PERSONAL BRANDING

how do you define it?

 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.
What’s the first thing that comes to your
mind..
`What’s the First thing that
comes to your mind when you
hear this…..
Ma …… ma ….
Ma……. ma ….
LADY GAGA
Customers go Gaga for lipstick
By Andrew Jack
Published: March 3 2010 02:00 | Last updated: March 3 2010 02:00
www.ft.com

• First stock run of 30,000 lipsticks was

exhausted in just three days following a
limited launch in New York in February,
backed by one of the world's most
famous pop stars.
Brand and the rising emotional charge
The Emotional The Main Issues for The role of the brand
Charge the Customer

A social expression Will someone love To facilitate

me for loving it? conspicuity

Satisfaction or Will I love it? To win premium price

pleasure in use

A promise of Will it do what I want The influence choice

performance in use it to do?

A guarantee of Is it the real thing? To make choice easy

authenticity (even unthinking)
 Brand Evolution
• KLEENEX
• After 1st world war
• Make up – sales boom
• Make up remover
• Blow nose
• 1930 – don’t put a cold in our pocket
• From niche to mass market
 The Brand As A Personality
• Who is your brand?
• a movie star
• Comedian
• Newsreader
• Politician
• Sports person
• Writer
• TV personality
 Amitabh Bachchan
Endorse ICICI Bank Campaign
 Business Strategy
In The Brand Context
• New Product Development – MARs,
Kellogs
• Diversifying for Growth- Nokia
• Diversifying to Escape Decline - Philip
Moris – Marlboro
• Entering New Markets - E.g. Big Apple
 Brand and Value Drivers
• Value Driver
• Set of ideas or principles embedded in the
company’s culture
• What makes the business TICK!
• OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
• Example:

• PRODUCT LEADERSHIP
• Example:

• CUSTOMER INTIMACY
• Example:
Icons/Brands
Your Brand is just as important as Coca Cola’s Brand
 What’s a Brand?
• Symbols?
• Logos?
• Emotions?
• Posters?
 Brand Creates
• Emotional connection with
the buyer
• Provides security
 From Dan Schawbel
• I define personal branding as “how we
market ourselves to others.”
I consider “personal branding” a process and
a “personal brand” to be the individual who
is being marketed.

• How do you define it?

• “Given this economy with the high
unemployment rate
– Branding is your secret weapon in the battle
for jobs, promotions, and clients.”
 UK’s Popular Brand
• A sample of 2,000 adults were asked ‘which
brands or companies can you think of that you
really admire?”
• Virgin -23% of votes. 
• Sony -21% of votes
• Tesco - 20%. 
The results come from a nationally representative survey of 2,000 adults conducted in
February – April 2007 by top research company HPI  Research|.
 Famous Icons
• Padma Lakshmi – Worldwide/India host for “Top
Chef”
• Donald Trump – Worldwide – Business Icon
• Paris Hilton – Worldwide – Entertainment/Fashion
• David Beckham – Worldwide – Sports/Fashion
• Nicol David – Malaysia-Sports
• Reza Zadeh – Iran-Sports
 What Is a Personal Brand?
A public projection of certain
aspects of a person’s personality,
skills or values that stimulate
precise, meaningful perceptions in
its audience about the values and
qualities that person stands for.
Accept that you are brand

SELL
Get Leverage
Get Recognized
BUILD
 Why we have brands
• 1. Judged based on first impression
• Label based on
– Personality
– Appearance
– What we do for a LIVING
– Online impressions – Facebook, Google
We Sell everyday, Yet we don’t look into the
mirror and say “I’m in Sales”.
• 2. We are all Sales people
• People don’t purchase product brands that
they haven’t heard of.
• Opportunities
• At work-
– SELL IDEAS TO MANAGEMENT- new projects
• Peers – influence them
What Does This Mean
for You and Me?
• A Brand is an opportunity to have meaning in
your life and to stand out from everyone else
around the world.

Position
What are the ways to brand yourself?
 8 Laws of Personal Branding

• Specialisation • Persistence
• Leadership • Goodwill
• Personality • Visiblity
• Distinctiveness • Unity
 Specialisation
1. By Ability – Strategic vision, grasp of first principles,
communicating compexity
2. By Behaviour – such as leadership skills, passionate
energy or ability to listen
3. By Lifestyle – living on a boat, wearing turtlenecks
not ties, travelling by motorbike
4. By Mission – seeing people exceed their own
expectations, priest, nun etc.
5. By Product – the futurist who creates an amazing
place to work
• 6. By profession – niche within a niche – the
leadership coach who’s a psychotherapist
• 7. By service – the consultant who works as a non-
executive director or interim
 Leadership
• People want to be influenced.
• Uncertainty

Tangible
Promoting Result
 8 Laws of Personal Branding

• Specialisation • Persistence
• Leadership • Goodwill
• Personality • Visiblity
• Distinctiveness • Unity
 Personality
• Real PEOPLE – not squeaky clean.
• People who RISK being human
– 1. Related to
– 2. Fallible
– 3. Positive
– 4. Authentic
 8 Laws of Personal Branding

• Specialisation • Persistence
• Leadership • Goodwill
• Personality • Visiblity
• Distinctiveness • Unity
 Distinctiveness
• Strong Impressions
• Express yourself in ways that are different
from others in the same domain
• Strong Impressions are BOUND to put people
off – signs that You’ve got it RIGHT!
 8 Laws of Personal Branding

• Specialisation • Persistence
• Leadership • Goodwill
• Personality • Visiblity
• Distinctiveness • Unity
 Persistence
• No short-cuts
• Appear overnight are products of many years
of persistence
• Reject those that detract from the brand
– Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, Nicole David –
– Think of your CEO or your colleagues who are famous
– not overnight Products
 8 Laws of Personal Branding

• Specialisation • Persistence
• Leadership • Goodwill
• Personality • Visiblity
• Distinctiveness • Unity
 Goodwill
• Do people
– Forgive Failings,
– Tolerate Under Delivery
– Open doors to
• Owner of the BRAND?
 8 Laws of Personal Branding

• Specialisation • Persistence
• Leadership • Goodwill
• Personality • Visiblity
• Distinctiveness • Unity
 Visiblity
• CONSISTENTLY
• REPEATEDLY Until it is KNOWN

It is more difficult than your

ability.
 8 Laws of Personal Branding

• Specialisation • Persistence
• Leadership • Goodwill
• Personality • Visiblity
• Distinctiveness • Unity
 Unity
• Living your life in accord with your public
persona.
How To Build Your
Personal Brand?
 Please refer to your notes…
• Brutally honest with yourself
• Create your brand
• Propagate your message
• Live your brand
• SWOT ANALYSIS YOUR BRAND
 Discussion

Discuss the role of Social Media

and Blogging in Personal
Branding
CEO Branding
What’s the First Thing
that comes to your mind
when you see these ….
RICHARD BRANSON
BILL GATES
CASE STUDY: STEVE IS APPLE,
APPLE IS STEVE

STEVE JOBS
 Turnaround for Apple
• Jobs came in as an advisor to Amelio. Within months, Amelio
was out, Jobs was in and the “official” turnaround began. The
iMac was a big success. Apple upgraded Mac OS (Classic) to
match the coloful new iMac.
• Years later, Apple launched Mac OS X, the Apple Store, the iPod,
iLife, iTunes Store and much more.
• Apple’s revenue and profits surged in recent years as did Mac
and iPod market share, Apple mind share and future
opportunities. Today, the picture is rosy for Apple. The company
is swimming in cash, successfuly moved to Intel chips, and leads
both in portable music players and legal digital online music
sales.
• Market target
– Education
– Professional creative consumers
Did Apple Make Any
Mistakes?
 Mistakes Apple Made

Apple has made many mistakes that could

have a detrimental impact on the future of the
company that changed computing, the way
we listen to music and the way we use our
mobile phones.
 Mistakes Apple Made
The first mistake was not introducing us to other
key leaders in the company.

The second was the lack of information about

Steve Jobs’ health (causing lots of
speculation). Will Apple recover?
• Visibility to the market

• Credibility to the market

• Although Apple has built an incredible team of
leaders and professionals, none has the
visibility or credibility with the market – and
now that Jobs is taking a medical leave, it will
be hard to transition the brand value. It took
years for that to happen at Microsoft as Gates
passed the reigns onto Ballmer. Yet even
today, when you think Microsoft, you think Bill
Gates.
 Discussion
• Although the CEO is always an important
brand asset, it is rare that the CEO IS the
brand. This clearly has both positive and
negative implications.

• Discuss positive and negative impacts when

the personal brand and the corporate brand
are inextricably linked. [20 marks]
Positive
1. Strong believe in the leadership of the
company
2. Quality of the brand is guarantee
3. Confidence and development on the brand
4. Recruitment will be easier
5. Better organization structure, goal and
direction
Negative
1. Following the CEO rather than the Brand
2. Higher expectation on the company and its
employees
3. Flexibilities in changes is limited
4. Departure of the CEO might bring negative
effect to the company
5. Other executive influence in the company will
be undermined
 Role of Social Media
• Discuss the role of social media in Personal
Branding [10 marks]
 You cannot just “create” a personal
brand overnight. It is important that
you first uncover it, articulate it, and
then strengthen it by spending time
on each step.
Developing your personal brand does not mean
that you are creating some fictitious image.
Actually, it is the opposite. It means figuring out
who you really are, where you want to go, and
how you can help others.
Ask yourself:
How do people describe you?
How do you describe yourself?
What makes you different from your peers?

To determine how to brand yourself, you need to

identify:
Who is your audience?
What do you do better than everyone else?
Why do you do what you do? What provides the
motivation?
How do you stand out from your peers?
How to BRAND YOURSELF?
Publish Articles
Publishing articles builds your credibility by spotlighting you
as a reliable individual in your area of expertise.
Maintain a Blog
Starting your own blog demonstrates your willingness to
contribute back to your niche with your own expertise.
Most importantly it shows that you care about a certain
topic and are willing to spend time writing about it.
Contribute to other blogs
Many bloggers out there are regularly looking for guest blog
posts. Start to know who operates in the blogosphere
related to your expertise and reach out to these bloggers.

Social MEDIA??
you need to get more
involved
Comment on Blogs.

Comment on Forums. Answer questions on LinkedIn and other

Q&A communities.
LinkedIn or Yahoo Answers
In the age of the web, a
strong brand means little 
if nobody can find you.

Create a profile on social networks such as LinkedIn,  Facebook

and Twitter.
Create a profile on directories such as Naymz, Plaxo and
ZoomInfo.
Vote for your site in social bookmarks like Delicious to improve
your position in Google results.

You have to go through the process of filling in your entire

profile - including your bio and a professional headshot. There is
nothing worse than coming to someone’s profile that is not
cohesively put together or completed.
In the age of the web, a
strong brand means little 
if nobody can find you.

Create a profile on social networks such as LinkedIn,  Facebook

and Twitter.
Create a profile on directories such as Naymz, Plaxo and
ZoomInfo.
Vote for your site in social bookmarks like Delicious to improve
your position in Google results.

You have to go through the process of filling in your entire

profile - including your bio and a professional headshot. There is
nothing worse than coming to someone’s profile that is not
cohesively put together or completed.
Before you apply for a job,
you need to make sure
that you have the
following items are
cohesively put together.
Your resume - paper + video
Your cover letter
Your web presence
Your references
Your interview skills/preparedness