Excerpts from:
Ready for Your Close-Up, Mr. CEO?
Brand like a celebrity
By Stacy Straczynski
As a filmmaker and the founder of Hollywood-based talent management company Cine Paris, Stephen Mitchell is particularly intrigued by the enterprise of branding executives. During his 20-plus years in the entertainment industry, Mitchell knows first-hand the power that personal branding gives to an individual.
..
"I started as a filmmaker," Mitchell says. "My experience is that writers, directors and actors all need to brand themselves in order to break into the industry." He says he believes the same goes for executives' careers, and to that end recently expanded his company to offer an executive management consulting service.
"Executives have a need for visibility," he says. "No producer wants to cast an 'unknown.' The same goes for corporations." Companies are looking for a star to act as a business magnet and therefore want to hire an executive who has an established relationship with the public. They want their own industry celebrity who never fails to draw positive and profitable attention. But the problem is many executives don't know how to market themselves, and without correct self-positioning, companies will overlook them. "What actors have and CEOs don't is someone to help manage an executive's trajectory and career or even market them," Mitchell says. Executives often need help.
..
To begin building your personal brand, Mitchell says you need to start with the most important part—you. "When executives begin to find their interests and focus on areas in which they have a lot to say, they can begin to get a sense of who they are—and bring attention to themselves. It's a way to make a career out of being you that is separate from any corporate climate and affiliation," Mitchell says.
..
.JPG)
