Sun 8 Mar 2009
How to tell the truth
Posted by Lisa Hickey under branding
photo credit: discoodoni
For those of you who do believe in a “personal brand”, you know how this works. There’s the “real” you, and you’ve set about making sure your personal brand reflects that. Your core values are expressed consistently across a wide variety of communication channels. You make sure that what and how you communicate about yourself is both relevant to your target audience and differentiating from your competition. You’re proud of your brand and what you’ve created but one thing is nagging at you.
See, there’s this other side of you that’s disorganized, parties too much, swears on occasion. Or maybe it’s the side of you that is so driven you sometimes forget the niceties of social interaction. Or you are painfully shy, or you ramble on and on, or you can never remember where you put your car keys.
The real you is a complex person, and far from perfect. So what do you do when you want your brand to be perfect but you aren’t?
Communicate. And demonstrate. Keep the focus on your positive qualities. You can tell the world about those – in an authentic, non-boastful, factual way. But better yet, demonstrate those qualities every chance you get.
Want to be known as a “friendly, smart problem-solver”? Talk with people. Ask what their problems are. Help solve them. A world-class strategist? Start strategizing, publish your thoughts. Want to be known as “creative?” Create things. Bake pies for a homeless shelter with cool designs on them. See how quickly people start saying, “Oh, you’re so creative.” And then notice how quickly that trumps shyness.
Word of mouth is great. Word of action is better. Hint: if you don’t have time to actually do the things you want to be known for, you’ve chosen the wrong brand for yourself.
The right personal brand will allow you to have flaws. If you do a consistently good job of branding the qualities you want to be known for, people will forgive you for your flaws. In fact, they will consider you more human. Caveat: keep your flaws legal and unhurtful to others.
Get out there and make mistakes. Then show the world how you fix them. One sign of a true professional is how much grace they exhibit when things get ugly. Go ahead. Demonstrate how you would fix a mistake, say your sorry, admit failure. And if you make a mistake while fixing the mistake, guess what? Do it again until you learn how to do it well.
If your real self and your brand don’t align, one of them needs to go. Tired of feeling like you are “hiding behind your brand?” Don’t.
In this world of transparency, know you will be found out. This is a good thing. Transparency means that everyone’s flaws, mistakes, shortcomings will become more obvious. Perhaps the world will become more forgiving. But, in the meantime, here’s another strategy: as other peoples’ weaknesses become apparent, use your strengths to help those people. Then watch how quickly your own strengths come to life.
I think of personal branding this way: It’s not that you can’t be yourself. It’s just being conscious of what you want the world to remember.
Greetings, Lisa.
I first met you 25 years ago when you were known, not by your choice, as “The Wizard Of Adz”.
You joined our little ELFdom in unchartered territory known as The West End of Boston.
From there we took on evil empires and were victorious.
Other brave soldiers joined us in this effort who have since gone on to establish their own utopian creative domains.
As we expanded our colonies on a global basis, you were decorated with extraordinary honors reserved for very few who were willing to take the ultimate creative risk.
Even with success, we learned that despite our collective recognition, treating others with respect, dignity, humanity, and benevolence, is above all, most important.
Today, Lisa, you rule as “The Queen Of Universal Creative Thinking”
And once again, I salute you.
Keith Lane
Creative Director
Never Stop Creating.
Cobbler’s Children Syndrome.
Don’t have a website.
Yet.
But will soon.
For now, I’m located on LinkedIn.
Keith Lane Creative Director.
Shalom.
Thx. Truth.
You’ve done a great job of crystalizing the practical ways to achieving both authenticity and transparency.
Your point that “the right personal brand will allow you to have flaws” is particularly important for those who are afraid to get out there thinking they don’t know enough yet to not screw it up. I let that stop me for too long!
Now I still take a deep breath every time I press publish on a new blog post. Somehow it is beginning to feel more like exhileration than fear though. I’ll remember this post when I have a mistake to clean up.
Very well put. I’m always trying to encourage clients to “be themselves” and I think the way you sum it up is perfect.
Another quote I like is “The enemies you make by taking a stand will generally have more respect for you than the friends you make by sitting on the fence”.
Great post, Lisa. I agree. I agree. I find it’s the imperfections that make people like a personal brand. Or at least, that’s what I’m hoping…
Amy
Thanks everyone, for your thoughtful comments. I like the idea of taking a stand, and also the thought of simply allowing for more flaws, in both ourselves and others. It will be interesting to see where this all goes, with personal brands merging with corporate ones and personal/professional boundaries becoming blurred. But that’s another post entirely.