Kang - Branding pays : the five-step system to reinvent your personal brand

To Jon

Best-selling author of Crossing the Chasm

As Karen Kang notes in her introduction, she and I were principals and later partners at Regis McKenna Inc. during the 1980s and early 1990s. This was a seminal time for high-tech marketing, and RMI was at the epicenter, in large part because Regiss book, The Regis Touch, laid out a whole new game plan for how to bring high-tech products to market.

Fast forward to 2013. This is another seminal time, this time for marketing companies of one, or, more specifically, you. In the new business order, everyone is a contractor all the time. To be sure, you may at present be giving 100 percent of your capacity to a single clientyour employerbut that in no way lessens your self-marketing responsibilities. Your boss is your primary client. Your colleagues are partners in your value chain. The companys customers are your customers customers. And your job is to communicate to all these constituencies who you are, what you do, and why that is of value to them. Hence the rise of personal branding, and specifically what Karen calls strategic personal branding.

This is not an exercise in egotism. In a funny way, this is not even about you. Rather, it is about establishing relationships within an ecosystem for the benefit of all participating. That is why Karens experience at RMI is so relevant and valuable. This is what lay at the heart of redefining high-tech marketing. It was not about the productit was about the whole product, the complete set of products and services that met the target customers compelling reason to buy. Karen has taken this entire suite of intellectual property and further developed and repurposed it to serve a new constituency in a new era.

Your job is to embrace the challenge of personal branding and to leverage the models and methods this book lays out to position yourself to provide maximum value to others. That, in turn, will create maximum value for you, both in terms of personal fulfillment and financial success. But it is only available to those who step up to the self-marketing challenge. The new business order does not in general have time or patience to discover the real you. You must take the lead here, regardless of how extroverted or introverted you may be. It is simply part of your job.

BrandingPays gives you a comprehensive, proven approach to succeeding in this task. It was developed on behalf of start-ups and entrepreneurs, and that is how it asks you to think of yourself. As your teacher and cheerleader, Karen guides you every step of the way. With any luck, putting these practices to work will make for a better world and a happier you. To that end, you have my very best wishes.

Geoffrey Moore

Author, speaker, advisor

Personal brandingthat is, creating your image and guiding your reputationhas never been more important than it is today. Why? Because globalization and social media have made the world smaller, more connected and infinitely more competitive. Your competition for a job or business opportunity may be anywhere in the worldat the desk next to you or continents away. It has never been more important to differentiate yourself from the pack.

My own corporate and personal branding business provides a great example of how everyone is competing for jobs and clients globally. Years ago, most of my service providers and clients were within a 20-mile radius of my Palo Alto, California, office. Today, I use a webmaster in Kuwait, a programming team in India and Los Angeles and a PR firm in Texas, and have clients in Asia, South America, Europe and throughout the United States. Word-of-mouth references are important, but so is ones web presencebeing found by search engines and standing out in a crowded and noisy market.

In addition to global competition, there has been a tidal change in how new technologies have affected our businesses and lives. I now rely on such technologies as social media, web services for collaboration, cloud storage, videocasting, ebooks and webinars that were not in my vocabulary 10 years ago. Instead of listening to CDs and broadcast radio, I listen to music and podcasts on my iPhone or use a web music service. Instead of going to a brick-and-mortar bank, I use my smartphone for deposits, transfers and paying bills. In every industry, old ways of doing things are being replaced by new ways.

What does all this change mean for you? There is a tremendous opportunity to position your personal brand to take advantage of the shifts in the business landscape. Its not good enough to maintain the status quo. Just as businesses need to reinvent themselves for new markets, you need to reinvent yourself for new career opportunities. Pumping up the volume with a purely tactical approach may create awareness of your current brand, but it may not entice anyone to offer you a new opportunity.

You need to be strategic. Reinventing your brand for new opportunities requires an understanding of market forces, your own assets and how you need to be positioned in the new world order. Think of yourself as a free agentno one else is looking out for your best interests but yourself. You need to be crystal clear about who you are and the value you bring to a world where constant change is the only norm.

If you want to stay competitive, you need to ask: Do I have a personal brand that gives me an advantage in todays world?

Personal branding is not rocket science. Creating the image that defines your unique value is something anyone can master. Its not just the purview of branding gurus and social media mavens.

Unfortunately, few understand what it takes to build a strong brandonline or offline. Some may be defeating themselves by promoting a weak image and a me-too message to an audience that doesnt care.

The best companies go through a rigorous process to develop the strategy to market and brand their products. But, as individuals, we often lack the understanding, the process or the tools to develop a strong brand strategy. I wrote BrandingPays: The Five-Step System to Reinvent Your Personal Brand to fill this need. The focus of it is on building a brand positioning strategy and developing your image and key messages, but it also includes many practical tips for implementation.

I want to help you feel confident in branding yourself. Personal branding is a skill that will pay huge dividends throughout your life and career.

BrandingPays: The Five-Step System to Reinvent Your Personal Brand is an excellent guide for:

Professionals who want to get a job or new position, change careers or get promoted

Recent graduates looking for a new job or position

Entrepreneurs who need to brand both themselves and their companies

The book lays out the practical BrandingPays Five-Step System for personal branding. This methodology makes branding as easy to understand as Bake the cake, then ice it, a metaphor I use to talk about the rational value (cake) and emotional value (icing) that make up strong brands.

Ive highlighted lessons and examples from my 20-plus years of branding experience and included insightful anecdotes and case histories from both companies and individuals. The book is filled with templates, graphic examples, action lists and URLs for online resources.