The Brand Called You

The Brand Called YouThe Brand Called YouBe real, be memorable.Remember all the talk in the late 90s of the brand called you? Well, much has changed in the past 10 years including the way we conduct a job search and the way we network with each other. But the original concept of branding yourself, especially in todays competitive marketplace for plum roles and positions, is mora relevant than ever.Sure, you have a LinkedIn page. Perhaps youve signed up for Naymz and one of your colleagues invited you to join NotchUp or anotlageher business social network like Ryze. More and more online business networking opportunities are sprouting up every day. You may have even designed a personal Web page with your professional credentials.Thats a good start, but is that enough to build your own personal brand ? No.Focus on No. 1As executives in marketing, advertising and sales can certainly attest, marketing a companys product or service, generating sales leads and enhancing the brand are paramo unt to company success. So why wouldnt you use that same approach for yourself? Sound too self-serving? Think again.Really successful executives, the ones who are consistently written about, quoted as experts, and asked to lebensgefhrte with top executives and companies, do one thing and do it well. They promote themselves and their expert opinions.Creating an online profile in a number of places and monitoring your online presence is definitely important, but if you ignore your real-worldpresence, youre cutting your own legs. Busy executives pour through hundreds of e-mails and view scores of Web pages each day. Will your digital communication or Web presence stand out among the deluge of daily digital information? Well, its a big challenge.What will be remembered is poignant, real-world interaction.Make It RealYou can generate this sort of interaction and attention for the brand called you in a dozen different ways. However, the three ways that have had the biggest impact and are often a catalyst for more opportunities areParticipating in industry trade groups and associationsSpeaking at prominent industry eventsWriting well-crafted, by-lined articles in trade publicationsIn a sense, think back to basics. Some may scoff at the notion of participation at the trade level. Whether its engineering, finance or technology, the trades are not nearly as glamorous as being featured inForbes or Fortune or speaking at Davos. But lets be realistic Only a handful of people are invited to participate at those high levels.So dont scoff at them embrace your trades It will be your entrance to bigger and better things. Everything is cyclical a trade article could lead to being selected for a speaking engagement, which leads to being quoted in a news article, which leads to a panel opportunity, which leads to being interviewed on television as an industry expert. You never know. Your participation with Beer Advocate magazine could have led to being asked to comment on the ma mmoth Anheuser-Busch/InBev merger.Be MemorableThe same holds true for conferences, conventions and industry association events. You certainly dont need to attend every single gathering in your industry, but select a few key events and really focus on your personal interactions. You may be a salesperson for your organization, so of course one of your goals might be generating sales leads, but dont make the mistake of ignoring your other goal selling YOU.Focus on real-world interaction with people. Have the kind of conversations that will make people remember you, not run in the opposite direction because you are hounding them. Be genuine. Be thoughtful. Find ways you can help people as much as they can help you. These tenets may seem natural to some, foreign to others, but they will go a long way in building your brand.In ShortCreate this simple litmus test Is what I am doing improving my brand, both online and offline?Remember Networking is not about collecting as many business car ds as you can. Its about quality over quantity.I recently attended a conference and during the networking portion I was approached by a gentleman who quite frankly told me that his boss told him to attend the conference and hand out his business cards. He then offered me his business card and walked away.Obviously, his business card was immediately filed the same way I file random online invites when I receive them. Do yourself a favor dont be that person.