan to shift gears, get out of the saddle, and sprint to career success.

Filed Under: Everything is a Brand, Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Sports Tagged With: , , ,

You are Faster than You Think!

December 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We all have role models, heroes, or leaders we look up to for inspiration, motivation, and guidance. Our role models can be famous althletes and celebrities, or simply a family member or teacher. But no matter who it is, we aspire to be like them and maybe even have dreams of actually being them. 

As a passionate cyclist, one of my role models is Lance Armstrong. I respect him for his perseverance to beat cancer, his competitive drive to be the best cyclist, and his passion and commitment to advance cancer research. I admit there are even times while on a bike ride I have visions of being like Lance as I jump out of the saddle and sprint to the top of a long climb. This reminded me of a great commercial by Nike called “Your are faster than you think”.

What I love about this commercial is that the Chinese pianist sees himself as Lance Armstrong racing through the streets to get to the recital he is late for. In the end while it appears as if Lance is walking across the stage and sitting at the piano, it is the actual pianist who starts to play. 

Build your brand, not an image 

I know I can never be Lance simply because I am not him. I am me. I can buy the same bike he rides, wear the same gear he wears, and train the same way he trains. In the end, I will still be me. This really demonstrates the difference between branding who you authentically are versus creating a superficial or fake image of who you are not. Big corporate brands like Coke or Starbucks, and even celebrity brands such as Oprah or Madonna, are successful because they are clearly, consistently, and constantly their own identity. They do not try to be something they are not. The same can be said for personal brands. 

Here are 4 things you can do to build your brand, not an image: 

1. Get Feedback

The 360˚Reach Personal Brand Assessment enables you to gather data regarding the attributes, skills, leadership competencies and strengths that define your brand. The process begins with a self-assessment and is followed by requesting feedback from others so you can compare how you view yourself with how you are currently perceived. The results will enable you to identify areas that you want to accentuate and areas you want to diminish as you develop your brand.

2. Focus on strengths

Capitalize on your strengths rather than improve your weaknesses. Save time by taking what your are strong at and make it superb instead of wasting time on your weaknesses. When you focus on your strengths, you demonstrate passion and drive. When you focus on your weaknesses, you show frustration and stagnation. In addition to 360Reach, use StrengthsFinder 2.0. This is a great tool as it identifies how you can move forward with what you are good at by finding ways to work around your weaknesses. 

3. Tell your story, not someone else’s

Michael Margolis, founder of Get Storied, says, “Your story is your brand. You have to get others to believe and identify with your story. When you can do that — the need to persuade, convince, or sell disappears.” We all have a unique story to tell and our story is what makes us authentic. Of course others can relate to our story because it may be similar, but it is never exactly the same. Each story is unique. Walter Akana of Threshold Consulting refers to this as your “brand DNA” and to discover it you need to unravel your life stories to find the themes that make you who you uniquely are.

4. Be real online (and off) 

In a recent interview, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said “The social web can’t exist until you are your real self online.” 

Just like in the real world, being yourself online takes courage. It takes the willingness to be transparent. Use social media to portray the real you. Avoid nicknames and avatars and use your real name and a professional head-shot. Share bite-sized chunks about yourself but not your life history. Don’t just brag and boast. Listen and engage others as well.

Many of us dream of being someone else because we may not be strong enough, smart enough, or fast enough. But you are stronger, smarter, or faster than you think. Continue to look to your role models, heroes, and leaders for inspiration but in the end simply be yourself. No one can be you, just as you can never be someone else. 

Peter Sterlacci, Founder of BeYB – Believe. Become. Be Your Brand, combines personal branding strategy with cycling imagery to empower on-the-move careerists in global companies in Japan to shift gears, get out of the saddle, and sprint to career success.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding Quick Tips, Strong Personal Brands Tagged With: , ,

Personal Branding Resources

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

These resources are brought to you by William Arruda as part of the Reach 10th Anniversary Celebration …

10 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Reach Personal Branding
Top 10 Videos from Personal Branding TV
Top 10 Social Media Dos for A Successful Job Search
10 Ways to Give to Your Network

10 Days to Establishing and Achieving Your Goals
Top 10 Ways to Unearth The Brand Called YOU
Top 10 Most Viewed Commercial Breaks
10 Days to Understanding Your Professional Reputation
10 Ways to Build and Maintain Your Professional Network

10 Days to Writing a Compelling Branded Bio
10 Steps to Recession-Proof Your Career
Ten Most-Read Blog Posts from The Personal Branding Blog
10 Days to a Perfect Linkedin Profile
10 Tools For Creating a Website That Exudes Your Personal Brand

Ten Days to Creating Your Personal Brand Identity System
The Ten Most Re-Tweeted Tweets
Ten Tips Towards Career Reinvention
Ten Days to Positioning You and Your Brand
How Not to Build Your Personal Brand

Ten Most Listened-to Audios from the Reach Personal Branding Interview Series
Ten Reasons to Make 2012 The Year of Your Brand
Top Ten Willisms – William Arruda’s thoughts on Personal Branding

Filed Under: Discovering Your Brand, Employee Brand Activation, Employees Are The Brand, Everything is a Brand, Executive Branding, Expressing Your Brand, Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding for Careers, Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

10 Tools For Creating a Website That Exudes Your Personal Brand

November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

By Rachel Gogos

1.  Colors should represent your personal brand. For more on color watch this video.

2.  Fonts should also represent your personal brand – traditional, modern, fun, robotic there are lots of fonts to help you express yourself.

3.  The homepage content should answer your Why?

4.  Use video to connect with your audience.  Your site will make a far more lasting impression. Site visitors will see you, hear your voice and connect to your message.

5.    Encourage people to connect with you on your social media networks of choice.  Create unique icons that work with the design personality of you and your site.

6.    Your voice or your company’s voice should be echoed in the content. If you want to project a funny, light-hearted approach to your web presence then your web content should reflect that.

7.    Use your keywords throughout the content.  If your name is a keyword for your site then make sure you use it in the content. Take the time at the beginning of your new web project to identify your key words and build utilizing them.

8.    Use a professional headshot on your About page and / or your homepage. Having an image of you helps your audience former a greater connection to you.

9.    Your bio should be written in a way that helps make you memorable and personal to your potential audience.  Take the time to write a branded bio and share “just enough” about yourself to stand out in a reader’s mind.

10.    When building your web presence remember that it’s someone’s first and, in some cases, only impression of you.  Your site is a HUGE part of your brand environment. I equate it to how you dress for work.  Be proud of your web presence and dress it for success!

Rachel Gogos is the founder of brandiD, a digital marketing and web design firm specializing in building attention-getting, online identities through personal branding, social media, and highly differentiated WordPress sites.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Reach 10th Anniversary Celebration Tagged With: ,

Paul Allen – Idea Man – a memoir by the co-founder of Microsoft

November 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Personal Brand Leadership – Book Review

© 2011 MIE Services LLC – 358 pages hardback $- US 27.95 / Cdn $35

PERSONAL BRAND LEADERSHIP POINTERS

From this book you will learn:

- The importance of having several avenues of interest to round out your brand.
- How you can enjoy your passions AND make it part of who you are.
- Remain true to your core beliefs and not wavering.
- Understand the power of doing what you’re uniquely good at.

Paul Allen is certainly best known by many as the co-founder of Microsoft, who left in the early 1980′s but still wound up a multi-billionaire. Many might also choose to pick up this book to find out the insider scoop on what really happened in his ‘fall out’ with Bill Gates. Certainly the publishers have positioned this book to portray these very two renowned key points.

However there is much more to this autobiography than just dishing the dirt and making billions from Microsoft. It could be argued that Allen has had more influence across a wider spectrum with his various successes and failures since, than an ever lasting impact with what remains of his legacy inside Microsoft. After all how much of Allen’s work or influence even is in what the company is now – over 35 years later?

What was more insightful was Allen’s ability to think ahead of the technology curve (and beyond tech.) in a number of ways. This is more where the title “Idea Man” comes in to play – he invested, in some cases more closely gambled, on technology such as streaming content, wireless technology, consumer space travel. Some proved successful, others failed, but likely more from being too soon than completely wrong.

The book can appear in places dry (read – too much technical information that may not have been needed) and although you learn of the trappings that wealth brings – yachts, sports teams, playing guitar with Bono – you certainly also understand Paul Allen to be a very private man, close to his immediate family but you learn little of his own personal life – something in an autobiography is lacking.

Overall an interesting insight in the personal brand leadership of a technology titan, a community leader and philanthropist and some interesting lessons about business.

Personal Brand Leadership Rating – 3.5 stars

Read about the Personal Brand that is Paul Allen HERE

Paul Copcutt first aligned with personal branding after reading Tom Peters ‘Brand You 50’ in 1997. Now a sought after speaker and media resource he has been featured by Forbes, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and Elle. He works with executives, managers and teams for leading Fortune 500 corporations.

Filed Under: Books, Executive Branding, Expressing Your Brand, Exuding Your Brand, Personal Branding For Entrepreneurs, Sports, Strong Personal Brands, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , ,

The 7 Signature Signs of Jimmy Savile – An Original Personal Brand

November 5, 2011 By 4 Comments

It was sad to see the news earlier this week of the passing of Jimmy Savile, two days short of his 85th birthday, a truly authentic if slightly eccentric personal brand.

Many years ago my aunt experienced a stroke and was in Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the UK, world renowned for it’s work in spinal injuries, but also a hospital supported and visited on a regular basis by Jimmy Savile. We happened to be visiting one weekend when he was ‘doing his rounds’ as a volunteer porter and experienced first hand his overwhelming generosity, humour and uniqueness.

Apart from his core attributes, he had many ways that he exuded his brand that were signature to him and made him perhaps one of the early authentic celebrity brands.

He was;

1. Known for wearing shell suits and clothes with the very loud colours and patterns – an early CHAV.
2. The “King of Bling’ wearing very flashy jewellery and adornments – long before it was hip for rappers.
3. Recalled often for his memorable phrase that was mimicked by every comedian – “Howz about that then?” – an early celebrity tagline.
4. Also known for a yodel that made an almost monkey sound at the end of many introductions on the popular Top of the Pops, TV show accompanied with other catchphrases – “Now then, now then, now then”, “Goodness gracious”, “as it happens” (pronounced “as it ‘appens”) and “Guys and gals”.
5. A keen and regular marathon runner, raising thousands of pounds for charities – long before it was socially expected to be seen being charitable.
6. Always seen to be chomping on a big fat ‘cohiba’ stlye cigar – long before the stoggie was a must to be seen with.
7. His life was lived on his terms and although he was certainly a character and showman it never seemed to be contrived or inauthentic – a sadly rapidly disappearing trait in todays ‘celebrity circles’.

And like any star struck young kids, we also got him to sign his autograph, which again was unique with a happy face in the circle round of his ‘J’
the ‘S’ looked like a dollar sign and the ‘L’ he made look like the pound sign.

Thanks Jimmy – RIP

Paul Copcutt first aligned with personal branding after reading Tom Peters ‘Brand You 50’ in 1997. Now a sought after speaker and media resource he has been featured by Forbes, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and Elle. He works with executives, managers and teams for leading Fortune 500 corporations.

Filed Under: Exuding Your Brand, Strong Personal Brands, Television Tagged With: , ,

Be Digitally Distinct & Physically Present

November 4, 2011 By 2 Comments

Can you imagine going a week without access to your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or You Tube accounts? Some of us actually make a conscious choice to take some time away from posting on a wall, tweeting, joining a new circle, or uploading a new video clip. We need the time away from our online networks to get out into the real world.

Now imagine someone blocking you from your social media networks. You innocently try to log into your account and your access is denied. Such was the case for me on a recent business trip to China. For one week I was blocked from all my accounts – no ‘tweets,’ no ‘likes’, no social contact! I literally felt cut off from the world and after a few days it almost felt like symptoms of ‘social media withdrawal’ had started to set in. Seeing the drop in my Klout just made things worse. Social media had become such a regular part of my daily life that without it I felt naked!

Be Digitally Distinct and Physically Present

Building a successful personal brand requires an active social media presence to ensure you are digitally distinct, not digitally dissed. If you are not on social media, your brand runs the risk of being invisible – which is literally how I felt for that week in China. So much of my own branding is invested in social media that my friends, followers, fans, and circles thought I had disappeared off the face of the earth. I even had one of my Twitter followers jokingly tell me that she was going through her own kind of ‘withdrawal’ from not seeing my tweets.

This experience was eye opening. How did we socialize and identify ourselves before social media? While social media tools have certainly helped to catapult personal branding into the mainstream, we have to remember that Tom Peters seminal 1997 work, The Brand called You, was not a 140 character tweet.

Before we had online social networks we identified ourselves by our offline social clubs, sport teams, community groups, or school band. So while services such as Twitter and Facebook may be useful tools to build an online identity and communicate your brand, they certainly did not create the need for humans to form communities. Physical human interaction is in our bones and Tom Peters intention most certainly was for us to brand ourselves at the next job interview, job fair, conference networking event, or cocktail party.

As such we need to always remember to keep the human side of our personal branding efforts active and healthy. When creating your brand communication plan keep a good balance between online social networking efforts and offline physical ‘personal’ efforts such as talking at your local library, speaking at a “meet up,” presenting at a conference, or attending networking parties. After all, it would not be personal branding without the person.

Peter Sterlacci, Founder of BeYB – Believe. Become. Be Your Brand, combines personal branding strategy with cycling imagery to empower on-the-move careerists in global companies in Japan to shift gears, get out of the saddle, and sprint to career success.

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