Simon was a member of the coaching team at the Global Institute for Leadership Development (GILD) annual conference in San Diego, California on September 16-21, 2007. This leadership development program is known for its qualified and comprehensive faculty, and its presentation of timely information for today’s executive. For more information, click here.
Join Simon in San Diego on the evening of November 20th for an interactive workshop on personal branding. Learn to leverage your reputation for all it’s worth! For more information, contact Simon.
Branding From Within - Developing Confidence
Developing confidence in yourself is an essential piece of building your personal brand. As Tony Alessandra says in my book, STAND OUT!, “Confidence is fundamental, and indispensable if you want to engage someone’s attention.”
People who have a great reputation have confidence in themselves, so they come across as uniquely qualified. I suggest you spend some time asking yourself: “How can I develop more confidence in myself, so that others can have more confidence in me and my work?”
“The attention economy is a star system.… 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
When I studied marketing at University in Bern, Switzerland, I learned how important it is to communicate the distinguishing characteristics of a product, service, company or person. In real estate, the critical element that gives value to the property is location. In marketing, it’s differentiation.
There are thousands of you out there: undifferentiated middle managers, sales people, service providers, accountants, financial planners, real estate brokers, mortgage lenders. Unfortunately, if you are not perceived with a distinctive edge, you are perceived as a commodity. In this case people who hire you or purchase your services decide based on price. Consequently, if someone offers a cheaper price, you are out of a job. The best response to this threat is to differentiate yourself. The good news is that there’s no such thing as a commodity – only a person that thinks like one.
We are all different from each other. We each have our own individual story. We are unique. The key is to ensure that others notice and recognize that uniqueness.
The most important aspect of building a brand: You can extract a premium if you can differentiate your person, product or service. By being a knowledge hub, the center of a vast network, or an exceptional business partner, you create a unique brand for yourself. You’re useful, you’re likeable, you’re valuable. Essential differentiation is about being different in a way that is positive, productive and sustainable over time. Promote your intangible qualities to those with whom you wish to do business.
Ask yourself those questions:
Identifying our own uniqueness is not a 3-hour task or 1-week project. It’s constant self-reflection and self-discovery. It’s more a journey than a goal.
“Be distinct or be extinct.”
- Tom Peters
In my book, STAND OUT! Branding Strategies for Business Professionals, I included a profile of Nido Qubein, a man who exemplifies the habit of developing excellence and staying focused. The following is an excerpt that illustrates the inevitable success that results from such commitments.
Nido Qubein came to America for college at age 17. He had $50 in his pocket and he didn’t know a single person. In addition, he spoke very little English. He worked 10 hours a day to pay for college and taught himself English. He learned the language by taking 3×5 cards and putting 10 English words on those cards. He memorized the spelling and meaning of those 10 words. The next day, he would take another set of 3×5 cards and write another 10 words, also reviewing the 10 words from the day before. By doing that daily, he developed a habit. Aristotle said, “Excellence is not an act. It’s a habit.” It’s a habit that we acquire through training and habituations. Something that is worth doing is worth doing well. He discovered that good habits are hard to develop, but they’re easy to live with. He also discovered that bad habits are easy to develop, but they’re hard to live with.
That’s how Nido learned the English language: slowly and methodically. The average American has over 5,000 words in his or her vocabulary. When Nido was 17 years old, he knew only a few dozen English words. However, he went on to write over a dozen books, create 100 audio programs, and develop 100 videos that were translated into 19 languages for over 70 countries. He completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees in business, and upon graduating in 1973, he started a business selling leadership material through direct mail. He built that business slowly and surely, then sold it and began others. Today he runs several businesses, serves on the boards of numerous others, and is known as the entrepreneur who teaches transformational leadership through consulting, writing, speaking, and education.
The point is simple, Nido says. “No one can whine as to why they can’t achieve their goals or dreams. You have to be willing to work hard enough and smart enough.”
Nido Qubein is a widely acclaimed business leader, author, speaker, consultant and philanthropist. He is the recipient of significant speaking awards including Master of Influence, The Golden Gavel (from Toastmasters International) and the International Hall of Fame. He is also the recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and he is the founder of the National Speakers Association Foundation.
Nido Qubein is chairman of Great Harvest Bread Company (with 210 stores in 39 states); CEO of Creative Services, Inc. (an international management consulting firm); corporate director of BB&T Corporation (the 11th largest financial institution with 28,000 employees and $91 billion in assets); and chairman of McNeill Lehman (a public relations and advertising agency). He has also served on the board of directors for 13 organizations.
Simon Says:
While many people assume stress is a regular part of working hard, it actually has a negative impact on our results. David Allen, a widely recognized expert on personal productivity, teaches that when you take full responsibility for results and you commit to staying relaxed, you become far more powerful and effective.
We’ve all found ourselves saying, “I don’t have enough hours in the day to do all things I need to do,” or “I don’t have enough time!”
When people focus primarily on better results, there is a tendency to compromise quality of life. David Allen discovered a powerful answer to that dilemma by practicing karate. As he worked toward his black belt, he adopted a core martial arts analogy, the idea that there is a lovely balance between focusing on results and being relaxed. In karate, the power of a hit comes from speed, not muscle power – a tense muscle is a slow muscle. This means your ability to generate results is directly proportional to your ability to relax.
You cannot get things done faster until you learn to slow down, take a step back and get a different perspective on how you do things. Relaxation is the key to focus. You must be able to clear your head to focus your energy appropriately. This truly is an elegant model of productivity.
There is one thing that people need to learn in order to increase productivity: taking responsibility – being responsible for where they have put their energy (their actions in the past) and being responsible for what they are doing with it now (their action now and in the future). We create our own experiences because we are the ones who allow stuff to enter our lives. For example, what does your e-mail inbox look like? An overloaded inbox simply represents what you have allowed to come into your world that needs to be managed.
It’s not about how much you have, it’s about your comfort zone and how many unprocessed e-mails you feel comfortable with. You want to be able to close open loops and have clear agreements with yourself. This will allow you to be more relaxed when surprises come up. Rather than being stressed, you’ll get creative.
SIMON SAYS:
1. Take responsibility for where you put your attention and energy. In the end, this determines the results you produce.
2. Our ability to generate results is directly proportional to our ability to relax. When you’re too controlled, you limit your ability to respond to and deal with things.
3. Slow down, take a step back and get a different perspective on how to do things. New perspectives bring unrealized ideas and solutions.
Often times, people confuse branding with marketing and promotion. Branding is more than creating a marketing campaign, designing a fancy logo, creating a 30-second elevator speech, coming up with a slick slogan, producing a colorful brochure, or executing a direct mailing package. Those promotional tools are important and, if well implemented, can create high visibility. But branding is a much larger task. It has to do with identifying individual uniqueness, creating an aura about your identity, tapping into your potential and making something meaningful.
From studying the field of personal brand management, I developed the following definition:
A personal brand is the Essence of YOU, as recognized by others.
The definition implies three things. First, it means that you have clarity about the Essence of YOU: your motivation, talents, passion, desire, calling, background, experience, interests and specialization.
Second, you know and have defined who the “others” are. Who is your client? What niche or market are you in? Who are the ultimate beneficiaries of your service?
Finally, it means that whatever you do – good or bad – is getting noticed, recognized and perceived (consciously and unconsciously). Because perception determines reality, other people’s perception about us becomes their reality. We create reality, knowingly and unknowingly, day by day, action by action.
A successful, effective, well-recognized brand has the following characteristics:
When a person builds a powerful brand, it gives that person leverage. A strong personal brand builds an aura of trust, inspires confidence and increases credibility. It says: I trust you, I like you and I want to do business with you.
Simon Says:
“What is my mission in life? What do I want to convey to people? How do I make sure that what I have to offer the world is actually unique? It’s a matter of whether or not you want to be… UNIQUE… NOW.”
– Jesper Kunde, author of A Unique Moment
