The Debate Continues: Arguments for Personal Branding

Geoff Livingston, a brilliant blogger and thought leader, has generated a lot of buzz lately by laying out arguments against personal branding.

Using some of Geoff’s arguments as a starting point, I’d like to share why I believe personal branding is valuable to you, valuable to customers, and valuable to corporations.

First: What is personal branding?

I use this definition of personal branding:

“The process of compellingly marketing yourself – based on what you learn from an extraction process of deep soul-searching – to meet the needs of society in a way that benefits you (via fulfillment and financial success) as well as the specific audience whose pains you are alleviating.”

Geoff argues that personal branding is self-centered.

Looking at the definition above, if you aren’t meeting the needs of a specific audience, then your personal brand has no substance. Remember, your personal brand is “mental real estate” that’s held in the minds of others. If others don’t see value in your brand, then it has no basis for existence in the marketplace. Thus, by nature, personal branding must be others-centered in order to survive.

Geoff asks, “how does ego-centric branding help a corporation?”

Ego-centric branding does not help corporations. Personal branding – a genuine and authentic process that helps put you in a position of power in the job market so you can align your current career with your inherent need for fulfilling work – does help corporations.

In my mind, ego-centric branding means constructing a flimsy and/or fake brand (read: facade) for immediate, short-term gains – like recognition – rather than long-term fulfillment. I consider ego-centric branding the polar opposite of personal branding. In fact, ego-centric branding will probably damage your personal brand – and by extension, your company’s brand.

3 Ways Personal Branding Helps Corporation

Geoff argues that personal branding does not help corporations. I disagree. Here’s why:

1. Strong personal brands improve your company’s reputation.

The people we deal with at companies form our perception of the company as a whole. When your employees’ personal brands align with your company’s brand, customers are left with a better feeling about your business.

Every employee is a potential touchpoint between your company and your customers. If those touchpoints aren’t enjoying what they do, they won’t do their job to their full potential. That means you’ll lose customers. Since personal branding involves actively passing on opportunities that don’t give you fulfillment, a company that hires employees with strong personal brands will end up with a workforce whose interactions with customers are much stronger.

“When it comes to corporate social media programs,” says personal branding guru Dan Schawbel in his post Applying Personal Social Media Techniques to Corporate EMC, “it’s not just about ‘the grand vision’ or the ‘tools used.’  It’s about the people that execute it. The conversations employees have with customers and partners through these tools is what’s important because their personal brand is on the line, as well as the company’s. The more voices you have participating in conversations where they can lend expertise or interact to get feedback the better. At this stage, companies need to accept the important of social media, as a channel to communicate, get feedback, learn and build brand. Your employees can’t sit back anymore or they will be left out.”

Active participation and communication in your area of expertise is just one indication of a passionate personal brand at work. In the end, when your employees’ personal brands align with your company’s brand, your company wins out because all customer interactions will be handled by passionate people furthering the company’s vision and leaving customers with positive experiences.

2. Strong personal brands choose jobs where they are most productive, improving the employer’s bottom line.

Personal branding means staying true to that which gives you meaning. It means aligning your working life with your source of career energy. That way, you will be passionate about the projects you work on, and as a result you will excel because you love what you do. You will get more done in less time, increasing productivity and improving your company’s bottom line.

A customer service rep is who actually committed to their job – since their brand is in harmony with the company’s – will make me walk away with a positive experience, keeping me as a loyal and lifelong customer, and adding to the company’s bottom line.

In addition, personal branding improves employee interaction. Awareness of the personal brands in your company allows you to build a stronger network with richer and more meaningful ties. Not to mention the contagious enthusiasm that a strong personal brand brings when in alignment with the company’s brand – and the exponential potential created by putting a room full of teammates together whose personal brands are all based upon a similar vision.

3. Strong personal brands make it easier for companies to identify and hire the most qualified candidates.

As a hiring manager, more than anything else, I want an extremely “self-centered” employee who is ONLY willing to work in a position that aligns with his or her source of career energy. That way, I won’t end up hiring an employee who is unfit for the position. Imagine if every job applicant had a fully uncovered and developed personal brand: I would be able to choose from a group of people who have made it clear that they will get fulfillment – not just a paycheck – from the open position. The more my applicants know about what makes them tick before applying, the better.

JPMorgan Chase is an example of a company that sees the value of a workforce whose personal brands align with their corporate brand. They recently put on a personal branding workshop at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management. Spreading the message about personal branding helps JPMorgan Chase attract ideal employees and repel non-ideal employees.

My conclusions about personal branding

1. A legitimate personal brand is others-centered by nature (otherwise it will not survive in the marketplace).

I disagree with Geoff Livingston calling personal branding “self-centered branding.” Sure, it begins with a “self-centered” phase (cultivating self awareness and then developing a way to be visible to your audience), but it ends with an others-centered phase (serving a specific group of people with specific pains or needs – a group you can serve better than anyone else). Let’s be very clear: if your personal brand isn’t developed on a solid foundation that provides value to a certain group of people, then your personal brand has no basis for existence in the market.

A brand, as Michel Hogan points out, is the result of what we believe to be true (about ourselves or about a company) and what our actions show to be true. If there’s a gap between belief and action, then the brand is inauthentic and will either die, or be forced to evolve in today’s age of the radically transparent company. The same holds true with personal brands as the Internet moves us toward the concept of the radically transparent employee. An individual who promises you certain value (which is a self-centered action on their part), then makes good on that promise (which is an others-centered action on their part), is in no way selfish. If they fail to deliver on that promise, then a gap will emerge between what you believe to be true and what their actions show to be true, and their brand will be delegitimized.

2. Personal branding is beneficial to three groups: you, customers, and corporations.

If you properly cultivate your personal brand, everybody wins: you win because you work from the heart, become the best solution to a certain groups’ problems, draw energy from working with that specific group, and are financially compensated for it because you provide them value. Others win because they now have someone to turn to whose sole purpose is to specifically help them with their particular pains and problems. And companies win because their applicants are self-selected as aligned with their corporate brand, making it easier for them to identify the most qualified candidates who will boost their reputations and improve their bottom lines.

What do you think?

Blindly accepting any new concept at face value doesn’t make sense unless you understand the arguments on either side. Only then can you decide for yourself whether or not the idea is valid, or if it has any useful application in your life. On that note, many thanks to Geoff for sparking this discussion in the first place. I’m glad the back-and-forth between Geoff and I can provide you with two very different perspectives, and hope you will always question what you read on the web and come to your own conclusions.

If you’re interested in learning about personal branding as a tool to help you achieve career success, dive right in with our introductory post, Everything You Need to Start Building Your Personal Brand Right Now.

It’s now up to you to continue the discussion!

Before you go, leave a comment here and share your take on personal branding. Is personal branding a bad idea? Is it self-centered? Does it help or hurt companies? Is personal branding just a trend in career management that will pass?

I look forward to hearing from you!