First off, I’d like to inform you, my dear reader, that I have successfully completely my Diploma in Management Consulting project and I will soon be publishing the paper, entitled John Antonios – Personal Brand: The Birth of Immortality. I’ll let you know when it’s up for grabs.
The subject of today’s post is a result of my reflection upon the completion of my aforementioned project. In one of my previous posts, entitled Personal Branding – the 10 Commandments, I highlighted the basic rules of “proper” personal branding conduct. Today, I’d like to add a new entry into the antonym dictionary:
Antonym of Personal Brand (n) = schizophrenia, MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder)
Image Source: http://smg.photobucket.com/home/DAUNT90
Aside from the boldness of this entry, what does it really have to do with the subject of this post? Everything! Your personal brand is not a mask that you wear depending on the occasion; it is who you are all the time, in any situation or environment (work, fun, love …), with any kind of crowd (friends, parents, colleagues, clients …). Personal branding is the process of matching the perception of your brand with the true essence of your brand. Let us take a real example of that from my own experience. My brand DNA is best described as Creative, Passionate, and Dedicated – this applies to all aspects of my life, be it work, family, love, friends … I am the same person all over the place! How can I be authentic otherwise? On a lighter note, it’s already difficult keeping up with one Me – I can’t imagine keeping tabs on multiple characters of me!
Personal Branding is not a process that has an end date. I addressed this subject in a previous post, entitled Personal Branding – Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop, where I expressed how my earned brand attention suffered due to a long interruption of my social media engagement. That fact aside though, ask yourself, can you take a break from being you? Some people might actually answer this question in affirmation, to those I say, are you taking a break from being you, or being something you are not (just to please others)? If you reflect on that question for a minute or two, you will realize that ultimately you are who you are, and this is exactly what your personal brand should reflect!
Your brand matures and grows and that should mirror your growth and maturity. Your brand is not engraved in stone and neither are you, but if they were, they would be identical. Personal Branding is a full-time lifetime job! Let’s dissect that sentence and take a closer look at its constituents: Full-time indicates that it’s something you do all day, and not just from 9 to 5 – it’s closer to 24/7. Lifetime literally means for the duration of a person’s life. The combination of these two terms makes personal branding a continuous 24/7 process.
It is an uncontested fact that Nike is a well-established brand, right? True! And, I would assume that it has earned enough credibility throughout the years, which allows the brand to simply focus on releasing new products and take a break from worrying about their brand, right? Uh, No! Nike’s size actually presents them with an even bigger responsibility towards the brand and its loyal customers. Dan Schawbel, Gary Vaynerchuk, and William Arruda have all established very solid personal brands, published books, and are successfully running their consulting businesses (among others) – sounds like a pretty good place to take a break, right? Uh, No (again)! Their success has resulted in great expectations, and those have to be met!
I probably made personal branding sound like a horrible thing to get yourself in to, while in fact it is completely the opposite. Imagine having the freedom of being yourself. Now, picture having people really love for who you really are. Now, envision throwing away the “I’m going to meet my girlfriend” mask, “oh the boss is here” mask, “great, I have to put up with her annoying husband” mask, and all the other mask that you have stashed in your drawer. Finally, contemplate your world given the chance to do all this all the time for the rest of your life. All you need to do is be yourself, and no one else. This is the true essence of Personal branding. Think About It!
Important post for many to consider John. The insecurity that comes along with trying to satisfy a certain audience professionally or personally is like lying and trying to remember what you said. Solution: don’t lie, especially to yourself!
The real trick is for the serial entrepreneur brand and/or those who successfully take on what seems to be different community projects, businesses and markets. Many think it is a different person on the surface when the fact is they bring a scalable and transferable brand across different opportunities. Your attributes or others like raising money, recruiting talent, bring the best out of people, launching products and innovation are examples that cross many passions. Helping others experience consistency in what looks different is the test of a great personal brand!
I like the post, personal branding is your reputation, and your reputation is like your shadow, you dont have to work hard to have a shadow, it is always there. Personal brand is a mirror that reflect who you are.
Great post, John! I like the use of the mask analogy. This is something I’ve been thinking of a lot lately. It can be relieving to ditch the masks, but at the same time, humans have been using different personae amongst different people for ages to keep society working (one mask as a daughter, one as a mother, one as a wife…). I think those masks are healthy, but they don’t jive with personal branding.
As you know, I’m a personal branding fan, but I’d love your thoughts on this.
Important point about the authenticity of your personal brand. Also important the statement that your personal brand CAN change and evolve as you do. Another piece of the personal brand that can morph is where it intersects with your career brand. Many managers and executives in technology – the folks I work with – might have 2 career objectives. In that case their personal / career brand will change depending on the skills/experience/talents the person wants to be emphasizing. The personal traits – “Inspirational,” “passionate,””never gives up” etc. DO remain the same.
First of all, congratulation on your Diploma project and I’m glad to your back to the real world as in the world you enjoy the most 🙂
This is an interesting post which it’s out of my expectation from the title. I assumed that this post is all about how to keep your presence in different social media channel and how to come up with inspiriting topic to talk about almost every time you tweet/blog or even the status you put on facebook.
Surprisingly, it’s about how to be your true self 24/7 and that, is a life time job. As a business person, this is somehow contradicting to traditional wisdom from traditional businessmen. I couldn’t speak for other people, however, those who have shared their experience with me, in order to be successful in the business world, I need to do exactly what you are objecting, wearing different masks in different situation. I’m always taught to be ‘mysterious’, how to hide my feeling, desire and greed, how to manipulate and play mind game. Yes it sounds awful, but in order to be successful, you have to think ahead of the others. Everyone cares only his/her own pocket and try to squeeze every penny from every partner along your supply chain. So being yourself? It sounds like a dream to me.
You quoted Nike as an example. We can see the sparkling image of this brand and how the brand carries its responsibility to its customer and the society. But how about the other side of the coin? The side that is unrelated to its direct sale, the side that it has more bargaining power? I’m not accusing Nike is behaving completely opposite when it comes to its supplier, I just want to mention that when you play in a different role, you have different responsibility and it’s not easy to describe yourself by just a few adjectives. In addition, how your image is perceived also depends on your relationship with this particular person.
I agree that personal brand is a reflection of who you are. So does it mean that personal branding is not applicable in normal business world? Or personal branding is in fact a type of business?
Thanks, John for the mention and thoughtful post. I am delighted you are reminding people that personal branding is not a one-time event! It’s an on-going journey that continues to pay dividends based on your investment.
Best.
William
http://www.personalbranding.tv
What have you done for YOUR brand today?
Mabrouk the Diplomat! Boy, you must be smart!!!
Loved the post and yes, I am who I am, online and offline. I think those who wear masks, whether people of businesses, are very quickly uncovered as carnival goers. Luckily in most SM forums, there is an option to unfollow or unlike. Those who play a game with their branding are quickly unmasked.
So I totally, agree. Be yourself, be who you are 24/7. 🙂
Micheline, from what I have learned about you through you’re writing and social media engagement, I would define your Personal Brand’s DNA in three words Benevolent, Loving, and Passionate! and you are those 24/7 – I truly believe that you have made personal branding an art – the irony is, you think you’re learning about it from people like me, when the reality is that I am learning from you! thank you!
Wow! I’ve been learning a lot ever since I stumbled upon your blog on WordPress. I’ve been trying to brand myself for the past years, and it’s proven to be a positive boon for me – one example being the numerous Twitter followers I get who may be in the social media and marketing realm. I could say that I’m probably the only student on my campus who has shifted the focus to personal branding from CVs and resumes, even though my college hasn’t take the stance of changing the perception across the Middle East.
Doo keep up with your insightful entries. 😀
Yasser, it pleases me to know that I’ve been part of your change. I hope I can continue feeding your brand and I count on your to pay it forward and help others build theirs. Having said that, and given what you said about your school, why don’t you consider giving a small workshop about the importance of personal branding and speak of your experience.
You will be shunned and put down, and people might think you’re crazy to consider something like personal branding – but I ask you not to crack down and stay strong and believe in yourself.
PS. I wanted to thank you for liking a couple of my posts – I’m humbled and honored.
Thanks again Yasser, and keep those comments coming in.