Branding Yourself – What’s your Slogan and Added Value
We may be seeing the end of “big is better” when comes to institutions like banks and manufacturers that have been around for a while. Automobile manufacturers for example.
For a lot of reasons – generations, economics, bursting bubbles – instead of counting on a twenty or thirty year “gig” for you and your career big
brand, it is proving to be more like 3 years and done. On to the next. The skills you want to have may have more to do with your being comfortable tackling change, being flexible and successful with something new that you don’t know very much about vs. what you did on your last job. (For this reason, it’s good to know that we can learn anything that we want in time.)
Hint: If what you did in the past was relevant you might still be there.
Branding and positioning have been around for a while. Trout and Reis wrote great books about it. Ad agencies made millions on developing them and some brands have been made enormously successful through smart marketing – McDonalds, Nike, Etrade, GEICO are a few that come to mind. When it comes to branding yourself, a new set of challenges take the stage. Instead of looking at your resume as a set of things that you’ve accomplished, you need to be able to spell out a set of adjectives that you can bring to every situation. Yes, know your personal positioning – what’s unique about you and your skills, your educataional background,what you are passionate about, and your job results. Then do like one seemingly successful automobile manafacturer says when you buy one of their automobiles “you get in addition to the car, the following”…
- Something that is desirable,
- That is passionate,
- Sensual,
- Seductive,
- Artistic and creative,
- That is cool,
- That exhilarating
- And luxurious
What else are you bringing, what is your added value? If you were a lifestyle what kind would you be? Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Product and User Experience of Google says that when they are looking for new hires the top 2 qualifications they must have are “smart” and “take charge.” This is the kind of person fits the description, “When you hire the (background, education, work-experience fill in the blanks) you also get someone who is a leader, dependable and brilliant.” Likely in this economy, desirable too.
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