"How do you generate word of mouth? Excellence, of course." Tom Peters

Brand You

As you know, Steve Yastrow is an old friend, and he is making his second appearance as a Cool Friend. He and Erik talk about his new book, We: The Ideal Customer Relationship. Steve says that if your customer thinks of the relationship you share as a "we" relationship, rather than as "us and them," all things are possible. Find out more by reading his Cool Friends interview here. Or—something new!—listen instead: Full-length Steve Interview (MP3), or
3 Things from Steve (MP3)

View our Archives for past interviews.

Blog Roll

800-CEO-Read
Ageless Marketing
andHow To Reach Women
Katya Andresen
Tom Asacker
Asia Business Intel
Jordan Ayan
Martha Barletta
Dave Barry
Ed Batista
Becker-Posner
BeeLog
Bigger Isn't Always Better
The Bing Blog
Bird's Eye View
Blog Business Summit
Blog Critics
John Bogle
BoingBoing
Boomer411
Brand Autopsy
BusinessPundit
BW Brand New Day
BW Deal Flow
BW Management IQ
BW The Tech Beat
Cali and Jody
Change This
Church of the Customer
Clear Path International
Cooking for Engineers
Core77
Coudal Partners
Creating Passionate Users
Mark Cuban
design*sponge
Jory Des Jardins
Betsy Devine
Don the Idea Guy
Dooce
Down the Avenue
Daniel W. Drezner
Esther Dyson
eHub
English Cut
Enterprise Media
Escapable Logic
Evhead
Steve Farber
Fast Company
Fast Lane
Brad Feld
The Fischbowl
Richard Florida
Ze Frank
Freakonomics
Free Business Tips
Gil Friend
gapingvoid
Felix Gerena
Dan Gillmor
Seth Godin
Good Experience
Gothamist
Daniel Harrison
Tom Hayes
Health Beat
Hilgenstock | Sachlichkeit
Sally Hogshead
Hyperthinker
IDEO Eyes Open
iinnovate
Influx Insights
Innovate on Purpose
Instapundit
The Intuitive Life
Isenblog
Eric Jackson
Joi Ito
Rich Karlgaard/Forbes
Josh Kaufman
Guy Kawasaki
Learned on Women
Lawrence Lessig
Martin Lindstrom
Chris Locke
The Long Tail
Made to Stick
John Maeda/SIMPLICITY
David Maister
Management by Baseball
MarketingProfs:DailyFix
Marketing to Boomer Women
Mavericks at Work
The Messaging Times
Metacool
Name Wire
Netwoman
NEXT> by Ramla
Nuts about Southwest
John O'Leary
Personal Branding
Dan Pink
Pink Slip
Play the Game of Life
Pollster
John Porcaro
Virginia Postrel
Power Line
PressThink
PSFK
Pyromarketing
Mitch Ratcliffe
Rattle-the-Cage
Fred Reichheld
re:invention
ResearchBuzz
Rethink Pink
Penelope Trunk
Re-Versioning Your Life
Jennifer Rice
Dan Roam
Kevin Roberts
Evelyn Rodriguez
Scott Rosenberg
Samizdata
Ian Sanders
Tim Sanders
Mary Schmidt
Robert Scoble
Scripting News
Doc Searls
Rajesh Setty
Stephen Shapiro
Signal vs. Noise
Slashdot
Simplicity
Smart Mobs
Sorted Books
Springwise
Startup Garden
Startupping
Biz Stone
Halley Suitt
Andrew Sullivan
Sustainable Work
Bob Sutton
TechCrunch
The Technium
TeeBeeDee
Third Age
Trend Hunter
Trend Watching
Trump University
Trusted Advisor
Twist Image
Fara Warner
Web Worker Daily
David Weinberger
What I've Learned So Far
Wild Women Entrepreneurs
Susan Willett Bird
The Wisdom of Improv
WonderBranding
Wooster Collective
Steve Yastrow

Brand You

What do you want to be known for? What is unique about you? What is the special value you provide to your team and organization? In the new world of work cultivating your individual brand, your “saleable distinction” is not optional. If those you work with don’t appreciate what’s unique and valuable about you, you won’t be around for long. As Tom says, “Be distinct or be extinct!”

Developing your individual brand is not self-aggrandizing or antithetical to organizational branding. By defining your brand and connecting it to the brand of your team, you are enhancing the brand of your team. By defining your team’s brand and connecting it to the brand of your organization, you are enhancing the brand of your organization. Just as your organizational brand must reflect the vision, mission, and values of your organization, so must your individual brand.

When you don’t develop a brand for yourself, others do it for you! How they define you or your team then becomes your “default brand”—a brand you are stuck with, which may not be flattering. (For instance, what if you’re saddled with a brand like “unreliable,” “hard to deal with,” or “old-school”?) Better to deliberately create a brand that represents what you want to be known for—a brand that makes an unforgettable impression and conveys trustworthiness and consistency.

Brand You is a research-based program, custom-designed as either a one- or two-day course, to help you:

Appreciate the importance of branding;
Understand the “brand promise” of your team and organization and how your individual brand contributes to that;
Decide how you want to see your organizational brand and your individual brand develop;
Design a personal brand strategy that clarifies your distinct value and inspires performance.

We also offer a train-the-trainer program so that employees can deliver this course to their peers. This offers the two-fold result of (1) enabling all employees in a client organization to experience this program and distinguish their brand and (2) developing leadership qualities and presentational skills in employees at any level who have the ambition and ability to lead this course.

The end result of Brand You: employees transformed into enthusiastic brand professionals, aligned with—and expressing—the vision, mission, and values of their organization.

If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself, you won’t get noticed and that increasingly means you won’t get paid much, either.

— Michael Goldhaber, Wired

Categories

Blog Roll

Brand You