You're commodity if you're not a brand, to misquote Philip Kotler.
Who are you and what do you stand for? When colleagues think of you or God forbid talk about you, what do they say? You can't control what others say but you're a marketer and you can work to influence them.
I used to work with a Head of Comms who was a case study in branding herself. Her speciality was getting media coverage, the question 'will I get media coverage from this?' was always in her head and always said out loud whenever she spoke to people, read press releases or considered new projects. And I mean ALWAYS. She was synonymous with this question and the organisation's 1500 members of staff knew her, and would email her to share their stories. She replied to everyone, thanked them for letting her know and usually found a way to use the story or to politely decline, and asked them to share other stories. She was very, very successful in getting media coverage, she knew what worked and what didn't and she was always on the hunt!
Her brand values were success, being hard working, reliable, polite and slightly obsessive (whether she realised this or not). She lived her values everyday and everyone knew her and what she stood for.
So my friends what can we learn from this case study in branding? Email me and let me if you have any thoughts different to me, mine are:
She (I'm going to stop calling her 'she', it feels rude, I shall call her Gertrude and protect the identity of the innocent.)
Gertrude was consistent, she'd worked there maybe 2 or 3 years and she repeated that question (in varying forms) whenever she talked to people.
Gertrude was also reliable in following up and thanking people for taking the time to share their stories, she acknowledged and thanked everyone, which meant that people didn't feel as though their story was going to be dismissed, they felt valued.
Gertrude was super clear. People knew what she was looking for - media coverage and they knew that she knew how to get it.
Gertie also shared her success, she provided that loop - someone shared a story, she and they worked it up, she got media coverage and then they all basked in the shared glory by telling the rest of the organisation.
There were benefits of Gertie's brand:
It made her job easier, people did the work of telling her about the stories.
She was head hunted because staff had been telling other people about her success.
Gert was authentically herself, she was the embodiment of those brand values, she wasn't pretending, which is nice.
So who are you and what do you stand for? And how do you live these values everyday? Feel free to email me and let me know. Here are some helpful links: