Chapter 4

Powering Up Your Personal and One-Person Business Brands

In This Chapter

Tilting the odds for success in your favor by developing a personal brand

Getting an off-target personal brand image back on track

Winning business and revenue by branding your one-person business

Developing brands for yourself and your services involves all the steps listed in Chapter 2 and described in every chapter that follows. But personal and one-person business brands get their own chapter in this edition of Branding For Dummies for two reasons. First, they’re the brands that most people tend to put off, and that’s a big mistake we want you to avoid. And secondly, with more people than ever checking you out online and within their business and social circles before ever meeting you or considering your offerings, a well-projected brand has never had a bigger impact on personal success. Just look at the numbers:

• Google handles more than a billion name searches daily.
• Nine of ten job recruiters use social networks to find candidates, and three of four check search results and social-media profiles when making hiring decisions.
• Ninety percent of Internet users say online reviews impact their purchase decisions.
• Nearly everyone now gathers information online or through word-of-mouth when pursuing personal or business relationships.

Whether you’re building a reputation for your one-person business, angling for a promotion, vying for office, or working to make it onto the speaker circuit or the A-team of your business or social world, the impressions you make and the personal reputation you develop profoundly affect your ability to succeed. Personal branding tilts the odds greatly in your favor.

Taking Ownership of Your Personal Brand

The concept of building personal brands around individual assets took hold in the late 1990s, when individuals increasingly wanted to stand out as talented free agents with desirable personal qualities and positive images that could travel with them as they migrated from one job opportunity to another. Rather than marketing themselves as representatives of an employer, as in decades past, they began to build what management leader Tom Peters termed “The Brand Called You.”

Today, online searches or word-of-mouth comments etch impressions before individuals ever introduce themselves in person, so there’s no question as to whether or not you need a personal brand. You already have a personal brand: It’s whatever other people see, hear, and believe about you. If they think you’re always late, that’s part of your brand. If they can’t find anything about you in online searches, their impression is that you aren’t a key player. If someone they trust says you do better work than anyone else in your field, your brand stands for outstanding quality.

Personal branding is how you manage your reputation and interactions to develop positive impressions in the minds of those you want to influence. Through personal branding, you positively affect how people react to you, how they fit you into their hierarchy of interests and needs, and how they view you as an asset, a leader, a star in your field.

This chapter helps you buy into the fact that your personal brand is your very most important brand because it affects your success in every aspect of your life. For even more advice, pick up Susan Chritton’s book, Personal Branding For Dummies (Wiley).

Benefits of a strong personal brand

The obvious benefit of a strong personal brand is the power of a positive, highly regarded reputation that precedes and paves the way for you whether you’re submitting a resume, asking for a date, making a sales call, leading a negotiation, offering a book for sale, contending for a plum keynote speech role, or prevailing in any other encounter.

The less-apparent benefit of personal branding is the sense of self-direction it instills. Age-old wisdom has it that the oracle of Delphi told Socrates and all ancient Greeks that the most important life task is to “know thyself.” When you know your personal brand, you gain laser focus about who you are, how you want to present yourself, and and how you aim to succeed.

Personal branding as a marketplace force

Through personal branding, you help others to know and trust the following information about how you factor into the marketplace:

• Who you are and what you stand for, eliminating the need for time-consuming introductions before each interaction.
• Your expertise and credibility, leading to increased interest in what you have to say. Think about how you scan your news feeds and status updates, stopping when you see names or photos of those you trust to have meaningful information to share, or how you respond more favorably to an introduction that includes a recommendation or referral from a trusted associate or mention of impressive credentials or mutual associations.
• Your unique benefits and value, leading to competitive advantage, higher interest and demand, preference, selection, and higher pricing.
• What you do best and whether what you offer fits with what they seek and need, speeding decisions and sparing you both from an inappropriate fit.

Personal branding as an internal force

In addition to helping others know you, personal branding helps you know yourself. Through branding, you determine

• What you’re best at and what unique attribute — what big thing — you want to be known for. (See the sidebar “Personal branding starts with a wish.”)
• The personal brand image you’re working to etch; what you want others to believe and trust when they encounter you or your name.
• The roadmap you’re following to reach your goals.
• How you want to present yourself, whether in person, in writing, on social media, in business, or in social settings.
• Self-confidence in your strengths, your goals, your target audience, and the unique personality, expertise, and message you want to consistently cultivate and convey.

Personal branding keeps you on track. It helps you define your assets, your audience, and your objectives. From there, you can relax and present your authentic self with consistency. Awareness, trust, credibility, value, consumer preference, purchase decisions and pricing, and even invaluable buzz and word-of-mouth support will follow.

What’s more, strong personal brands deliver the valuable benefit of consumer lenience. On the off chance you slip up with an errant tweet, a social faux pas, or some other misstep that could irreparably harm someone else, the great reputation and positive image others hold for you — thanks to personal branding — improves your ability to make amends and move on with strength.

Launching the personal-branding process

Chapter 6 helps all brand builders define the qualities, character, promise, core message, and essence of their brands. Every step of that chapter is essential to your personal branding success as well. But personal brands benefit from the following additional considerations.

Mapping your starting point

Creating a personal brand begins with productive navel-gazing: What do you want people to believe and trust about you? What’s your idea of success? What will it take to get your personal brand image from where it is to where you want to be? As part of your self-searching, take these steps:

1. Choose an idol. Follow what internationally acclaimed personal branding coach Liz Goodgold, author of Red Fire Branding and DUH! Marketing, calls the “cheater route” by picking a celebrity you’d like to emulate. “I wanted to be the Suze Orman of branding,” she says. Jimmy Fallon wanted to be the next Dana Carvey. Who do you want to be — or be like — and why?
2. Assess your core competencies. After you name your role model, list the attributes you want to replicate, indicating which strengths you have in the bag and which you’ll need to acquire. Personal brands reflect who you are; not who you want to be. To get where you want your image to go, you need to become the person you want people to believe you are.
3. Solicit input. List five words you’d like associated with your image and then determine how well those align with what people currently believe about you. Look through recent compliments, testimonials, endorsements, and recommendations, pulling out words others use when describing your strengths. If you work for a firm that does formal reviews, look through recent evaluations and pull out the positive descriptors. Then ask people you know and work with to quickly name the first five words that come to mind when they think of you. Find the words that others use frequently. Whether they’re the words you want to be known for or not, they represent what people believe about you.

If the words people use when describing you are in line with those you want associated with your image, pat yourself on the back; your personal branding effort is off to a good start. If not, your first goal is to redirect your brand image from where it is to where you want it to be.

Redirecting an off-target personal brand image

If those you need to influence hold erroneous or outdated beliefs about you, it’s your job to help them connect the dots between what they currently believe and what you want them to think and trust. You can’t expect them to make a leap of faith on your behalf.

Al Franken connected the dots as he migrated from comedian to senator by explaining to voters that politics and comedy have a lot in common: both help people and make lives better. On a local level, we know a surgeon who left the operating room to run for state office, leveraging his ability to diagnose, prepare, perform, and lead medical interventions into proof of his readiness to take on and treat the acute issues facing government budgets and programs.

Whether you’re orchestrating a career U-turn, breaking into a new arena, or overcoming current misperceptions, realize that people aren’t going to simply abandon their beliefs about you. You have to build a bridge to transport their opinions from what they thought to what you want them to believe.

Differentiating yourself from the crowd

Competition for every job opening, freelance assignment, or plum opportunity is fierce. What makes you stand out?

• What do and don’t you do? No one expects you to excel at everything, and if you say you do, you lose credibility from the get-go. Take time to list what you do better than those you’re competing with. Also list what they do and you don’t. Your lists will lead you to a definition of the market niche you serve. They’ll also lead to a more powerful personal reputation for excellence in a clearly defined arena.
• What about you turns heads? What makes someone pull your résumé out for closer review? What makes you a good source for a news story? What makes people want to meet you? Find the accomplishment, the ability, or the entry on your resume that sets you apart — that makes you cool and makes others want to learn more — and build your personal brand statement, your social-media description, and every personal introduction around it.
• What makes you recognizable and memorable? When people describe you, what do they say? When they see you, what do they expect? What about you looks and sounds meaningfully different? Johnny Cash was the man in black. Mark Zuckerberg is the hoodie-wearing CEO. Hillary Clinton describes herself as a “pantsuit aficionado.” Each has developed a presence people have grown to expect and trust. What’s yours?

Whether online or in person, in writing or over the phone, present yourself uniquely and consistently to acquire the brand strength and trust you seek.

Setting personal branding goals

Developing a personal brand is a lot like entering coordinates into a mapping app. You have to know your starting point, which this chapter and Chapter 5 help you mark, and you have to know where you want to go.

Following are examples of personal branding goals:

• Establish yourself as an expert in your field.
• Enhance your visibility and reputation within your community or industry.
• Differentiate yourself based upon your unique style and talents.
• Gain influence in social or business arenas.

Chapter 6 leads you through the process of setting goals and putting your brand into words. Chapter 11 is full of advice for developing your personal brand through social-media networks.

Growing into a personality brand

You don’t have to be in Hollywood to be a star. Your personal brand becomes a personality brand when you acquire such awareness and regard that those in your industry, community, or interest area seek you out with confidence that they’ll benefit from the power of association with you. A personality brand makes you a celebrity in your world.

• Industry celebrities: Leaders in a professional field are most in demand as keynote speakers, most sought out for recommendations or opinions, and most quoted in industry news coverage.
• Community celebrities: The endorsements of local A-listers are sought for major hometown projects or fundraising events, their thoughts influence regional policies and programs, and their names appear on every major invitation list.
• Online celebrities: Some people have huge followings on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Vine, and Instagram. The biggest online celebrities — many with names known only online — reach millions daily, winning clicks, buzz, and jackpot-sized payouts from corporate brands in return for product placements and sponsored posts. A few leverage Internet stardom into Hollywood-style celebrity (Justin Bieber or PSY) or into lucrative corporate contracts (teenager Bethany Mota leveraged fashion and beauty videos into a contract with Aéropostale). Most, however, become online personalities in niche market segments, gaining influence that leads to dominance in their business arenas and awareness that leverages into publicity, speaking and publishing opportunities, and new business.

Here’s how personality brands and other brands connect with each other:

• Some celebrities are launched by business or product brands. For example, the late Dave Thomas of Wendy’s became a celebrity as a result of the Wendy’s brand marketing campaign. He then leveraged his celebrity to create attention for his Foundation For Adoption. Other examples: John Schattner of Papa John’s, and Jonathan Goldsmith, “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” for Dos Equis.
• Some celebrities launch business or product brands. For example, Newman’s Own grew out of the celebrity brand of Paul Newman. The George Foreman Grill capitalized on the fame of George Foreman. Oprah leveraged her powerful brand into a recommended reading list, her own TV network, and most recently a chai latte brand at Starbucks. The Olsen twins, the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, and other celebrities have launched apparel brands, and almost every sports brand has a line built on the strong brand of an athletic superstar.
• Some business or product brands launch celebrities, who go on to launch new business or product brands. For example, Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland led to the globally recognized Walt Disney celebrity brand, which now shines over an array of Disney products, subbrands, and services.

Although only the most visible personalities turn their names into supersized celebrity brands, anyone — including you — can set a goal to build a personality brand that develops into a community, industry, or online star.

Branding Your Freelance or Consulting Services

If you’re a solopreneur — a freelancer, a consultant, or a one-person business dynamo — building a personal brand, essential as it is, may not be enough to fuel your success. You might also want to turn your talents into a branded business that others know and trust, especially if you want to compete with established businesses or if you have plans to grow your one-person business into a larger enterprise you can someday sell to a new owner. In that case, you need to build two brands at once.

Benefits of a one-person business brand

By most forecasts, one of three people now work as freelancers or on contract, and over the next decade the contingent of self-employed is on track to include nearly half of us. If you’re aiming to succeed selling service or talent, full time or as a side gig, you’re up against stiff competition that’s only going to keep getting more intense.

That’s why freelancer or one-person business brands are advantageous. They prepare you to convince the person you’re trying to sell that you’re serious about what you do, that your offerings are different and decidedly better than other choices, and that you can be counted on today, tomorrow, and well into the future to serve as a supplier and to stand by your work.

Thinking like an entrepreneur

By turning freelancing into a branded business, you turn yourself into an entrepreneur, and freelancers who think like entrepreneurs work more hours, make more money, are more optimistic, and enjoy more success than freelancers who provide services without an entrepreneurial or business-owner mindset. Those facts come from findings in the 2012 Freelance Industry Report, based on responses from 1,500 freelancers worldwide.

Branding to win business

Participants in the Freelance Industry Report survey were asked to name their most effective method for finding and landing clients. The leading answers: Referrals (27 percent), word of mouth (26 percent), and networking (17 percent).

By building a trustworthy brand for your one-person business, rather than treating your work as a series of assignments or side activities, you develop the trust and confidence that inspires referrals, positive word-of-mouth, and networking success — online and in person.

One-person brand-building steps to follow

Branding freelancing or consulting services tends to differ from branding any other kind of business in one big (and dangerous) way. People who set out to build multi-person or high-growth businesses know they need to establish their businesses as trustworthy brands from day one, whereas people launching one-person businesses too often think they can wing it for now and develop a branded business later. As a result, they get off to a slower start, make weaker first impressions, command lower prices, and compete at a lower level than competitors who appear more structured, professional, and established.

The minute you decide to turn your freelancing into a business, pave the foundation for a business brand by taking the following steps:

1. Define your business. Include its point of difference, target audience, and competitive position (see Chapter 5).
2. Define your business brand and how you’ll present it online and in-person. Chapter 6 is your how-to guide.
3. Formally establish your business. Choose and register a business name (Chapter 7 details steps to follow). Also, establish business accounts that separate your business and personal finances. (It’s hard to develop a credible business brand when you’re paying business expenses with personal checks.)
4. Prepare to market by developing your business brand identity and making your business findable online through a website and social-media pages. See Chapters 8, 10, and 11 for advice.

Especially if your business serves businesses rather than individuals, realize that clients prefer to work with credible professionals they can count on well into the future rather than with individuals who work on a piecemeal basis and may leave to take a job or pursue another opportunity on a moment’s notice. Branding your one-person business gives it the necessary edge.

Balancing Personal and Business Brands

If this chapter’s done its job, you’re now convinced you need to build a brand for yourself and, if you own a business — even a one-person, part-time business located in a corner of your living room — you need to build a brand for your business as well. On top of that, you have to keep the strength of each brand in check with the other.

Keeping your personal and business brands in balance

You’re reading a book that’s all about enhancing the image, visibility, credibility, and trust of brands, so this next sentence may surprise you: You have to be careful not to overdevelop your personal or your business brand. You have to keep each one in sync with the other and with your goals.

Here are examples of what can happen when one brand eclipses the other:

• The personal brand of George Zimmer was so synonymous with Men’s Wearhouse that when he and the business parted ways, news reports called it “the firing heard around America.” Zimmer had closed countless ads with the line, “You’re going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.” The business promise had become his personal promise and his abrupt departure shook investor confidence in a way that might have been avoided had the business shifted brand visibility before transitioning its powerfully branded founder to “a smaller role at the company.”
• A restaurant owned by award-winning chefs famous for leading the sustainable-dining movement is for sale at a price the owners feel is in line with the fame and following they’ve acquired. Last we checked, a buyer hadn’t been found. A million dollars is a lot to pay for a restaurant people love primarily for the brilliance of its owners — and fear that when they’re gone there’ll be no “there there,” as the saying goes.
• A business owner — or a business employee — who is such a strong business brand ambassador that her title and company affiliation is the overarching theme for everything from her LinkedIn profile headline to her social encounters to her appointment to local boards fails to create a personal brand that serves as a transportable identity. As a result, when it’s time for a change, she literally has to rebrand herself with the personal brand she never adequately developed during her business stint.

Imagine your personal and business brands are riding a teeter-totter. Does one outweigh the other? The next section helps you make a quick assessment.

Keeping your personal and business brands in check

If you’re building brands for yourself and your business, consider these questions:

• Do your brands share equal levels of awareness, or is one significantly more powerful than the other?
  • Put each name into a search engine (Chapter 10 includes a section on ego-surfing, with tips for how to make sure your search history doesn’t skew the results). Are results for each name equal in terms of quantity, quality, and how well they reflect your desired brand image?
  • Review recommendations, publicity, online mentions, and comments by others. If they refer to you personally, do they also mention your business name, and vice versa?
• Does each brand support but also stand independently of the other? Would each brand have credibility even if the other disappeared?
  • Is your business brand strong enough to survive without the power of your personal brand? If you sold or left your business tomorrow, would its brand be dramatically diminished by your exit?
  • Conversely, are you, personally, adequately visible within your business brand? People humanize businesses and go where they can’t, such as to networking events and into community or leadership positions. Is your personal brand strong and visible enough to boost the power of your business?

Based on your findings, you may need to take one of two steps:

• If your personal brand is weak in comparison to your business brand: Follow the brand-building steps in this book to develop your awareness and value in your business arena, industry, community, and online. Make personal branding a priority — power up your personal identity, awareness, and credibility — especially if your business could benefit from a more personal face or if you’re planning to pursue personal opportunities outside your business.
• If your business brand is weak in comparison to your personal brand: Start reducing the emphasis on you and your own name and turn the spotlight onto your business and its name, team, processes, and assets. Make business branding a priority especially if you plan to grow or sell your business or if you want fare better in competitions against seemingly stronger and well-branded businesses. If your business doesn’t have a website, launch one. If you don’t have a business logo, get one and feature it in your personal email signature and on personal online pages where business contacts might reach you.

Cross-promoting your two brands

When you build personal and business brands, you establish two sets of positive images in the minds of others. Your business name unlocks one set of images and your personal name unlocks the other. By consistently linking your brands through cross-promotion, you make each brand an asset of the other, fortifying each brand and extending the reach of both.

Connecting your brands can be as easy as presenting the logo, web address, Twitter handle, or other identifiers for your business brand on your personal sites and clearly establishing yourself as the business founder or owner in all business introductions. The result is greater reach and credibility for both brands.

Using our two names as examples:

• A Google search for “Bill Chiaravalle” delivered nearly 6,000 results as this sentence was being written. The first two results led to the website for his business, Brand Navigation. The third result led to his personal LinkedIn profile, with a snippet describing him as the owner of Brand Navigation. The rest led to his Amazon author page, Twitter feed, and other pages featuring his expertise. A Google search for Bill’s business, “Brand Navigation” (refined by the addition of the word “Oregon” to eliminate results for other references to the term “brand navigation”) delivered nearly 13,000 results, with snippets for top results naming Bill as the business owner, and other results linking to case studies and news about branding success stories.

  Quick assessment: Based on the online footprints for each brand, the Brand Navigation brand outweighs Bill’s personal brand, exactly as he’d wish because clients buy the power of his entire business.

• A Google search for “Barbara Findlay Schenck” delivers 250,000 results, led by a link to her business, Bizstrong. A Google search for “Bizstrong” delivers 4,200 results, with nearly every link accompanied by a snippet that includes her personal name.

  Quick assessment: Barbara’s personal brand outweighs her business brand, which makes sense because her business is a resource for reaching her books, articles, and presentations.

Conduct a similar search and assessment for your brands. Keep an eye on which brand is most visible and adjust brand emphasis if and when the balance becomes out of line with your personal and business goals.