Brand U by Wendy Marx by Wendy Marx
July 7, 2008
10:16 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
At 28, entrepreneur Scott Ginsberg, has the most visible name in the world.
Meet Scott any time, anywhere, day or night and he will be wearing his trademark red and white name tag emblazoned with his name in blue. Since November 2, 2000 – exactly 2,811 days ago – Scott has never been “nametagless.” And when he’s in the altogether? No problem. He has a replica of his nametag tattooed on his chest.
A rare breed of personal brander, Scott has turned name tag wearing into a six figure business that’s expanded into online training, speaking, consulting, writing, and blogging.
An established “approachability expert," he’s been featured in hundreds of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and CCN and even wrote a quiz on approachability for Cosmopolitan magazine.
It all began with the humble nametag. When Scott was in his junior year at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, he decided one day just for the heck of it to wear a name tag all day after he saw a bunch of them in the trash. He liked the new people it attracted and he hasn’t been without one since. As the world’s nametag authority, he has quantified five reactions to his wearing a nametag:
· The curious who want to know “why”: 35%
· The engagers who say “Hi, Scott”: 35%
· Those who make sport of it: 20%
· Those who think he’s a store employee: 5%
· Those who turn aggressive and rip it off of him: 5%
With that last group, don’t worry though that he’ll then be “tagless;” he keeps a supply of pre-written nametags in his wallet for just such times.
For Scott, who’s a marketing genius and says he reads five business books a week, the nametag is a metaphor for “approachability.” In this era of engagement, Scott has recognized what most of us take for granted: A nametag is a wonderful tool for interaction. Turning approachability into a science and art, he’s authored seven self-published books on the topic, including How to be That Guy and Make a Name for Yourself.
His advice about approachability? “Be an octopus, with tentacles in all directions, be it a blog, videos, articles, podcasts, interviews. Don’t be an earthworm headed in just one direction but go in all directions. Make it easy for people to come to you.”
Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications
June 6, 2008
08:14 am | 0 recommendations | 3 comments
Ouch.Ouch.Ouch. That’s the sound of my body hurting from the wounds inflicted by Aetna.
Undoubtedly, health insurance companies are the worst personal branders in the world. As a small business owner I have the privilege of trolling through the treacherous offices of the healthcare system. There should be a sign emblazoned on the doors of companies like Aetna: Proceed at your own caution. Numerous folks have lost their sanity dealing with us.
Or at least I’m about to go to the loony bin with my experience with my insurer Aetna. At the beginning of the year, my initial quote with Aetna for insurance for myself was bumped $75 a month because – shame on me -- I take a vitamin pill –an iron supplement. The insurer claimed my rate was being increased because my taking an iron supplement implied I had anemia, when in fact I don’t. I immediately appealed the rate increase and waited to have it readjusted. Two months passed and nothing -- not a peep from Aetna. When I called the insurer, I was told they did not have my appeals forms. I had to practically go down on my hands and knees to get Aetna to agree to my resubmitting forms that they apparently lost.
Another month passes and again nothing -- not a peep from Aetna. So I call again this time to be told that the letter from my doctor stating I don’t have anemia is not sufficient. They need copies of all my medical records. Why of course I wasn’t told that off the bat is another story. And here’s the clincher: I’m told I missed the cut off for my appeal because Aetna never got my original appeal forms. Driven one step closer to the loony bin, I spoke with a supervisor multiple times to get him to agree to let me continue the appeals process.
So following Aetna's instructions, my doctor sent pages and pages of medical records to Aetna to pour over. A week ago I received a form letter from Aetna denying my appeal. The letter didn’t even have a signature. Instead it said:
Sincerely,
Individual Underwriting
The Aetna Advantage Plans
For Individual and Families Team
The letter also provided no explanation of why I was denied. When I called Aetna, I was told I was shot down not because I have anemia but because I take a prescription iron supplement, which my doctor prefers to an over the counter one. Because I have a very high deductible policy, I pay for the supplement out of pocket. Apparently, if I take an inferior supplement, I can reduce my payments.
Not one to give up, I spoke with a supervisor, who refused to give me her full name. She implied that I was a health hazard to Aetna since I take a vitamin supplement. I then left multiple messages for her supervisor, whom I was referred to and who never had the courtesy to return any of my calls.
I may now be certifiable but I have not given up. Next step is a letter I am sending to Ron Williams, the CEO and President of Aetna about this craziness. I will also be sending a copy to the health commissioner of my state, Connecticut. Let’s see if Mr. Williams at least has the courtesy of responding. I will keep you posted. In any case, this is a textbook case on how to ruin your brand. And, if anyone else has their own health insurer horror stories, I’d love to hear them!
Wendy Marx,wendy@marxcommunications.com, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications.
04:19 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Hats off to the Barack Obama campaign. The campaign scored a lot of positive press this week by launching a web site to strike back at “dishonest smears.” In staccato fashion, the new Obama site reels off five rumors and immediately debunks them. It’s the electronic version of a press release amplified to the nth degree. Obama's campaign understands that in today’s always-on news cycle he can't afford to wait even a New York minute before confronting his accusers head on. Rumors simply have the capability of spreading so fast they overwhelm the truth.
As personal branders, we need to exercise the same vigilance shown by the Obama campaign. Obviously, most of us operate on a tad smaller playing field than a candidate for president of the United States. But that doesn’t get us off the hook for letting false impressions about our brand accumulate. Just as it’s easy to be stereotyped in our personal life (after all who wants to be know as a cheapskate or blowhard), it’s also easy to be stereotyped, and subsequently written off in our professional lives. On occasion, because I write this blog, I’ve had people incorrectly assume I earned my bread and butter by writing and were clueless about my PR business. Obviously, I need to be careful to let people know the scope of my work.
The truth is that it’s too darn easy to get into the “insularity mode.” We’re so familiar with what we do that we just assume that everyone else “gets it,” when they don’t. You can’t be clear enough in your messaging. Your language needs to be accessible, using words that prospects understand and are comfortable with. And you need to be consistent and repetitious so your message gets drummed into your target audience like a good song refrain or advertisement. That is one way of dispelling misperceptions. Another effective way is to compile a good, old-fashioned fact sheet. These tools of the trade have been around for seemingly forever and for good reason. They tell it straight. Again, we can take some lessons from the Obama campaign, which has fact sheets on major issues. Here is one on energy. http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/EnergyFactSheet.pdf. Q&A’s are another way of helping others to understand your message. Here's one from Twitter. http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=26
What are you doing to insure that people don't misconstrue your personal brand? I'd love to hear from you.
Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications
08:48 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Quick quiz: What do Starbucks and jargon have do with each other?
Starbucks of course taught the world to speak its language; whoever asked for a Grande or Venti bfore the coffee giant made coffee a 24/7 obsession? What’s the kicker is that Starbucks got the world talking the way it talked.
Most companies, of course do the reverse. They speak their own argot and assume that everyone else understands what they are saying. Meanwhile, everyone is scratching their heads without a clue. This fuzzy language seeps into marketing copy, websites, newsletters, you name it, so you don’t have the foggiest idea what the copy means.
It’s easy to get caught up in the romance of jargon in our own personal brands. It’s like using a three syllable word when a plain, old one syllable one will do better. A great example of cutting through the jargon field is Jack Welch. There’s a review of a new book about how “he talked GE into Becoming the World’s Greatest Company in Strategy & Business. Welch, when he became CEO in 1981, believed GE had become a place with too many high-flown visions, too much abstract planning and too many ‘bullshit meetings.’” He did away with the vision ‘extravaganzas’ in favor of success stories with messages attached.”
As personal branders, we can learn from Jack Welch. Not only, of course, did he carve out his own personal brand becoming GE’s best-known, but he understood the power of stories. As we create our own personal brands, it’s important to not only have a compelling elevator pitch but also stories and examples of what we’ve done that help define what’s special about our work. Testimonials and case studies are one good way to do this. What stories are you telling about your work and achievements?
Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications
May 5, 2008
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I’ve written a lot here about the “hall of shamers,” companies that forget that customer service is their most powerful branding tool just as it is for personal branders.
All of which made me all the more pleased when I came across a blog post by William Taylor on Harvard Business Publishing about Zappos. Zappos is the 4 million pound Internet shoe gorilla that offers a selection of 4 million pairs of shoes. As the article notes, Imelda Marcus would have a coronary on the spot if she visited Zappos’ warehouse.
Taylor says that what makes the company successful – it’s gone from sales of $70 million to over $1 billion in just five years – is its phenomenal customer service. Zappos provides does everything right when it comes to serving customers and then some. It offers free delivery and free returns. While so many Internet companies hide their telephone number with a hands-off customer attitude, Zappos plasters its 800 number on every page.
While that’s all well and good, what makes the company extra special, according to Taylor, is that customer service is no after thought but baked into Zappos’ culture. To insure its call center employees are committed, it makes its call center employees an amazing offer. Work there a week and you’ll not only be paid for your time, according to Taylor, but offered $1,000 to quit. Whoever heard of a company paying a brand new employee to skeedadle? Of course, the company by doing this is not trying to get rid of folks, just insure it has the most devoted employees. Taylor says about 10% of employees actually take the money and run.
Zappos also doesn’t simply hand over the phones to its call center employees on day one but gives them four weeks of training that instills in them a sense of the company’s culture and customer service commitment. Employees are paid a full salary during the training period.
The company's tag line unlike so many others is a true brand promise: "We are a service company that happens to sell."
It’s a company says Taylor “that’s bursting with personality and a huge number of its 1,600 employees are power using of Twitter so their friends, colleagues, and customers know what they’re up to at any moment in time.
This is truly an example of a brand in action. It’s what we as personal branders should strive to do. It’s not enough just to talk the talk but to make our personal brand such a part of who we are that it’s inseparable from our business. How are you doing that? I’d love to hear from you.
Wendy Marx, Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications
08:27 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Thank you, Jeff Jarvis. Jeff Jarvis, as you remember, was the blogger who outed Dell for its egregious customer service, which he called “Dell Hell.”
Recently, I entered my own “Dell Hellish Dell” when I spent about five hours all told with their customer service reps trying to get my 1 ½ year-old PC to work. Escalating to supervisors, typically a helpful response, got me nowhere at first in Dell land. Even though I had purchased a $200 service agreement, I was told that “We don’t provide service, only parts.” And in Dell’s own version of “bittergate,” I was admonished for “bickering” about the service – or lack thereof. In desperation, I uttered the words “Jeff Jarvis” and mentioned that I would be blogging about my experience and doing whatever was necessary to get my problem resolved.
Suddenly, it was as if the heavens had opened up. I was told that I would get a call back and that someone would take charge and manage my problem. I got not just one but two call backs and was given a particular number to call back. I thought I was home free.
Well, not quite. Unfortunately, the call back number was not a direct line but a cue where after a hold time of 15 minutes, I gave up and hung up. I then called the regular Dell customer service number and got someone right away without waiting. Go figure. The rep was pleasant but after reviewing my file discovered that I was now a “special case” because I had complained to a supervisor. In Dell’s new twist on Catch 22, that meant he couldn’t handle my case even though he said he could help me and needed to transfer me. After 20 minutes of trying to transfer me, he said “no one was picking up” and then I told me to dial directly. So like a rat in maze, I called again. This time around I got a very nice man named Oliver in the Philippines. Oliver spent about an hour on the phone with me trying to diagnose my problem and then suggested we run a Windows repair on it. Since that took at least an hour to run, he promised to call me back. It was now about 11 pm ET.
I won’t bore you with all the gory details of what happened next only to say that by 12:30 am ET my system was still not working and I didn’t get the promised call back.
Next day, I called Dell again and reinvoked the name “Jeff Jarvis,” when they wanted to waste more of my time trouble shooting. This time around I was finally told a technician would come to my office armed with parts to try to fix my PC.
So, here I sit, Ms. Rat, awaiting Dell. Fingers crossed but breath not held, that someone shows up and doesn’t blow up my machine. And, if someone shows up, I will happily toast Jeff Jarvis. Do you have your own versions of “Dell Hellish Hell.” I’d love to hear from you.
Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications, Inc.
08:00 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
If you’re small, there’s no reason to think small.
That was the message for me from a terrific event I was privileged to attend last weekend in New York City. Some 20 PR professionals from around the world – hailing from as far away as Russia and Scotland -- convened for the first annual meeting of Public Relations Boutiques International (PRBI), an international network of small PR shops.
A testament to the creative force of a group, the event showcased how personal branding today has tremendous reach. Here we were, small shop owners with each of us having at most only a handful of employees, yet potentially we had the firepower of a far larger organization. Not only could we learn from and help one another – as we did – but suddenly there were the rumblings of multiple connections and synergies that could result in our promoting ourselves and our clients worldwide.
It’s easy of course to think small and narrow and market ourselves to our immediate colleagues and geographic regions. And, that, of course, makes sense. Proximity can be a powerful enabler of business. Yet, with the Internet, ingenuity and the combined wisdom of a like-minded crowd, there is no reason today to think small. What with a blog and social networking, it’s easy to befriend people throughout the world. That, however, is but the first step. The next one is to somehow harness all that talent in a way that advances your career and those in your network. How do you lasso in some of the talent so that it becomes a creative, one-for-all, all-for-one force? I’d love to hear how you are doing so.
Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications
08:42 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Change. It’s certainly been the mantra of the Democratic primary race but it also has an important place in personal branding.
Take my profession, public relations. Just as the Internet has dramatically rewritten – and shaken -- the newspaper business, it has changed public relations tactics and even strategy. Where once public relations focused on media relations, today a lot of public relations is focused on Google relations. Instead of putting all our energies into getting our clients on page one of a major publication, many of us are also focused on getting on page one of Google. Different skills and tactics are involved from the old days of simply pitching journalists.
Which is simply to say that the profession is evolving and so must its practioners. The same goes for personal branding. Standing still is equivalent to death.
Change today is the great force rumbling through so many professions and industries. David Brooks in today’s New York Times calls the incessant changes happening in industry a “skills revolution.”
“We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combing information.”
Personal branders need to take a page from companies. The Times also today reports on the changes afoot at Kodak, which is trying to redefine itself in the digital, as opposed to film age. For Kodak, that means turning itself inside out, exiting businesses and entering new ones and changing the organizational structure and culture.
How are you evolving your personal brand so it stays relevant in this never static, cognitive age?
Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications
April 4, 2008
08:32 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
During the height of the Iraq war, you couldn’t turn on the TV or listen to the radio without hearing a military analyst make pronouncements about the war. What we didn’t know at the time was that many of these analysts were spouting talking points provided by the Pentagon.
The New York Times last Sunday reported on an extra cozy relationship between retired military officers and the Pentagon, who recruited the officers as shills for the administration’s wartime progress. The retired officers, who frequently had ties to military contractors, were often paid by the TV and cable networks to provide analysis of military issues. Meanwhile, the words they were uttering as their own were often warmed over talking points provided by the Pentagon.
The campaign, according to the Times, was the brainchild of a Pentagon PR person, and was a way to gain “information dominance” over military news. Unfortunately, the campaign didn’t simply try to get across the Bush administration’s point of view but also according to the Times, passed off as fact false or inflated information
According to one PR person, the Pentagon simply practiced good public relations by using the retired officers to spin the news.
As a fellow PR person and personal branding specialist, frankly, I find that point of view disturbing. The bottom line is that the retired officers’ hands often were dirty. They were helping fill the pockets of military contractors they worked for with their Pentagon access and TV pronouncements. And, the ultimate victims were the American people, who were fed false and biased information by seemingly independent spokespeople who were actually Pentagon shills.
There is a fine line in personal branding and public relations where promotion gives way to unethical distortion of the facts. To me, public relations and personal branding, advances a point of view. Certainly in doing so there is some bias. But the perceptions are supported by facts, not half truths gussied up as objective statements.
What the Pentagon did with the TV and other media’s unwitting help is bamboozle the American people. That’s neither good public relations or ethical behavior.
What do you think?
Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications, Inc.
06:03 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
How do you get 60 bloggers to create a huge buzz for a book none of them has read?
Just ask Rohit Bhargava, Internet marketing whiz and author of the just published Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back (McGraw-Hill, March 31, 2008). The book’s premise is that companies can no longer be faceless entities in today’s social media era.
Exhibit One in the importance of personality is Bhargava’s marketing of his book. Not simply content to do the usual book tour, Bhargava has marketed his book like a brand. Which, in his case, means “making it stand out and go viral.”
Bhargava, already an Internet personality with a top marketing blog, offered an irresistible challenge to the blogging community. Send him five questions; he’ll answer them all and the several thousand readers of his blog will select a winner. Within 48 hours, 60 bloggers talked up the contest and 55 submitted questions.
That was just for starters. Bhargava blogged about the contest and book launch on Twitter, created a Facebook group dedicated to the book…and just this week will launch The Personality Project.com, an initiative as ambitious-sounding as its name. It’s a group blog that over the year will feature 100 visionary marketers talking about -- you guessed it -- why personality matters in business. Among the bloggers will be the president of Kiva.org, the founder of Zappos.com and the founder of BuzzAgent.com.
While any author wants a favorable review, Bhargava went one better writing his own review of his book on Amazon. He modestly gave his book four stars leaving it up to readers to decide it if it merits another star. His review, really more of a brief introduction to the reader, again helps put a human face on the book and its creator.
Check out his website for his book, and you’ll see a site your average marketer could take a lesson from. It includes everything from an elevator pitch for the book…to the author’s original book proposal…to a rejected book cover. Bhargava, like all great personal branders, understand the importance of being transparent and authentic and creating a virtual identity.
In the 24/7 world, it’s not enough to forge an image offline; you also need to create an online persona that melds with your flesh and blood self.
All of which has been Bhargava’s operating principal since he launched his first personal website in the Internet dark ages of 1998 – before many realized what a branding machine the Internet could be. In 2005, he created the first social media bio (now online at http://www.aboutrohit.com/), and even registered socialmediabio.com.
Rohit’s advice for personal branders?
- “Don’t be afraid to use your personality. It’s the secret sauce that makes you or your product stand out.”
- “Thinking about your online identity as a brand means letting your many profiles online work together to deliver a better picture of who you are.”
- “Doing things online isn’t a substitute for actually participating in meetups and attending conferences in person. Face time still matters.”
Wendy Marx
Personal Branding and Corporate Marketing Specialist
Marx Communications
Rohit Bhargava
Rohit at FaceBook
Personality Not Included at Amazon.com
http://www.personalitynotincluded.com/
tag technorati: self-promotion, careers, public-relations, personal branding, personal brand, branding, Rohit Bhargava
