You know the world really needs an additional post on personal branding, but since I created my personal brand as “The King of Tickets” and had several very successful relationships with companies like American Express, YellowTail Wines, and Yahoo!, I believe I can add a little bit to the conversation.
Since I left ticketing and got into consulting for business and politicians, I am having to undergo the process of re-branding myself.
That’s where this post comes in…
Not so much Personal Branding, but Personal Re-Branding…
Here are 5 tips:
1. Evaluate What You Have Done: I’m talking about your transferable skills. One of the things that I’ve talked to my political friends about is how the stuff that we do in campaigns and in issue based work is extremely relevant to the for profit world.
Same thing goes for you, no matter where you are coming.
If you see my resume, I talk a lot about building better processes and creating value. Which is the same thing I do when I am working with clients and politicians.
What about you?
2. Think Long Term: This is a good idea in general. But when you are trying to re-brand yourself, sometimes you have to take intermediate steps to get to the point you want to be. All I am saying is that you need to always keep the end in mind when you are taking steps, even short term ones.
3. Look For Mentors: I don’t care what you are doing, the odds are heavily in your favor that someone has made the leap you are making. It may not be the exact same thing, but it can be pretty close. Reach out to that person, ask questions. People will help you.
4. Think Less About You, Think More About Your Clients: When I talk to people about this, it is sometimes difficult to get the focus off of themselves and onto how they are going to add value. (Don’t worry, I’m giving this advice and I am probably still not great at this myself all the time.)
But when you are creating a brand, a lot of that brand is predicated on what the brand means to others. Let’s take my old moniker, “The King of Tickets.” It means nothing to me as a practical matter, but to the rest of the world, it means that I am the person that you want to talk to if you need tickets. It gives me gravitas.
Your brand should do the same thing.
5. Try, try, try again…: You know what sucks? I’ll tell you, not knowing if you are taking the proper steps. Its terrible. I know that a lot of times I wish that we lived in a world where feedback came in easily digestible forms and we could easily come up with ways to take this feedback and apply it.
We don’t.
Sometimes the world just ignores. That’s feedback, but not necessarily the most useful kind.
Sometimes we get smacked down. That’s also feedback and can help us a lot too.
What I am getting at is that you have to try multiple times and ways to get traction sometimes.
Don’t worry.
I can go on, but like I said in the opening, you can find personal branding blogs all over the place. Hopefully you learned something useful. Here’s a fun thing, you can also apply these to your business. The principles still work.
What do you think about this? Am I right on? Way off? What?