After some self imposed downtime to rest and recharge throughout January, February has hit the ground running from day one, with my first ‘business’ event of the year, back at Pi on Poole Quay for another You Are The Media Lunch Club.
The topic for this event was ‘personal branding’. Despite having spoken on this in the past, I’m no big fan of the term. I think it’s another case of something marketers tend to overcomplicate, whether intentionally or not, to validate our perception of having expertise.
Within your family or group of friends, if someone were to need help, say, moving house or being picked up from an airport, who do they go to in that circle? If it were moving house, perhaps someone known for being capable of heavy lifting, or owns a van. If it were being picked up from an airport, maybe someone who has a reputation of being reliable with timing or well travelled.
I use these two scenarios as classic cases of things we’re asked to do, don’t really want to, and probably wouldn’t if we could get away with it.
But let’s say for some strange reason you actually REALLY enjoyed helping someone move house or get home from an airport, what would you do to ensure they picked you?
🏘️ Moving house – Share not-so-subtle photos on Facebook of yourself at the gym lifting weights?
🚘 Airport pickups – Share not-so-subtle photos on Instagram of your freshly cleaned car?
Just examples, but you’d likely do something, you weirdo. Now let’s say you had to expand outside of your immediate circle, to people that you didn’t know, to garner more requests for house moves or airport runs, because you needed paid work.
When your livelihood depends on being picked for a task, you have to be proactive in someway to ensure that you’re the one who is chosen.
Advertising drip feeds over long periods of time to earn its space in the ‘window of opportunity’ when that moment of choice for the buyer presents itself. Without a budget to invest in such a campaign, you have to rely on yourself as a sales tool.
This isn’t a suggestion that we continuously knock doors in a 10 mile radius in hope that the person answering remembers us in the right moment. It’s gradually instilling a message in someone’s mind over a period of time.
It sounds a little manipulative, and perhaps it is, but it doesn’t have to be creepy. It could be achieved simply by building a track record of doing the job well and engaging in a little ‘self promotion’ once in a while to ensure your potential buyer is aware of what you’ve done.
Did we need to lose sleep on building our personal brand, to be the one in our family people came to for help? No. Do we need to engage in ways to amplify the traits that made us WHY they came to us for help, in order to reach a wider audience. Yes – call it personal branding, call it what you will.
The fundamentals are always more important than the tactics for me though. The latter chop and change depending on what latest tools are available to use at any given time and which platforms are en vogue with our audience.
I thought the panel of Christine Gritmon, Matt King, Amy Cousineau Massey and John Espirian delivered some great, non sensationalist advice to the businesses in attendance and the event was expertly hosted by Glen Long.
I was asked to don the referee shirt again for another world record attempt, this time for the most teabags thrown into a cup in 30 seconds. Jackie Goddard managed 5, but Tim Sills takes the place in the YATM Book of Records with 8. Neither broke the Guinness official record of 13. You can read a recap of all the world record attempts we’ve had at lunch clubs so far here.
Liam Toms 