Strategic Personal Branding - And How it Pays Off

Abstract

Unlike companies or products, individuals possess intrinsic personal branding as a result of personality qualities, past experience and development, and communication with others—whether they know it or not. In this sense, every person already has a personal brand of some kind. The challenge is to manage that brand strategically. We offer a process for doing so, beginning with self-analysis. Then we review published sources and summarize interviews about the personal brands of 33 U.S. and European sales executives and managers, salesforce members, and professionals who sell their own services. The interviews indicate roughly equal emphasis on competence and personal qualities in creating personal brands, as well as significant interest in distinctiveness, and the respondents provide a range of examples of how personal branding pays off. This investigation leads to our basic recommendation: Follow a strategic self-branding process based on one's values and competencies, similar to the branding methods of companies and products, but with the understanding that personal branding will change as one's career advances.