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(Sunday Independent, August 15, 2004)

The world is your oyster if you can find out – and market – what makes you so special to other people, writes Mary Stuart

We know him by his toothy grin and his fearless tenacity to break world records and take on huge multinationals like Coca Cola. Richard Branson embodies the spirit of an ambitious entrepreneur yet at the same time he asserts himself as an approachable and congenial personality. That in essence is the Branson brand.

Madonna also has her own unique selling point; although she is not an especially talented singer she is known for her ability to reinvent herself. She is a tough cookie; there is no trend that she can’t transcend. Her popular hit entitled “Express yourself” could be described as her mantra. She does not shy away from articulating her opinions and has merrily paraded her sexual being on stage and in her book Sex shattering stereotypical notions about women.

Popular icons like Branson and Madonna both have definable unique qualities that are immediately recognizable to the public, in other words they have a personal brand. Could that be the secret to their success?

If successful branding can turn a pair of regular jeans into an object of desire and an item that communicates to others that we are sexy, youthful and flourishing then surely branding our personas could turn a wallflower into a social butterfly or a girl Friday into a CEO.

Even Mafia godfather Vito Palazzolo, who fled to South Africa to escape the long hand of the law, has cottoned on to this new marketing scheme. Palazzolo, according to The Guardian, has secured the services of a personal image consultant to turn his shady brand around.

But Linda Hart, a Johannesburg-based personal brand consultant at Imagecraft, says she wouldn’t be interested in taking on Palazzolo as a client, “A personal brand has to be authentic, it is not about creating spin,” she asserts.

Hart had been happily working as a corporate branding consultant until she came across an article in Fast Company in 1997 that would steer her business towards personal branding. Tom Peters’ article, entitled A Brand called You, spearheaded a radical movement in marketing circles towards branding for the individual. He proposed that people should “look to establish your own micro equivalent of the Nike swoosh.”

“We are,” Peters declared, “CEOs of own companies: Me Inc.”

But it was only when Hart was studying for her MBA in the UK that she realised that she had to distinguish herself from the pack, “There I was in a class of very bright people and you had to stand out and do something that gave you the edge, that would make people look at you and remember you,” says Hart.

“Then I looked at the enormous amount of people who were all laid off at the same time (in the UK) and these people had no prospects and I realised how important personal branding is in this situation,” Hart explains.
Gone are the days when people comfortably work for the same company for ten years or more. These days no one wants to stay with a company forever. Individuals are looking for new opportunities to not only expand their bank balance but their horizons too.

But in our fast paced society, that sees the rise and fall of conglomerates, competition is stiff.

Hart emphasizes that personal branding is an essential ingredient for survival in the context of this fluctuating environment, “Personal branding is absolutely vital because there are so many of us doing the same things and being the same things.”

But how does one construct your own brand?

Creating your own brand, Hart suggests, is not too dissimilar to developing product branding, “Let’s say we are selling toothpaste. What makes this toothpaste better than that toothpaste? So one begins this process of looking for those little jewels that make one thing better than another.

“And that is how I approach personal branding I go looking for you. We search for those little jewels inside of yourself which you may never have extracted.”

“Most people,” Hart has found, “do not know who they are.”
Hart attributes this to the fact that “most people do not want to delve into themselves. They don’t want to know. There is this fear that what we might discover is not what we want.”

Personal branding does, however, diverge from product branding in that it  is not about building an artificial front used to convince people ‘buy’ into you. It is rather about enhancing who you are and “being the best that we can be, we can’t be any better than that,” says Hart.

A vital component of a personal branding programme is to isolate specialised skills, “the more you can niche yourself and provide a service to X market which you have chosen you are likely to be extremely successful and likely to be happy with what you are doing.”

The main objective behind personal branding, says Hart, is to make yourself particularly distinctive so that everyone will want a piece of you. Is that not what we all strive for?

Hart suggests that your journey towards self-discovery should begin with determining your ultimate goals. Hart states that less than 3% of people set long-term goals.

One should then consider the abilities that come naturally to you as well as all skills that you have acquired along the way.

Hart also employs an American psychometric test called the Colby that measures your IQ, EQ and ‘middle brain’ which measures your instinctive actions in particular situations. How people take action, says Hart, is significant in discovering what jobs they are best suited to.

“If you want someone to fold parachutes for instance, you will be looking for someone who is meticulous and doesn’t work in a haphazard way.”

Discovering your deepest desires should also form part of the process, “A financial whiz might discover that he is brilliant in the kitchen. And it (personal branding) can move someone off the path they have chosen into work they are passionate about. If you are passionate about your work, you are more likely going to succeed.”

“Everyone has a passion, but finding it is the key. A passion needn’t be a particular line of work it might be a belief or a value,” Hart asserts.
Once you have isolated your vision for the future, skills, natural talents and passions, Hart advises that you research to find a suitable market, “now where we can direct this laser beam to its best effect.”

The final step, says Hart, is to then to develop the shortest possible branding statement, “If you think of BMW one immediately thinks of their slogan ‘pure driving pleasure’. Short messages are incredibly powerful. Once we have created a statement we practice it over and over again. Then bounce your brand statement off your friends and family members so that you know that it is composed of good solid stuff and not just an idealised idea.”

“Your statement, “Hart proposes, “gives you an authentic launching pad for whatever endeavour you want to direct yourself at.”

Using verbal and non-verbal communication, one must then go about expressing your “brand statement”. For instance if your unique quality and passion is your ability to help others, your actions should mirror your purpose. Verbally communicate to others that no matter what problem they may encounter they can always depend on you. Make sure that you are always available to meet requests and certainly, in time, office colleagues and friends will become cognisant of your special ‘brand’. Hart recommends that one should even verbalise your ‘brand statement’ to others, repetition, as advertisers have learnt reminds people of your product and what it stands for.
Hart suggests that if you succeed in establishing your ‘Me Inc’, “You can then demand the price that you are deserving of and you can choose your customers. And live the life you want to lead.”

Despite the tough competition out in the working world, Hart suggests, that one should not be distracted by one’s ‘opposition’, but rather one should concentrate on your own strategy.

“If you are too busy focussing on your competitor, you lose your attention. It is not about beating them but running your own race against yourself,” Hart explains.

Personal branding is, however, according to Hart, not only applicable in a work or career environment, “On the social front, there are always those people who are there, but not there. They are invisible people. Why be that person? We all want to be recognised and be somebody special.”
Finding your brand, Hart insists, will filter into not only into your relationships with others but the perceptions you have of yourself.

Hart has taken pleasure working with women and previously disadvantaged people and says personal branding is particularly relevant in a country striving to equalise positions of power, “Women are constantly thinking; ‘I can’t’ or ‘here is my glass ceiling’. People who have been discriminated against in the past are full of self doubt. But there are ways of working around a glass ceiling and shattering through it. Women tend to go to where they think they should be rather than where they really want to be.”

Hart says her favourite example of an individual who really utilises his personal brand to great affect is a newspaper seller who flogs his wares on a street corner in Dunkeld, “He wears these incredible cardboard hats made into aeroplanes and rhinoceros heads. He gets it, he is so absolutely memorable. If I think about buying a newspaper I think about him. He understands that people will be looking out for him because he has done something so unique.”

 Nelson Mandela is, of course, another great case in point of a South African who has successfully communicated his own personal brand “although Nelson Mandela is known to have said ‘I was just an ordinary man living in extraordinary times’. He had this mantra which said ‘my life is the struggle’ and he has even now continued to struggle for his people.  He has a consistent and authentic voice reinforcing his brand message all the time,” Hart declares.

Perhaps we should all take a leaf out of Mandela’s book, defy the cloning of the corporate world and create our own Me Incorporated.