The Personal Branding Dilemma

By Rajesh Setty on Sat 05 Jul 2008, 9:01 PM - 8 Comments

You can’t NOT work on your personal brand. You have got one and you can never escape from it. It is “who you are” to the world. It is “your promise to the marketplace” and you are making one – whether you want it or not. Now, the real question is “how powerful is your personal brand?” This is something that is in your control. You can make a difference there by investing in yourself.

My hero Tom Peters introduced the concept of a Personal Brand in 1997 (more than a decade ago). It is wonderful to note that the concept is now taking off in a big way. Almost swinging to another extreme now. There is a popular model now to build your personal brand:

One of the reasons for the concept to take off is that the barrier to entry for many popular destination sites is very low. You want to start a blog – you can do that in less than minute. You want to broadcast “what are you doing” now to the world – sign up for Twitter – less than a minute. You can create a podcast in less than 10 minutes and you can create a website in almost the same time. In summary, creating a footprint on the internet is easy today. Anybody can do it and most pieces are FREE. So the popular model today is focused on quickly executing on the personal brand.  The model is flawed for the simple reason is that it is hard to distinguish yourself if you are joining the crowd of people who are just trying to distinguish themselves by doing what everyone else is doing. In fact, at a fundamental level, the very fact that you are following what is popular will preclude you from being distinct.

Alternatively, there is a long-term model to building a personal brand:

The long-term model for personal branding adds a few more pieces to the personal branding puzzle.

1. Relevant and Valuable Accomplishments:  The bedrock of any solid personal brand will be accomplishments that the marketplace determines as relevant and valuable. Nothing else. Why do people skip working on accomplishments? Simply because they are hard to do and the barriers to entry are high.

2. Supporting Structure: The next piece missing is the development of supporting structure to produce even bigger accomplishments – building on the earlier accomplishments. You can’t attract quality people to support you unless you first produce some accomplishments that are noteworthy. Of course, there are always exceptions based on your history but they are rare. You can’t do this alone – at least when you have big goals on your agenda. You need help. Actually, you need VERY GOOD help. That is the part of supporting structure that you need tow work throughout your lifetime to build.

3. Ability to Deal with the New Personal Brand: The last piece of the puzzle is your overall development to deal with the consequences of your new personal brand. People tend to dismiss this but it’s always important to be ready – to savor the success of your personal brand. There will be more things to deal with (like requests for help) almost on a daily basis. Without being prepared, you might just ruin what you have worked hard to build.

Note:
You can download the eBook “Personal Branding for Technology Professionals” (PDF, 40 pages) for FREE. The eBook has been downloaded around 165,000 times so far. Thank you for your support. While the eBook is targeted at Technology Professionals, the concepts are applicable to any knowledge worker.

Have a great week ahead!

Posted under Main Page.

Google Adwords and a Blonde joke

By Rajesh Setty on Fri 04 Jul 2008, 8:58 AM - 5 Comments

What has a blonde joke got to do with Google Adwords?

First, the blonde joke:

A blonde and her friend were driving past a gas station. The friend remarked – “These gas prices are going through the roof like crazy. Are you also upset?” The blonde responded immediately – “Actually, I don’t know why people are making a big deal about it. I always put gas for $20 every time. So I don’t have any problem”

Now, the brilliance of the Adwords model:

Companies can advertise on Google Adwords and bid higher to be placed higher on the ad stack. When one or more competitors try to outbid them, they can increase the bid even higher to ensure that they hold the place. If you think about it, every advertiser for a keyword is competing with everyone else to PAY MORE TO GOOGLE than the other player. You can almost visualize them as screaming “Allow me to pay more to you Mr. Google” and we will fight like crazy to ensure that we are the highest payers for using your service.

Now, the connection:

In the last couple of weeks, at three CEO friends told me that they have been advertising on Google Adwords for the last few years. Today they can only buy half of what $10K would have given them two years ago.

Now, the real question:

Unlike the blonde near the gas station, the CEOs know that they are getting less for the same money and they definitely want to explore alternatives.  The real question therefore is “What are those alternatives?”

Photo courtesy: Tortuga One via Flickr

Posted under Business Models.

Globat Automatic Upgrade Scam – Company never learns

By Rajesh Setty on Tue 01 Jul 2008, 9:14 PM - 4 Comments

I have written about Globat Automatic Upgrade scam before. I have been busy to switch to another hosting company but I don’t think the company will ever learn how to “serve” the customers. I got another promotion that I had to opt out.

Here is the page where they ask me “why I am opting out”

All the best for others who are with Globat!

Posted under Business Models.

On Inspiration by Wislawa Szymborska

By Rajesh Setty on Tue 01 Jul 2008, 7:13 PM - 1 Comment

This is an excerpt from the Nobel Prize lecture of poet Wislawa Szymborska. The topic is Inspiration.

I’ve mentioned inspiration. Contemporary poets answer evasively when asked what it is, and if it actually exists. It’s not that they’ve never known the blessing of this inner impulse. It’s just not easy to explain something to someone else that you don’t understand yourself.

When I’m asked about this on occasion, I hedge the question too. But my answer is this: inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.”

Note: This is courtesy of my friend Neil Wadhawan at Heartwood Studios. I totally enjoyed it and I got Neil’s permission to share this with all of you.

Posted under Main Page.