Personal Branding

What are its signature deliverables?..

What are its signature deliverables?

..

When one assesses the need for an application of brand management strategies, it requires the existence of a brand and a contemplation of its characteristics. What does the brand stand for? What are its signature deliverables? Most importantly, what can it offer to the marketplace that cannot be acquired elsewhere and which imbues the brand with exclusivity?

..

As one asks these questions of an executive who is wanting to aggrandize his or her personal brand, the perspective he or she offers based on years of accomplishment is usually the prime characteristic of the brand. That an executive’s wisdom might apply to a broad range of interest and act as a magnet for interesting offers from a wide horizon of companies, organizations and even governments is to be expected.

It is incumbent upon a brand to author and issue its own definition

..

Every one of us has been branded to some degree by friends, associates and even people with only a passing acquaintance of us. It is incumbent upon a brand to author and issue its own definition. Otherwise, it may suffer from a seventieth percentile perception of it. At the seventieth percentile one sees a canvas and spilled paint; at the ninetieth one sees a Jackson Pollack rendering of a seasonal upstate New York. Both perceptions are accurate as far as they go. Through which filter do you want your brand perceived?

The strategic management of a personal brand can accomplish many things. The most notable is that it places control of its future in the hands of the brand.

..
As always, the media wants to hear from individuals who are affected by the decisions and actions of incumbents and candidates alike. The media is especially keen on hearing from articulate executive leaders who are able to express the concerns of business or industry sectors, whether he or she can argue in support of or against the implementation of an agenda. An executive's most powerful asset is his or her perspective born of experience and intellect and the ability to communicate extraordinary ideas to others.

The goal of personal branding is to maximize the yield from an individual’s signature skills

..

The goal of personal branding is to maximize the yield from an individual’s signature skills. In the same manner that the large talent agencies of Hollywood create demand for their clients to make them independent of the hiring process and, further, too make of them a franchise, the strategy should be to make the client immune to the vicissitudes of any one corporate environment or the problems facing any particular sector of business.

..

Some will want to accelerate the process of their next engagement with enhanced terms and conditions. Others will look at how best to expand their personal franchise--to build out the brand, so to speak. Either is the very legitimate concern of personal branding.