chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

merrillLmueller — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:18:53 -0000

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Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

disneyactingauditions — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:41:46 -0000

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Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Donna Maria — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:11:51 -0000

My take is this: The Media Is You. That's it in a nutshell. Build your brand by being your brand, and then by being your brand's most consistent and reliable media outlet. That way, you don't rely on anyone else to distribute for you. You have your own information distribution machine and then everything else is gravy.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Michael Senno — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:39:00 -0000

Great post Chris, I agree distribution is absolutely king in the digital media world. Your brand needs to be where all the customers are because they will go where they want.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Mitch — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:15:31 -0000

I subscribe to this idea of personal branding, and the concept of getting one thing down. However, with blogs, I guess it depends on what you think it is you're getting down.

As a for instance, I made it my goal to have 300 posts in the first year of my blog. I felt it was important to establish that I would be a blogger that was going to stick around. In my mind, that was my brand. However, when it comes to what I write about, I write on many things, and maybe I've gone after the wrong brand.

In any case, the idea of branding is still a very good one.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Career Rocketeer — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:33:55 -0000

Chris, great article.

Distribution is definitely missing. I also find that the concept of branding is missing from Dan and other people's definitions of personal branding. Dan's definition, as you stated, is "Personal branding is the process of how we market ourselves to others." This is definitely a piece, but what comes before the marketing ourselves to others? What exactly about ourselves are we marketing? He never actually says how to brand yourself before you market yourself.

Personal branding is first identifying the unique and differentiating value that you can bring to an organization, team and/or project and then marketing and/or communicating it in a professionally memorable and consistent manner in all of your actions and outputs, both online and offline, to all current and prospective stakeholders in your career. Just marketing is image building without any foundation to hold up the framework you create.

Thanks for your insight on this, Chris!

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

katebrodock — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:23:02 -0000

Chris -

These are all really great insights, and I think a good addition to Dan's current Personal Branding definition. You could almost consider the definition that you quoted above as Personal Branding 1.0 (or maybe product development?), and your addition makes it Personal Branding 2.0 in today's world (which would include what we might consider new marketing, including facets of both traditional and online forms of marketing). By using outposts - blogs, social networks etc - you increase the channels of distribution for your brand, which you've (hopefully) worked so hard on. Without those channels, or without face-to-face networking events, conferences, content production etc, your Personal Brand has few legs to run on.

Cheers,
Kate

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

belchingmonkey — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:35:06 -0000

I like your definition of what goes into a "best brand". I see @edwardboches point, but I think that some of the very big box companies that he is mentioning as distributors should also fall into the best-brands category. Amazon's product is reliable distribution. So is WalMart's.

Your definition of best brand:
Product: that resonates and is of good quality
Distribution: Ability to get said product to the people that will buy. Best brands OWN this.

I would add

Scale: ability to produce enough to meet demand. Scale is crucial and is always on my mind. How are you doing with scale Chris?

McD's posted a 4.3B(USD) profit in 2008. UPS made 3B(USD) profit on distribution of other people's products. Different, but still echoes the importance of distribution.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

roxannecottell — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:36:13 -0000

I think that this is really a very informative article. I just subscribed to your blog and I am sure that I will get a lot out of it.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Dennis "DenVan" VanStaalduinen — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:25:56 -0000

For someone who helps big companies build their brands, I'm pretty brand cynical.

But my mom said it best. One time in my early 20s when we were visiting Walt Disney World, I was in the middle of some sophomoric anti-corporate rant in the parking lot (paving the everglades / manipulating children / producing mountains of plastic / etc.) when my mom stopped me by waving her hands around and yelling "Yes, BUT IT WORKS!!!"

And you know what? She was right. It does.

The question is HOW does it - in this case a powertful uber-brand - work? And if you think it's evil and that you can do better, you'd better understand how it works if you want to beat it - or at least aim your rocks better.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Charles Lau — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:25:32 -0000

Think this is quite an eye-opener about personal branding.

Like you said, distribution is really important as it pulls in the crowd who are interested in what you are doing. It should be the first priority to focus on.
Perfecting the distribution is going to have a huge leverage.

What you have mentioned is more like a personal branding with a huge leverage on the mass, whereas Dan is more focusing on do-it-yourself.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Chris Brogan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:41:11 -0000

Boy, the very last point really hit home. Would Jack Welch hire a Jack Welch MBA? That's a post for you, Chuck. Really good question. Thanks for the check there!

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Chris Brogan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:39:56 -0000

Amazing insights, anonymous commenter. I'm not chiding anyone. I'm building on a sentence and turning it into a post. Funny how every negative comment on my blog is anonymous.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Chris Brogan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:36:47 -0000

You can pick plenty of other brands for your post. Whether or not they're good or evil, McDonalds is EVERYWHERE, and that was my point. It wasn't whether or not they're good people.

Jack Welch did lots of things wrong. So have I. My only point there was that he parlayed his brand into something else.

When I try to learn things, I try to look past my surface disagreements and determine if there's still a lesson. You don't have to do that. You can just find like-minded examples. I do it differently.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Chris Brogan — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:34:09 -0000

Here's a funny (not really) story about my local coffee shop: there are a few. One is where I work most days and I take pictures there often ( see this).

The other is really popular, but has the WORST service in the world. I have to wait around and wait around and no matter how many times I stand before them, they don't remember me or my order. After weeks of solidly visiting, no recognition.

Given that, I'll take McDonalds. I like the taste. I like the service. They're friendly.

I LOVE supporting the little guys when they earn it (read also: "cafe-shaped business"), but in this case, my town doesn't win the coffeeshop wars.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

cannizz — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:24:44 -0000

Great, interesting article that's right on the money.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Chuck Smith — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:50:35 -0000

Ah, but the other day the iced coffee was just a transaction and not about trust. I think it is all about trust. You wouldn't order it, especially in different locations if you didn't trust it would be the same quality.

This also goes to the first rule of marketing. You can't successfully, long term, market crap that everyone will figure out is crap. You earn my mind share with product or service one, so I will look at number two. Just remember one ah-sh*t wipes out a thousand atta-boys.

Be careful with those additional lines. If you write a successful blog about marketing and write a book about trust, or recommend a wordpress theme, I am willing to purchase it. It fits my model.

If you sell me hamburgers and suddenly want to rent me movies, we have a non-starter or you put your name on an MBA program that you would have never hired a graduate from yourself. It doesn't fit my expectations, game over.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

iconic88 — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:46:31 -0000

Im with you Danny. Execution is definitely part of the equation here.

McDonald's I believe have digitized their kitchens so that they can shave more cents in the dollar by 'executing' an efficient distribution system. Namely a "JIT - just in time" delivery system.

Moreover, with a kitchen running on 1's and 0's, analysis of what they need, when they need it, where they need it ('it' being product) gives a business like McD's a huge edge in cost savings.

So not only are 'Maccas' improving their reach, they are defining and refining their logistical chain ala "Wal Mart".

That's an 'eco-saving' business unto itself. Imagine the enormous savings in fuel costs, food wastage, packaging etc etc.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Frank Burns — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:07:19 -0000

I've only heard of StarBucks from various sources online, I believe they set up shop in Sydney but diverting away from them, I'll pin my attention towards McDonald's. When you find value and taste in a product and you're comfortable with the company that makes these products, you have a better sense of what message they are relaying to the consumer. Behind closed doors however, despite their marketing strategies I also see the contribution they give back through their sales and I tend to believe that this demonstrates to all of us, a caring company that isn't just focused on earning big bucks.
Take for example McDonald's direct approach by helping farmers develop their soils and assisting with agricultural micro-financing. The end result will provide a more nourishing supply of ingredients and a lasting degree of consumer satisfaction.
Don't forget though, StarBucks did host and provide free coffee to assist the voluntary workers at 911 and other critical events across America, this also proves how well founded this company is and we must herald their generosity as well.

Individual Preferences should never really come into play in writing styles, it is a personal view and one that wouldn't be shared by others. A comment can lead to many things, so hopefully said, we'll just leave it to their expertise.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

paramendra — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:26:03 -0000

The "Me" becomes rather important in wading social media.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

klandwehr — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:16:33 -0000

Not like Dunkin coffee, you do realize that there is a lightning strike waiting for you (: In a more serious note though I sorry I don't think they have chicken down. Mcdonald's is not what I think of when I think of chicken. How they will do in the coffee market, may depend on how you measure it.

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

tonilamb — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:05:15 -0000

A good food for thought article (in this case coffee for thought) about branding. On a more serious note, your article made me really think about the whole branding concept & what it should constist of. Honestly, you made a really great point and I totally agree with you. It just makes sense!

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Name — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:08:39 -0000

Poor form Chris. To subtly chide another individual is not cool. Viewpoint can be expressed in other ways. How is this building a relationship, trusting relationship?

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Matt Searles — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:43:08 -0000

I'm not sure if I totally get it.. I mean.. on the internet, can't we kinda take distribution for granted? It sounds more like you're saying "look, get your formula right, then promote the hell out of it." Focus on that formula before you branch out to experimenting with other things.

Other people might say.. experiment and measure, and where you find you're being more successful.. put in more energy / resources or whatever.. and where you're not, put less. The latter is a bit like a Peter Drucker change management tactic.. which you know.. Jack Welch really goes for..

I also want to say I think you're nuts about McDonalds! I mean I think they offer a great brand experience for kids.. but.. being somewhat adult-esk.. the primary colors just don't do it for me. They're aesthetically impoverished! Yuck! But you know.. love ya man.. and I shant hold you're piss poor taste against ya.. ;-)

Re: What You Might Not Know About Personal Branding

Bobbie Aldridge — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:25:53 -0000

I completely agree with your post. In thinking about the optimal virtual distribution route, it would be interesting to get your opinion on the most effective route -- for example, for service providers, do you build the web site first to become your primary base, then blog, then Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and what, statistically drives the most client-potential traffic to the web site....Thinking classic supply chain, every action triggers another action from the buy to the manufacturing, including distribution of product so virtually which lanes are considered part of the distribution lane & which lanes part of the advertising / marketing, or do they all inter-convene?
Thinking aloud - your post triggered some great ideas and thoughts.