We all understand the old saying “don’t put the cart before the horse” to mean don’t reverse the proper order of things. I see that happening a lot in personal branding. Make sure you understand the cart and the horse of personal branding to avoid making that mistake.
The Horse: this is your brand, a statement of how you add your best value, either working for yourself or as an employee for someone else. What is it you do uniquely well that can help others capture opportunities and solve problems that matter to them? We learn by doing, so clearly identify the core of your value platform and do it as much as possible to get better and better at it. Become a leading provider of whatever it is you do that others value and you will enjoy opportunity, flexibility, and impressive compensation.
The Cart: these are the things that make you an interesting person. For example, I am married with two kids, I run marathons when I am healthy, I’ve lived a lot of places but consider Oklahoma home, I like to travel, I love the mountains, and I think “30 Rock” is hilarious. Never confuse the things in the cart as your core value platform; the cart is NOT your brand. These are things that enhance your value platform or that could attract others to your value platform, but you never want to position your personal attributes in ways that they might detract from or dilute your brand.
You MUST be personal to have a personal brand, but be personal in ways that are both strategic and professional. Even though the word personal comes first, you are wasting your time if you focus on being personal before you have clearly established the statement you want to make about your brand. Never forget that people will pay you according to how much value you can add to what they are doing, not how interesting you are.
Keep the horse in front of the cart and use personal branding to take you where you want to go.
Related Posts:
Personal Branding for Business: Five Tactics for Success
Personal Branding: Document and Target your Value
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Hi Bret,
Interesting post – you point out an important distinction between cart and horse.
I never thought of personal branding in a way you describe here – the personal coming before branding. I think of it this way – personal comes before branding because the first step in personal branding is self awareness, which is the personal part and then communicating that effectively and consistently to the target audience involves branding, which comes only after we know what we want to brand.
I recently wrote about personal branding and would love to hear what you think:
http://mindfulmarketers.blogspot.com/
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 17th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Hi Shalini, I hear what you are saying and certainly appreciate it. You are correct that self awareness is very important. But people need to keep in mind that you don’t get paid to be personal, you get paid to deliver value. My point is a lot of people think they are doing personal branding and it’s all bun and no beef. Thanks!! Bret
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Thought provoking stuff, Bret. I see a lot of people making this mistake today b/c social media makes the barrier to entry so low. Thanks!
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 17th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Ryan, I think you make a VERY important point about the low barrier to entry of social media. I think a lot of folks that do social media think they are branding. Not true. Social media is just one of the tools we use to brand. And it is a VERY effective tool as long as you understand how it fits into your strategic branding portfolio. Thanks!! Bret
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“people will pay you according to how much value you can add to what they are doing, not how interesting you are.”
Whaaargubl? (Plaintive Bark of Bafflement) Then how does Rush Limbaugh get by? Letterman? Anyone remember Paul Harvey? Oprah?
I suppose someone will argue that such interesting people are paid by advertisers for the value of the viewers they deliver. But advertisers do not want to pay for viewers.
Advertisers want to pay for viewers’ Attention! To get that, you must interesting.
What value would Oprah’s mention of your blog be worth to you, and more importantly, why is it worth anything?
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 12:19 am
BU, my friend, all of those you mention are entertainers, so attention is their value. Alas, I like most of the millions of other Americans do our work out of the spotlights. We work for corporations or own our own shops on a street in every town. Make no mistake, I LOVE interesting and think interesting *adds* value, but for me and the working Joes that read my blog, it’s not what we get paid for. Our currency is utility. Personal branding helps people find our utility and select us over someone else. Thanks! Bret
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Bret, I do not live to be used by someone else, or to be more useful to someone than the next thing in human form whose very name he didn’t catch. “Utility” is a quality of tools.
If *people* think of themselves in terms of their utility to others, they end up as tools – like this horrific *thing* I encountered in a T-mobile customer service chat session:
http://barkingunicorn.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/a-horrifying-encounter/
I still can’t figure out if I chatted with a person or a piece of AI software. Can you imagine being trapped in a job where people can’t tell if you’re human, and don’t care about anything but your “utility” to them?
Is that what you’re teaching here, Bret – to put your “utility” ahead of your humanity?
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Now be honest, BU, do you REALLY think that’s what I am teaching? If you take the time to read other posts in my blog, you will find out that I am on at least my third career and my third job in my newest career. You will see that I refuse to work for assholes and try to encourage others never to do the same. I encourage people to go out and lead and follow others with integrity.
Is that void of humanity?
I actually do live to be useful and helpful to my fellow human beings, and you will never hear me apologize for that. It MAKES me human. The void of egocentricity is as big as the one you encourage others to avoid by ignoring what they could do to be useful.
Thanks!! Bret
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“To be useful and helpful to my fellow human beings… MAKES me human.”
Was Robinson Crusoe inhuman? Would you be inhuman if you were of no use to anyone? If so, then there’s no ethical objection to killing off all those breathing corpses in hospitals, is there?
No, Bret, your utility to others is not what makes you human. It is merely what you sell for money, same as rice or any other commodity. There is nothing special, noble, or human about being used by others for money. A whore does it.
I tell my clients, “Give who you are, don’t just sell what you do.” When they do that, they make more money as a byproduct of making themselves and others happier.
I don’t ask people, “What do you do?” I ask, “Who are you becoming?” Much more interesting conversations ensue from the latter question, once people grasp WTF I’m talking about.
I feel in you right purpose, good intention. Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother talking to you at all. But your focus on “utility” is unskillful and damaging to those you are trying to help.
“Skillfulness” is the Buddhist metric by which we measure how much nearer to true happiness thoughts, intentions, and actions move us. “Unskillful means” of pursuing things move us away from true happiness.
By “true happiness” I mean happiness that which cannot be taken from you by change, not even by the change of Death.
True happiness does not depend upon other people finding uses for you. It does not depend upon other people having money with which to buy from you.
True happiness requires no “productivity.” It is never used up so you needn’t make more. It never breaks down so you don’t have to repair it.
The more you use true happiness, the more of it you have and the greater the enjoyment it gives you with each use. Quite unlike a dollar, or anything for which a dollar can be traded.
“If you want (true) happiness, help someone,” said The Buddha.
It’s that simple. Every honest, true thing is *simple*.
The Buddha did NOT say, “If you want happiness, help someone and demand cash” or praise, fame, help from others, or anything else in return for your help. If you want happiness, simply help someone without any expectation of return.
That is Kindness, according to Aristotle.
“It’s unique to us humans, and our more developed spirits and angels, to be *kind*,” wrote Ann Rice in “Servant of the Bones”.
If you want to tell people how to get money then tell them how to sell what they do.
If you want to tell people how to be happy, tell them how to be Kind.
But do not confuse the two things, or you will lead others into unskillful ways.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 9:46 am
The last word is yours. Thanks! Bret
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Bravo, Bret. That’s one squarely in the ten ring.
I see this with coaching clients all the time. There are an abundance of things that make them who they are. And it’s hard to pick up the fact that those wonderful things often don’t matter to the people to whom you present your brand. People aren’t the only entities with this problem. Many businesses have it as well.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 18th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Thanks, Wally! I very much appreciate your thoughts on this. Bret
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Bret,
This is a great reminder about how we should regard personal branding. While we do have to include some personal aspects of ourselves in such interactions, we shouldn’t confuse this with being unfiltered.
It’s ironic that so much has been said about these engagements being nothing more than another form of communication; and yet, how many of us discuss extraneous minutiae with those around us in “real world” conversations (Seinfeld being the exception of course)?
For me, the personal aspect of such interactions involves sharing details or moments that reflect a shared or common experience, something that allows for a sense of relatability. In that way, the inclusion adds value to the interaction, instead of simply acting as random noise that would have best been left unsaid.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Thanks for weighing in on this, Tanveer. Concur we should not confuse being personal with being unfiltered. Most of us don’t operate in circles where we have that luxery. Thanks! Bret
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Hi Bret,
I take your point that playing around on social networking sites is not personal branding, although I would argue that for people whose careers don’t require them to have such a well developed brand it can perform a very similar but reduced function, PBlite if you will. This has the advantage of setting a person up with the mindset required and can be developed into a full personal brand more easily later on.
I am afraid you still haven’t convinced me that consistency across your entire online life is the way to go! We may have to agree to disagree but I don’t quite feel I’ve got my entire point across yet, so I’m going to have one more try:
I think there is room for a personal online life that has some separation from your brand. It isn’t necessary for it to be all about showcasing yourself or the value you can add, it can be more relaxed and I see no need for it to be integrated. That said, I believe it must be connected with your brand in such a way that people looking at one can easily find the other. This is because, although I don’t see it as a part of the main brand exactly, it should add to it by showing you as a rounded individual. That is distinct from being personal in your brand, which I agree is also important. It is important to ensure your personal online life portrays the person you would like others to see and to beware (as you have correctly pointed out) the illusion of privacy. It’s difficult to separate this personal life from your brand because it really is a part of it, it might even be just as important to you. For people looking specifically for the professional you, however, it should appear as an aside – valuable extra information on how you are interesting, but not the be all and end all.
Apart from anything else, I think it is unrealistic to expect people to be professional at all times online. There is simply too much fun to be had and we shouldn’t stop people filling out daft questionnaires on Facebook if they find that sort of thing enjoyable. The only way to prevent that sort of thing contaminating a personal brand is to allow some separation.
Sorry for the very long comment. I usually try and avoid doing this, but you can be relied upon to read and respond so I allowed myself to break my own rule
Ellie
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:00 am
Welcome back, Ellie! I always welcome your perspective even if I don’t always agree with it. BTW, I actually wrote this post after reading the one at your website in response to some stuff I had written – so thanks!
I think you hit the main point of your discomfort with my advice on social media in your next to last paragraph – social media can be “fun.” If you knew me you would know fun is my middle name, and I quit careers when they stop being fun. But you also have to remember that in my day job I prepare young adults for careers, and I see them having way too much fun with social media and having no where near enough professionalism to use it as the powerful platform I think it can be.
Having fun is one thing, wasting your time and actually damaging your career efforts is another.
Friend me on Facebook, Elie, and you will see pictures of me having “fun.” That is my personal. I also add videos to this site and in my latest one, you see much more the “daily” me – t-shirt, jeans, and not shaved. That’s getting personal while being discussing my value platform. I am using video on purpose in an attempt to make a more personal connection.
My advice is *online* if you are going to make an error with branding, it will be from being too personal, not too professional.
Thanks once again for sharing your thoughts, Ellie!! Bret
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To add a tortured metaphor: that isn’t putting the cart before the horses, it’s accepting that there IS a cart and it’s better to find a way to pull it along behind us that to dress it up in a horse costume.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:04 am
Oh, wow, that is a very tortured metaphor! You can have your cart and eat it too. Wait, I think I’m confused now…
Thanks! Bret
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[...] From Bret Simmons: Personal Branding: Is Your Cart before Your Horse? “We all understand the old saying “don’t put the cart before the horse” to mean don’t reverse the proper order of things. I see that happening a lot in personal branding. Make sure you understand the cart and the horse of personal branding to avoid making that mistake.” [...]
[...] Personal Branding: Is Your Cart Before Your Horse? [...]