Let Your Personal Brand Be Your Guide
May 2, 2012 | 
Author 
As I’ve begun to receive graduation announcements from family and friends, it’s caused me to reflect upon the unexpected high and low points that have defined my post-college life.
Especially considering the current economic climate where employment prospects for grads are limited, I think about the advice I would share with them. My counsel serves as a good reminder regardless of where we are in our careers.
Be flexible. Upon graduation, I relocated to the Silicon Valley to pursue a public relations position with a technology company. Three years later, I found myself jobless as a result of the tech meltdown of the early 2000’s.
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When People Are Watching
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a car enthusiast. Imagine my excitement at the age of three when my mom, Kathy, announced we were going to the car dealership to pick up my grandmother’s brand new 1979 Chrysler Cordoba.
My sisters Heidi (age 4), Amy (age 2), and I had fallen asleep during the ride to the dealership. Upon arrival, instead of waking us, Kathy decided to park within eyesight while she and my grandmother checked out the new car.
Having woken about five minutes later, I climbed over the front seat and decided to commandeer the vehicle by pulling the gearshift into neutral. Screams of sheer terror rang from the backseat and permeated the surrounding area. Much to Kathy’s dismay, the commotion centered on her car, which was slowing rolling downhill from the customer parking lot toward the showroom floor.
Without hesitation, and eight months pregnant with my sister Jamie, Kathy dropped her handbag, flung off her heels, and dashed for the moving vehicle, which by this time had picked up some speed. In a flash, Kathy arrived at the car, flung open the driver-side door, jumped in the front seat, and engaged the emergency brake. The almost three-ton vehicle came to a screeching halt within mere inches of the showroom’s glass facade. A cry from the group of assembled spectators exclaimed, “that woman can run really fast for a fat lady!”
Branding vs. Personal Branding
Target’s red bulls-eye. BMW’s promise as “the ultimate driving machine.” Geico’s reptilian Gecko. For most of us, the term “branding” sparks images of colorful logos, creatively wordsmithed taglines, and seemingly silly mascots—all tools used by marketers to bring attention to a particular product in an effort to increase sales.
Some professionals view branding as pertaining to products and not also services. They dismiss these tactics as mere gimmicks that ultimately do little to develop business. Why can’t the same branding tools sell products and services?
When selling products, marketers use branding to draw attention to a product’s tangible features. For instance, the iPhone’s sleek design. The Chevy Volt’s efficient use of energy to deliver best-in-class fuel economy. Or, a Steinway piano’s craftsmanship that makes it a highly sought after instrument. It’s the products’ features that drive sales.
In an effort for marketers to brand services, which characteristically have intangible features, they brand the professional rendering the service. Attorneys, accountants, financial planners and bankers alike increase business by developing and promoting their personal brands.
Recommend Like a Pro
Meet Judy. During the past 18 months, she’s gone from being a wealth advisor, to a marketing consultant, to a life coach. When asked about the kind of clients she is looking to attract, Judy’s responses are a rambling of generic statements, industry buzzwords and ethereal reflections. Judy’s ambiguous declarations and scattered delivery would make it challenging for anyone to refer her business.
At a recent networking event, I was surprised to hear two other professional, who I held in high regard, recommend Judy’s services. One praised her for providing him with clarity on a personal issue and another for navigating him through a complex business dilemma.
At first, I wondered whether or not we were all referring to the same Judy? Then I started to question my impressions of those singing her praises. Were my eyes and ears playing tricks on me? How could three professionals have such disparate opinions of the same individual? After the meeting, and unsolicited, another professional attending the event remarked to me how unexpected he also found the feedback on Judy.
Because my impressions of her weren’t positive, I never sought Judy’s services. Either she provides value but needs to work on her pitch, or those who have recommended Judy have officially tainted their own personal brands by endorsing her.
Whether a business contact solicits the name of a CPA to handle their taxes, or a friend asks you to suggest a criminal attorney who can make their kid’s DUI disappear, who and how you make a recommendation will directly reflect on your personal brand.
Personal Brander Motivates Self-Evaluation and Action
Recently, I spoke to a group of real estate industry professionals at a Pasadena Bar Association meeting. My remarks focused on how professionals can develop business and enhance referral relationships by focusing on their personal brand–a.k.a. their reputation.
Dale Pelch, a real estate attorney at Hahn & Hahn, who chairs the Association’s Real Estate Section, summarized my presentation in the following blog post.
This week, the Pasadena Bar Association’s Real Estate Section welcomed Jonathan Fitzgarrald (pronounced with a hard “G”), Chief Marketing Officer at Greenberg Glusker. Dressed to the Nines, Jonathan opened his presentation entitled “People Are Watching! How Your Image and Reputation Can Affect Your Success,” by recounting the fateful day almost 31 years ago when President Ronald Reagan was shot. In a riveting fashion, Jonathan retold the story of how, after being seriously wounded and rushed to the hospital, President Reagan composed himself, waived off efforts to assist him as he exited his Limo, and strode past the gathering reporters and photographers in a very “Presidential” fashion, before entering the hospital emergency room … whereupon he collapsed.
Painting vivid pictures of the importance of image, Jonathan offered practical and achievable advice and suggestions. Rather than presenting “a lot of marketing fluff” laced with buzzwords and clichéd ideas, Jonathan’s presentation was thought-provoking, and generated motivation for self-evaluation and action.
Developing Business in 30 Seconds…or Less
One of your New Year’s Resolutions is to get out of the office more and connect in person with those professionals who can hire or refer you business.
So, cup of coffee in hand, you show up at your first networking event of the year, find a seat and wait for the meeting to begin. The group leader welcomes everyone and says, “With so many new faces today, why don’t we go around the table and have everyone take a few moments to introduce themselves and what they do.”
“Oh great, here comes a glorified roll call,” you think. Short of watching your local news pundits rehash a recent political debate, nothing is as mind numbing as listening to a group of professionals introduce themselves through tired clichés, generalities, and generic value statements.
Table-side Manner
Unable to travel to the Midwest to visit her family for the holiday, I invited a professional acquaintance, Sally, to a Thanksgiving dinner that I was hosting at my home for family and friends. Sally accepted the invitation, and asked if she could bring her “to die for” seven-layer dip appetizer.
As meal time arrived, my home was bustling with guest arrivals, last minute tweaks to prepared food dishes, and my dogs bouncing off the walls with the influx in household activity–but no Sally.
Twenty minutes passed and I started to wonder whether Sally was having difficulty finding my home, so I phoned her. No answer. Another 30 minutes passed and the doorbell rang, it was Sally. She whizzed past me in search of the kitchen with practically no greeting or explanation for her tardiness. By that time, cocktail hour was over and we were mere minutes away from sitting down for dinner.
Sally was anxious to meet everyone, or so it appeared. She worked the room, asking lots of questions and learning how everyone was connected. She was skilled at posing a question and then turning the attention back on herself. In her mind, she was the belle of the ball.
Battle of the Brands: Aligning Individual and Company Brands
One afternoon, I received a call from an acquaintance, Roger, the head of a prominent banking institution. He had finished up a meeting with another contact in the building and wondered whether he could stop by to catch up.
For close to a year, I had been in the process of setting up a meeting between Roger and one of my contacts, Larry, who had a successful financing business. Operating in the same business circles, the two of them knew of each other, but had never met. Understanding that business results from professionals who know, like, and trust each other, I thought this was the ideal opportunity for Larry to make a great, first impression with a prospective client.
As soon as I hung up the phone with Roger, I called Larry to see if he could swing by my office and join us for the meeting. He was eager for the opportunity. Since it was a Friday and I figured Larry was dressed casually, I inquired if he had a suit at the office he could change into. He did.
I met Roger in the lobby and escorted him to one of my conference rooms. A few minutes later when Larry joined us. I could not believe my eyes. Larry was in a suit, but one that had been fashioned more than ten years earlier when he was 20 pounds lighter.
How Much of YOU Belongs in Business?
At some point during our professional upbringing, we were conditioned to strip our business relationships and interactions of anything and everything personal. This all-too-common practice suggests that professionals have one persona that is “all business” and a second that is “personal” and rarely the two shall meet.
Couple that conditioning with a communications environment ripe with email, texting, internet browsing, tweeting, and Facebooking, and it’s no wonder why we continue to have issues connecting. The tools we were told would help us stay better connected seem to be working against us!
Daily, I find myself fighting the de facto urge to email or text instead of picking up the phone or walking down the hall to have a live conversation. This is especially true when resolving conflict or communicating an important business decision. Whether it’s truly more convenient to email or just an excuse to justify one’s passive aggressive tendencies, many of us use it as a mechanism for issue avoidance.
Costly is the Price of Inaction
One of my sisters, Heidi, accepted a management position with a well-known cosmetic company. She was excited for the new opportunity.
Shortly after arriving and settling in her new position, the company decided that Heidi’s talents and sales track record were better served with one of its cosmetic lines located in a major department store outside the city. It would be the company’s last ditch effort to save the cosmetic line’s business in the area.
The news of the change came with mixed reviews. On one hand, this presented a great opportunity for Heidi to make an immediate impression and position herself for future growth within the company by turning around a fledgling cosmetic line. On the other hand, the commute from her apartment in the city to the new location would be a grueling two-hours each direction, requiring her to take a series of trains and buses. Nonetheless, she felt up to the challenge.
