The brand called YOU
Or what it takes to be the CEO of Me, Inc.
You are a brand.
You are in charge of your brand.
We are CEOs of our own companies
- Me Inc.
To be in business today, our most
important job is to be head
marketer for the brand called YOU.
YOU
Today brands are everything.
Brand name tells you that a visit will be
worth your Time. The brand is a
promise of the value you'll receive.
The name of the email sender is a
brand. It's a promise of the value
you'll receive for the time you spend
reading the message.
As you work, if you're really smart,
you figure out what it takes to create
a distinctive role for yourself — you
create a message and a strategy to
promote the brand called YOU.
YOU
What makes YOU different?
You're not defined by your job title
and you're not confined by your job
description.
You're every bit as much a brand as
Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop.
Ask yourself the same question the
brand managers at Nike, Coke, Pepsi,
or the Body Shop ask themselves:
What is it that my product or service
does, that makes it different? .
Start by identifying the qualities or
characteristics that make you distinctive
from your competitors — or your
colleagues.
What have you done lately — this
week — to make yourself stand out?
What would your colleagues or
your customers say is your greatest
and clearest strength? Your most
Noteworthy personal trait?
What is the "feature-benefit model" that
the brand called YOU offers?
Do you deliver your work on time, every
time?
Do you anticipate and solve problems
before they become crises?
Do you always complete your projects
within the allotted budget?
Forget your job title.
Ask yourself: What do I do that adds remarkable,
measurable, distinguished, distinctive value?
Forget your job description.
Ask yourself: What do I do that I am most proud
of?
Forget the progressions you've had in your
career and ask yourself: What have I
accomplished that I can unabashedly brag
about?
What's the pitch for YOU?
YOU
Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle.
No matter how big your set of skills, or how
good your feature-benefit proposition, you still
have to market your brand — to customers,
colleagues, and your virtual network of
associates. "word -of-mouth marketing."
For most branding campaigns, the first step is
visibility.
If you're General Motors, Ford, or Chrysler, that
usually means a full flight of TV and print ads
designed to get billions of "impressions" of
your brand.
If you're brand YOU,
YOU you've got the same need
for visibility — but no budget to buy it. So
how do you market brand YOU?
YOU
Try moonlighting! Sign up for an extra project inside your
organization, just to introduce yourself to new colleagues
and showcase your skills — or work on new ones.
Try teaching a class at a community college, in an adult
education program.
If you're a better writer than you are a teacher, try
contributing a column or an opinion piece to your local
newspaper.
And if you're a better talker than you are teacher or writer,
try to get yourself on a panel discussion at a conference
or sign up to make a presentation at a workshop.
Your brand YOU business card:
Have you designed a cool - looking logo for your own
card?
Are you demonstrating an appreciation for design that
shows you understand that packaging counts a lot in a
crowded world?
When you're promoting brand YOU,
YOU everything
you do — and everything you choose not to do —
communicates the value and character of the brand.
What's the real power of YOU?
YOU
If you want to grow your brand, you've
got to come to terms with power— your
own.
The key lesson: power is not a dirty word!
It's influence power.
It's being known for making the most
significant contribution in your particular
area.
It's reputational power.
Power is largely a matter of perception. If
you want people to see you as a powerful
brand, act like a credible leader.
When you're thinking like brand YOU,
YOU you
don't need org-chart authority to be a
leader.
The fact is you are a leader.
You're leading YOU!
YOU
We now live in a project world.
Almost all work today is organized into bite
-sized packets called projects.
Projects exist around deliverables, they
create measurables, and they leave you
with braggables.
Today you have to think, breathe, act,
and work in projects.
If you're not spending at least 70% of your
time working on projects, creating projects,
or organizing your (apparently mundane)
tasks into projects, you are sadly living in
the past.
Do you feel its time to move outside your comfort zone
(even taking a lateral move), tackling something new
and completely different?
You can’t have an old-fashioned résumé anymore! You
need a marketing brochure for brand YOU.
Résumé is a static list of titles held and positions
occupied.
Marketing brochure brings to life the skills you've
mastered, the projects you've delivered, the
braggables you can take credit for. It reflects the
growth, breadth and depth of brand YOU.
What is loyalty to YOU?
YOU
Everyone feels loyalty is gone; loyalty is dead;
loyalty is over. A 40 year career at the same
spot looks like an indentured servitude.
But, loyalty is the only thing that matters. It isn't
blind loyalty to the company. It's loyalty to
your colleagues, loyalty to your team, loyalty
to your project, loyalty to your customers, and
loyalty to yourself.
But being CEO of Me Inc. requires you to
act selfishly — to grow yourself, to
promote yourself, to get the market to
reward yourself.
As long as you're learning, growing,
building relationships, and delivering
great results, it's good for you and it's
great for the company.
You've got to check with the market on a
regular basis to have a reliable read on
your brand's value.
How is brand You doing?
What's the future of YOU?
YOU
It's over. No more vertical. No more ladder. A
career is now a checkerboard. Or even a maze.
It's full of moves that go sideways, forward, slide
on the diagonal, even go backward.
A career is a portfolio of projects that teach you
new skills, gain you new expertise, develop new
capabilities, grow your colleague set, and
constantly reinvent you as a brand.
The last thing you want to do is become a Manager.
Like "résumé," "manager" is an obsolete term.
It's practically synonymous with "dead end job."
What you want is a steady diet of more interesting, more
challenging, more provocative projects.
When you look at the progression of a career constructed
out of projects , directionality is not only hard to track,
but it's also totally irrelevant.
Instead of making yourself a slave to the
concept of a career ladder, reinvent yourself on
a semi regular basis.
Start by writing your own mission statement, to
guide you as CEO of Me Inc..
What turns you on?
Learning something new?
Gaining recognition for your skills as a
technical wizard?
Shepherding new ideas from concept to
market?
What's your personal definition of success?
Money?
Power?
Fame?
Or doing what you love?
No matter what you're doing today, there are four
things you've got to measure yourself against.
1. You've got to be a great teammate and a
supportive colleague.
2. You've got to be an exceptional expert at
something that has real value.
3. You've got to be a broad-gauged visionary — a
leader, a teacher, a farsighted "imagineer.”
4. You've got to be a businessperson — you've got
to be obsessed with pragmatic outcomes.
You are a brand.
You are in charge of your brand.
There is no single path to success.
And there is no one right way to create
the brand called YOU…..Except
YOU this.
Start today.
Or else….
Credits:
Tom Peters: The brand called you
The original article by the man who began searching for excellence and
ended up being America's preeminent management guru, appeared in
FastCompany back in 1997.
Presentation by. Shaji Hakeem
