BRAND 101…The YOU Brand

You are branded, branded, branded, branded.

It is time for each one of us to take a lesson. A lesson on brands…from the big brands. This lesson is for everyone who’s interested and wishes to stand out and prosper in this new world of work, in this FLAT WORLD.

Age, Position and business we are in regardless, we all need to understand the importance of branding. We are all CEO’s of our own companies: Me Inc. and if we must remain in business for a long time our most important Job is to be the Head Marketer for the brand called YOU.

Yes…it is as simple, yet as hard and as that inescapable.

Most of us are looking to be free agents in an economy: if not all of us. You are looking to have the best season you can imagine in your field, looking to work at your best and make remarkable records and looking to establish your own Nike equivalent. This because if you do, not only will you have every opportunity within arm’s (laptop’s) length, you’ll make a noteworthy contribution to your team’s success and you’ll put yourself in a great bargaining position for many seasons to come.

Good news (and largely good news) is everyone has a chance to stand out, to learn and improve and to build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark.

Today brands are everything, all kinds of products and services, from sneaker makers, to restaurants to consulting and accounting firms, all are figuring out how to transcend the narrow boundaries of their categories and become a brand surrounded by a ovation as loud as Tommy Hilfiger.

Even the Web understands this. The web makes the case of branding more direct. The web says: Anyone can have a website/blog especially because there are blogs that don’t cost a dime. Anyone: and that recently included my young cousin …Tomiwa. So how do you know which sites are worth visiting, which one to bookmark, which ones are worth going to more than once. The answer: Branding. The site you go back to are sites you trust, they are sites where the brand tells you the visit will be worth your while. They are sites owned by people/companies who exhibit some level of uniqueness or the other, they are branded sites.

Again and again, a brand is a promise of value that you’ll receive.

What holds for the web also holds for emails… “the killer App of the Net”. When everybody has email, anybody can send you email. How do you decide whose messages you are going to read and respond to first and whose you are going to trash away? The answer: Personal Branding. The name of the sender is every bit as important a brand…is a brand.

Nobody understands branding better than professional service firms. You might want to look at Generis Solutions or Author Anderson for a model of new rules in branding at company and personal level. Bringing it home and looking at Generis Solutions, notice that every professional service firm work with the same business model. They have almost no hard assets…my guess is they rent or lease items they possibly can keep from having to own anything. They however have a lot of soft assets…conventionally known as people, smart, motivated and talented people. And they have large revenues and astounding profits.

They also have clear culture of work and life. When you are hired, you report to work and join a team, you immediately start figuring out how to add value to the customer. Along the way you learn stuff, develop your skill, sharpen your ability, move from project to project. If you are really smart, you’ll figure out how to distinguish yourself from all the other very smart people walking around in N25,000 suits, high powered laptops and well polished resumes. Along the way, if you are really smart, you’ll figure out what it takes to create a distinctive role for yourself and as you do so you create a message and strategy to promote the brand called YOU