Everybody has a brand. They just dont know what to do with it. No matter whether your brand is Wal-Mart; Fred Smith, CEO; Juanita Gomez, director of training; neighbor; honey; or Momyou have a brand.
Now youre going to learn what to do with it.
Its easy to feel overwhelmed by the big players with big brands and even bigger budgets. But each of us can be king of our own domain once we learn to manage our brand.
As a corporate weenie, I hated seeing new executives being hired from the outside to do things I would end up teaching them to do. I watched them get big stock options and corner offices, while the real work and often the real thinking was being done for them. Was it their fault? No. It was mine. I had the ideas and the talent. I just didnt have the brand.
I remember when a new vice president of marketing was hired. Expensive suits and impressive education. His work was marginal at best. He was a lousy marketer for the company. He nearly killed our brand. But funny thing, he certainly was good at building his brand. His personal brand. His MicroBrand.
Now I understand the concept, and in a moment, you will, too!
MicroBrand
A precisely targeted, highly focused personal or local brand built through strategic use of PR and calculated networking.
A MicroBrand is:
- Efficient: Little brand-building efforts spill into non-targeted audiences.
- Personal: Likely to involve an individual personality.
- Local: Usually restricted geographically or by industry.
It is entirely accurate to say that brands are born, and just as accurate to say that we all have one. If they know your name, you have a brand. It may not be a good one or the one you want, but, by golly, youve got one. The real problem when it comes to the idea of branding is not how to create a brand. The real issue is how to manage one.
Put in more traditional terms, a brand is an idea that you or a product owns in the mind of the market. Whether you want someone to buy your product, your ideas, or even your company, your brand will either help or it will hurt.
Few of us think of ourselves as being branded but we are. In fact, we are multiply-branded. In other words, we dont own the same position in the mind of each of our market members.
One crisp workday we locked the office, let the phones fend for themselves, and headed with the staff to the Burger Basket. There, in front of the forlorn looking former gas station, was the usual line of pickup trucks. Some were new, some were well worn, and all were splattered with the buff-colored mud that means spring is about to come to the Texas Hill Country.
Amid this landscape of trucks was a shiny Nissan sedan. We knew in a heartbeat that a tourist had stumbled onto our lunchtime secret. Inside, amid western hats and gimme caps, mixed with the muddy boots, stained vests, bandanas, over-sized belt buckles, sat two city folk trying to look inconspicuous but failing miserably.
The place was its usual, noisy self, a fact not helped by the fact that nearly everyone walking through the squeaky door knows everyone already seated and must endure a chorus of Hey, Bubba!
We sat at the round table just north of the counter and hard next to the deuce occupied by the visitors. I couldnt help but overhear their conversation, which went like this:
Looks like were in the center of Podunk!
Must be the center of society. Its a happening place!
If you are wondering if I was offended, I wasnt. Center Point really is Podunk, and we really were at the center of society as far as our society goes. And, by any sensible measure, the Burger Basket would definitely qualify as happening.
I bet not one of these Bubbas would be comfortable at the Hyatt.
I doubt they would know which fork to pick up first.
Well, excuuuuse me! Anyone with the sense God gave a goose knows that more than one fork is redundant.
Sitting within spitting distance (and we all are accomplished spitters, thank you) was at least one paramedic, an author, a fellow who flies jets, an aircraft designer, and our neighbor, an international businessman who had flown around the world on the Concorde. Yep, just your average meeting of Bubbas.
On the ride back to the office, I repeated the conversation to my wife and best friend, Buns.
Im surprised you didnt set the record straight, she said.
I didnt think it mattered. Besides, if I actually impressed them with credentials, theyd want to move here. Better to keep quiet.
They had you branded! (And they were right on target because a brand is always in the mind of the market.)
A couple of nights ago, the grandkids who live up the hill showed up at our door. As usual, we got right to work spoiling them. The eight-year-old with the brown eyes goes by the moniker, Big Guy. His three-year-old shadow is known in our house as Lil Princess. Neither has the slightest idea that Ive ever written a book, given a keynote speech, or helped with a marketing project. And if you called looking for T. Scott Gross, they wouldnt know whom you were talking about.
We are branded Pops and Granny Buns. The sign at the ranch gate reads, Pops & Granny Buns. Warm hugs, fun stories, great food!
We are branded. You are branded. We are all multiply-branded depending to whom you are talking. You might be Gods gift to ABC Corporation, but you are just as likely Dad or Mom, Big Sister, Big Brother, or any of a million collections of thoughts placed over time in the mind of your life market.
MicroBranding Point: If they know you at all, you have a brand.
