Brand U by Wendy Marx by Wendy Marx

09:44 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Personal Branding and the Candidates

As a self-professed political junkie, this campaign season has been a bountiful cornucopia of riches not to mention a national stage for personal branding. Spending gobs of money on advertising and image building, the presidential candidates can tell us a lot about what to do --- and not do about branding ourselves. There’s a fascinating article in this week’s New Yorker by George Packer about the different visions for the country of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: Clinton as executive, Obama as visionary. Ultimately, it’s a choice of leadership styles: hands-on vs. inspirational. Or in the candidates’ lingo, “experience” vs. “change.”

Like a tagline in a branding campaign, these descriptions of the candidates resonate deeply and become symbols of their personalities. Fairly or not, one official quoted in the article says about each,

“When I’m with her, I feel she wants to impress me. When I’m with him, I feel he wants to know what I have to offer him.”

Like it or not, perception and image are reality in a political campaign – and for that matter in our professional lives. In private life, Clinton’s personality is said to be very different from her “all business” public persona. Tellingly, a Simon & Shuster editor says about Clinton, :Clinton’s personality is refreshingly sharp and clear – but she can’t show it.”

Clinton despite all her years in public service is still something of an enigma. “In her personal life, she’s always seemed like she had something to hide,” the article quotes Dee Dee Myers, a former White House press secretary under Bill Clinton, saying of Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, Packer presents Obama as more comfortable with himself and consequently more open. He suggests that Hillary hasn’t quite connected her heart with her head in her public pronouncements.

As we work to brand ourselves, there’s an important lesson here in the importance of integrating our personal brands with our sense of self so we come across as authentic. Otherwise, there’s a disconnect in our presentation and our words remain cold facts that could be uttered by anyone.

How do we connect our passions with our beliefs and knowledge? I’d love to hear from you.

09:56 am | 0 recommendations | 7 comments

Careers: Hillary Clinton and Personal Branding

It’s easy to be cynical about Hillary Clinton’s statement about finding her voice in the snowy streets of New Hampshire. For heaven’s sake, here’s a 60-year-old woman who has been in public life most of her life just discovering who she is – Geeze.

"Over the last week, I listened to you, and, in the process, I found my voice,” she said in her New Hampshire victory speech.

Yet, I think Hillary was reacting to the over-scripted reality of political life. She was saying that she finally could let a little of her personality show beneath her tightly-controlled public image. The public “ice lady” had melted a little. And, boy, it felt good.

Politicians normally are masters of personal branding. Their campaigns are slogan-ridden (tag lines in branding terms), and personality- and message-driven. Hillary’s problem has been that her softer side often got lost in her endless thrust to stay on message. It’s an important lesson for personal branding. No matter how professional we are and what we do, part of how people evaluate us is based on our personality. It’s often said that people hire people that they like – that their gut says will work out.

Regardless of how wise that is, the fact is that people make decisions, conscious or not, based on how they relate to us. It’s a simple fact of human nature. The important point is not to contort your personality into something you’re not. And you always want to maintain a professional image. But at the same time don’t be afraid to let people see some of your personality. It’s what makes you human and what got you where you are today. What do you think?

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Careers: The Marketer's Personal Brander

It’s a funny thing about marketers. In my experience, many are savvy, hard-hitters when it comes to marketing everyone but themselves. In a sort of a replay of the shoemaker’s children story, these idea-a-second folks shoot blanks when it comes to their own marketing.

Then there’s Tom Anderson, CEO of Anderson Analytics, a two-year-old Stamford, CT-based market research company that does all sorts of heavy lifting, including data mining and text analytics, to help companies make sense of huge chunks of data. Tom, besides being a top flight market researcher, is one of the best marketers of his own business that I know. In just two years he has built his company from the ground up to where he and his four employees service 18 clients, including big name firms like Unilever, Starwood and Yahoo.

He’s built his business without a drop of advertising but a lot of smarts and personal branding. This includes networking the heck on social networking sites like Linkedin. Where many of us – and I count myself among the number – dawdle on the site – Tom has 1600 linkedin contacts – even with being discrete about whom he agrees to join his network. Beyond that, he sends out newsletters he writes and designs about twice a year. Not content to just send Christmas cards, every two months or so he emails custom-designed cards for Thanksgiving, Columbus Day and other holidays. The cards, while often humorous, reinforce his brand and remind the recipient of what he’s about and why anyone should care.

A few times a month, he issues press releases on research he’s done touting the results. Google the name Anderson Analytics and you’ll see the company is all over the Net. Having a common name like Tom Anderson can be a bit problematic. Tom gets around that since his given name is Tom H.C. Anderson though some references to him use the vanilla Tom Anderson. It’s not always easy but those of us with more common names should try in this search engine-driven world to encourage people writing about us to use our middle names or initials as well. Otherwise, we risk being lost in the search engine sea.

Tom furthers his personal brand by speaking at five to six conferences throughout the US and Europe in his quest to build a global network. Even though he works a zillion hours a week, he still has time to volunteer with organizations like MENG and the Stamford Historical Society, where he serves on the board of directors as membership and marketing chairman.

He is also smart about partnership relationships and partners with folks like SPSS, a statistical company and speaks at several of their conferences.

Here are some ideas from Tom on building a personal brand:

• Think differently. Study what your competitors do but see how you can then go one better.
• Work with smart people. Hiring low-rent people costs you in the end. Far better to pay a little more upfront and get trustworthy, top flight workers.
• Give back. Volunteer and you’ll find you get back more than you give.

09:33 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

Careers: Personal Branding Excuses

I got hit by the old “blame it on the state” routine this holiday weekend. We were skiing at Whiteface Mountain, near Lake Placid over New Year’s, and unfortunately, my husband hurt himself the first day out, fortunately, not seriously. I didn’t want to ski after he got hurt (I had only done two short warm up runs), and quit for the day. When I asked “guest services” about getting a refund for the day, I was told I could fill out a form and it would take a good three weeks for my request to be “adjudicated.” And, the guest services representative added, “It’s the state of New York so I’m sorry but I wouldn’t count on anything. It’s not the same as a privately-run mountain.”

OK. We all know government is a bureaucratic rat’s nest. But come on. Adjudicate a simple refund request? The mountain can immediately tell by scanning my ticket how many runs I had skied. They can also easily confirm my husband’s injury in one quick check. What a ridiculous waste of time not to mention lousy customer service.

I can never understand why government can’t adopt some of the marketing and accountability of the private sector. Are citizens lower level folks than stock or equity holders? It also makes you wonder at the morale of government employees if they are shackled by the great manacle of the state anytime they try to help someone.

Of course it’s easy to point the finger at someone and find fault. The fact is that we all are guilty to some extent of handcuffing ourselves and not taking that extra step. It’s very easy to blame our not doing so on a million and one things: “The information wasn’t available.” “We couldn’t reach the person and gave up.” “We were told ‘no.’ ” “I’m tired.” I’m a firm believer that there is often another way around the bend and it’s up to us to steer the vessel of our lives so we get where we want to be. We will never succeed in branding ourselves if we take the easy way out.

Wishing you a wonderful New Year with much success branding yourself along with determination, pluck and a little luck tucked along for good measure!

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Corporate Public Relations, Marx Communications

09:19 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Careers: Personal Branding Wishes

Wishing you and your family a joyous, healthy and prosperous New Year! May you find imaginative and successful ways to differentiate yourself. May you dream big, may your personal brand soar and may your business and career resound with the sounds of success!

09:36 am | 0 recommendations | 11 comments

Careers: Personal Branding No Nos

I got stood up this week. My new hire, Chris, left me a voicemail one hour before he was to begin his first day on the job to tell me he wasn’t coming. He had accepted another job for more money and benefits.

It’s not a new story. I’m sure most people in a hiring capacity have similar tales of woe to report. But it’s a good lesson in personal branding. Chris certainly burned his bridges with me besides failing Ethics 101. While it’s certainly important to further your career, there’s no advantage doing it at someone else’s expense. Chris surely didn’t get his offer one hour before he called to kiss me off. No reason he couldn’t have called me the week before. Not that the outcome would have been different in my case; but it would have made a world of difference in my opinion of him.

Rule Number Two in personal branding and career management is not to burn bridges. The person you write off today could be in a position to further your career tomorrow. Rule Number One is to behave ethically. Sure, you can get ahead by stomping on others – and history of course is filled with villians who have profited off of other’s misery. But, in the end, beside behaving like a heel and hurting others, you’ve stained your own good name.

In the spirit of the holidays, let’s remember that in business as in life, giving is what makes us human and enobles our souls.

A warm and wonderful holiday season and a New Year filled with promising new opportunities and the continual joy of self-discovery and helping others.

And much personal branding success!

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Public Relations, Marx Communications

08:40 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Careers: Personal Branding and Values

I just read an excellent interview with Bill George in Strategy & Business, whose ideas of leadership I blogged about last week and continue to be struck by his emphasis on a "personal compass." By this he means a set of values that helps you stay on course -- and help steer you back if you veer off.

As we go about creating our personal brands, our businesses and what we do almost by definition will evolve. However, at our core, we all need a set of values that are part of our personal brand. This can be anything from providing the best customer service possible to knowing when not to cross the line. During this holiday season when it's so easy to get caught up in the commercialization of the gift giving, I recommend giving a gift to ourselves of self-reflection. To take a little time to be sure our values are aligned with our work and that we're headed in the right direction. I know I'm going to take a dose of my own medicine and do a little soul-searching. In my own case, I've been working too many hours and believe I can work smarter and more productively.

How are you defining your values? What are you doing to stay true to them? I'd love to hear from you.

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Public Relations, Marx Communications

08:29 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Careers: Personal Branding Leadership

I read a wonderful profile of William Styron by his daughter, Alexandra Syron in The New Yorker. Styron was not an easy man to have for a father, given his extreme moodiness and withdrawal, but the author nevertheless loved her father. What makes the article so poignant is that the daughter ultimately finds her father in the pages of his novel, "Sophie's Choice," which she first reads late in life. However, she is never able to share what she has learned with her father.

By now you're probably wondering what all this has to do with personal branding. Bear with me for a minute. I've also been thinking a lot about leadership and how that relates to personal branding. The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article about a new book, "True North," by Bill George that analyzes what defines a leader.

In an interview with the Journal, George says,

"What we learned was that leadership is not about traits and characteristics. What really stood out was (the leaders') life stories. That's where they found their passion to lead -- their experiences. That's what gave them the authenticy of leadership. A lof of the inauthentic leaders got pulled off by trying to be something different than they were."

Or as George quoting GE CEO Jeff Immelt, says, "Leadership is a long journey into your own soul."

The same qualities apply to personal branding. The best personal branders become leaders in their field. While we don't need to write our memoirs, we all on some level need to undergo the personal excavation Alexandra Styron did. Only by data mining our lives will we have the "right stuff" to be personal branding exemplars.

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Public Relations, Marx Communications

08:35 am | 0 recommendations | 3 comments

Careers: Personal Branding and Work-Life Balance Part 2

I appreciate all the great responses to my post a few weeks ago on work-life balance. Here is the link to the Terrie Williams article I wrote about.

Since a lot of us struggle with work-life balance, living the antithesis of the "four hour work week," I thought it would be great if we collectively create a list of our ways of copying. Thanks toCarlos Hernandez, of The Fearless Entrepreneur, for sharing his, which I'm reposting right below:

Two of my favorites...going to a San Francisco Giants baseball game...getting up early for a morning walk, followed by respite at the local cafe to sip my morning coffee while reading the newspaper.

And here's one from Christopher Day, of Evergreen Advisers:

My strategy for making up lost life (doesn't always work): Visit "tourista-ville" Mystic, Connecticut, walk around, have a cocktail and then go to a casino. That 6 hours and then stay-over can work wonders.

My own is hitting balls on a tennis court or skiing hard down a mountain on a windless, crisp day where you're so into the moment the day-to-day worries suddenly aren't there.

I'd love to hear your strategies for coping in our 24/7 culture.

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Public Relations, Marx Communications

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Careers: Thank You, Readers

I've been busy celebrating Thanksgiving with my family but wanted to say "thanks" to everyone for reading my blog. I've met some terrific people through this blog and appreciate everyone who has commented and reached out to me.

My fellow FC blogger and leadership expert, Ruth Sherman, has a terrific post on the value of hand-written thank you notes that I urge you to check out. Because of some bug in the FC site, I couldn't link directly to her post today but if you scroll down you'll see it under "Leadership: Getting Noticed by Giving Thanks."

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Public Relations, Marx Communications