“Personal Branding” according to Nicolas Bordas is
a concept that is easy to mock (if you haven’t yet seen The Onion’s send up of
the term, I recommend it). Indeed, for many, including respected colleagues of
mine in my industry, the idea of “personal branding” seems mushy at best: where
a brand can be applied with consistency and scale to a product or service, it
cannot be relevant to a person who is complex and multifaceted. I do not
disagree with this rationale. However, I believe that personal branding is
important to understand for anybody who lives, works, and socializes in our
world today. This makes sense: in an age where we are constantly branding
ourselves on social media (including LinkedIn) and where the average worker
remains at their job for 4.4 years, creating a personal brand is an essential
skill in marketing oneself.
I personally do not
think there is any alchemy to personal branding. Although a presence on social
networks can help, one’s “brand” is simply the output of one’s work and they
way they treat other people. Today it is impossible to construct a personal
brand that is not in keeping with one’s true personality and output.
The most iconic
“branded CEO” was undoubtedly Steve Jobs, who will be remembered in equal
measure for the ways he changed personal computing, music, and
telecommunications as well as his controversial management style. Perhaps the
most interesting thing about him was his understanding of his own intuition.
His intuition led him to name a tech company “Apple” instead of something more
conventional (“SJSW” would have been appropriate given the two founders); his
intuition pushed him to do what he loved. It gave birth to the iPod, the
iPhone, and investing in Pixar. As those who read the amazing Water Isaacson
biography of Jobs know, a trip to India he made in his youth was life changing.
As he said of the trip: “Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a
cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t
use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead and their
intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a
very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion.”
When people ask me for
tips on personal branding, I often tell them to look towards celebrities who
have successfully branded themselves. Below, here are three impressive figures
in business with strong personal brands who serve as inspirations.
Whenever anyone asks me
about branding, be it personal or professional, I tell them to look to Richard
Branson. Without any formal business school training, Branson was able to
intuitively craft one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Despite the
myriad markets that Virgin operates in and its diversity of products and
services it represents, Virgin still remains a coherent, if enormous
mega-brand. As Branson himself said: “We are a company that likes to take on
the giants. In too many businesses, these giants have had things their own way.
We are going to have fun competing with them.”
What’s the take-home
message for personal branding? Branson himself has been the best representation
of his brand: at once flamboyant and approachable, anything that is stamped
with the “Virgin” label gets an automatic endorsement from Branson himself.
What he values: risk taking, fun, novelty, and decency, are always present in
whatever he does.
In the 1990’s, Martha
Stewart was at the top of her game: at the helm of a best-selling lifestyle magazine,
hosting a hugely popular TV show, and partnering with major retailers, she
leveraged her image of good taste and domestic perfection to staggering
success. That is, until she went to jail for insider trading.
Although many thought
that Stewart’s days as the last word on domestic entertaining were over, she
cannily rebuilt her empire but with a new Martha: after serving her time, she
let people see more of the cracks on her surface. Changing her show’s format to
a manicured, pre-taped show, to a more freewheeling talk show format in front
of an audience allowed for more fun. Because her dirty laundry was already
aired in public she didn’t hide being in jail: she answered fan letters and she
orchestrated her release from prison in a highly public way. Even though Martha
Stewart’s business continues to make waves, she’s remained true to herself. As
Martha has said before, “My life is my business. My business is my life.”
When the world first
met Bill Gates, he was young, gawky, and by all accounts a visionary. At the
helm of Microsoft, he led the company through rapid expansion, gaining the
reputation of an industry captain and a force to be reckoned with. Although he
was roundly criticized when testifying at the 1998 Microsoft anti-trust
hearing—Gates was not immune to all criticism. Unlike other tech titans, Gates
became aware that his vast wealth could be used for good. After extensive
reading on the legacies of Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, he and his wife
founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 1994. To date, Gates has
already given over a third of his fortune to charity, and he and his wife aim
to donate 95% of their wealth within their lifetimes to social causes. What’s
more, his model of philanthropy has caught on, notably thanks to his Giving
Pledge that he launched with Warren Buffett.
Bill Gates’ legacy will
be nuanced. In addition to being an iconic figure in the world of personal
computing, and a savvy businessman, he is also a leader in philanthropy in
corporate world. Gates’ brand is that of someone immensely intelligent who has
succeeded in creating enormous structures: be they aggressive corporations, or
well endowed foundations.
Creating a personal
brand isn’t so difficult. The main component is of course what you create and
how you treat the people you interact with. How you define yourself, how you
recover from set backs, and how you find ways to move forward in your career
and to allow change to happen can only help you.
