Personal Branding — It’s Not About You

When we talk about personal branding, we are ultimately talking about both responding to and creating how other people see us, whether this perception is in agreement or contrary to how we view ourselves.

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Marketing lecturer, consultant and advertising powerhouse, Ann Bastianelli, delivered a TEDx Talk lecture called “Powerful Personal Branding” at Wabash College three years ago. The lecture remains a popular reference point at Universal Admedia when we are at the discovery point with new clients and talent, when brainstorming new channels for our clients, or when things hit snags. An expert in the pop cultural trifecta that is marketing, advertising and branding, Bastianelli’s greatest gift is her plainspoken Midwestern anecdotal style. She doesn’t get academic or anthropological. Rather, Bastianelli has a way of demystifying the essence of personal branding into a few simple reference points. These points can fast-track and materialize the kinds of conceptual projections we often start with in an industry rooted more often than not in ideas, and plug them into concrete steps and material realities.

One of the most profound observations I’ve ever heard about personal branding is from Bastianelli and it is in this lecture. She says that, despite the implication of the term, “personal branding is not about you. It’s about how other people know you.” Nothing is more simply put yet profound to me about what we do in this industry than that. That’s because we all think of what is ‘personal’ as relating to ourselves, as in our self-awareness and self-referential view of ourselves. Yet when we talk about personal branding, as Bastianelli points out, we are ultimately talking about both responding to and creating how other people see us, whether this perception is in agreement with or contrary to how we view ourselves.

At Universal Admedia, when we develop a client or are working with a client who we already have a relationship with, the key to understanding where we are with their trajectory is not how they or even we think they are doing or appearing to their market or their prospective market. Rather, the constant evaluation and cultivation of outside perception of our talent is where our focus lies. The market asks our clients, Who are you? Our response for them is, Whoever You Want Me to Be. And then we help them live it.

On the macro level, we are all personal brands. Some of us are aware of it, others not so much. Some found out how to capitalize on their personal brand. Others flounder, at a loss of how to appeal to others for lack of knowing how they appear to others. Either way, we are all always being watched, evaluated and interviewed in our personal life and work. And that is the essence of personal branding. As Bastianelli points out so well, those of us who master the art of the personal brand, whether by design or inadvertently, “lead more, win more and earn more.” And if I know anything about personal branding, that much is true.

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