Authors Corner: When Brand Name’s Go Wrong

February 15, 2008 at 11:52 am | In Personal Branding, Positioning, Recruitment, Reputation Management, SEO, authors corner | 15 Comments

Today is not such as laid back Friday. Since I was born and possibly before I was born, my last name has been tortured. When it comes to personal branding, your last name tends to be the most significant because of the uniqueness in identifying who you are and your family connection.

From elementary school, when my last name was misspelled, to Hebrew school, where the same mistake was made and even today, as a personal branding expert, my biggest challenge is beating the name “Schawbel” into people’s heads. I’ve thought of the root cause of this mistake throughout my 24 years on this earth and my conclusion is that the strength and recognition of the “Charles Schwab” has masked my own last name.

Charles Schwab - Brand Name

Dan Schawbel Brand Name

The Google Experiment

Google “Dan Schawbel”: 28,100

Google “Dan Schwabel”: 57,900

As you can see, the superior and world recognized “Charles Schwab” brand name has caused thousands of people to misspell my last name. On the receiving end, I’m frustrated, but when the sender finds out they have misrepresented my name, they show signs of sympathy and remorse.

The solution takes time, but there is a short-term remedy….

I actually have had this conversation before with one of my magazine editors, Connie Bensen, whose last name is commonly misspelled “Benson.” I fell victim to this as well and am happy she corrected me.

The solution is to purchase your misspelled name, such that Connie bought ConnieBenson.com and I purchased DanSchwabel.com and we both redirected them to our real names.

If you type in the wrong spelling of my full name in Google, you will still get my blog first and then get my main “brand” homepage afterward. I think it will take me years to separate my last name from the larger brand name of “Charles Schwab,” but I won’t quit anytime soon.

Question of the week

Don Truss pointed me to a very interesting question, via Yahoo! answers.

“How would you keep your employees motivated”?

Employee Motivation

Don, with his years of recruiting wisdom, took the best stab at it. He responded with:

“Funny, but when managers are asked “what motivates your employee?” they always answer – money. But when employees are asked “what is most important to you?” They always say “respect and appreciation.” Money is farther down on their list. To keep everyone motivated, they need to share a common vision of their future. Each employee must think “My contribution is very important – we won’t reach our goal without it.”

What are your thoughts readers?

15 Comments »

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  1. Dan I am loving your blogworks as usual!! I am sharing this with the Helping Friends Business Network as there are good professional development resources in this logic!

    Comment by Dawn Mular — February 15, 2008 #

  2. Dan,

    I love this post. I remember we talked about this as well.

    Keep it coming!

    Comment by Scott Bradley — February 15, 2008 #

  3. I feel your pain. I’ve got three name oddities:

    1. I go by my middle name, so the first day of every class, I had to correct the teacher.

    2. Then there’s that whole issue with using a “k” instead of a “c” in Erik. That’s the Scandinavian in me.

    3. And finally, I went from a completely average last name to celebrity status once the Harry Potter books came out. . .can’t tell you how many people ask me if I’m related. . .ugh.

    Enjoy your Friday, Dan.

    Comment by jerikpotter — February 15, 2008 #

  4. Bottom line, I don’t think you’ll stay at a job if you think you’re underpaid. We all think we should be making a million bucks a year, of course, but there’s such a stigma attached to salary that I think it hurts us all in the long run.

    Maybe it’s just me.

    Comment by Daniel — February 15, 2008 #

  5. Dan – In my case the problem is my first name, not my last. Google my name and no doubt you will find article after article about an NBA basketball player. That is not me. His first name is B-R-A-N-D-A-N.

    To combat this, I post often on my blog to beef up my web presence.

    Comment by Brandon — February 15, 2008 #

  6. It’s tricky Brandon. I’ve concluded that you need to select yourname.com/.net/.org and if it’s not available then you have a few other choices that I would recommend.

    1) Buy your full name, including your middle initial

    2) Buy a phrase you want to be known for

    Hope this helps :)

    Comment by Dan Schawbel — February 17, 2008 #

  7. I know your problem… My and my parents name is often misspelt. Even some bills come with the incorrect name… Luckily it is only a ˇ on l, but anyway I don´t know if I have to pay for it, if it is not on my name… :-)

    Comment by Susan — February 17, 2008 #

  8. Thanks for the thoughtful piece, Dan.

    With an unusual (for the U.S.) last name (Roesler), I’m going to have to give a little more thought to purchasing other domains with common misspellings. Wouldn’t have thought of that without your post!

    Comment by Steve Roesler — February 19, 2008 #

  9. I feel your pain. I once had a brand new corporate credit card arrive with this:
    ANITA BRAZZERE

    God…I was mortified.

    Anita Bruzzese

    Comment by Anita Bruzzese — February 19, 2008 #

  10. Great post, Dan, and I SO relate. You’re lucky that Dan is easy — both my first name AND last name get mispelled:

    Lindsey Pollak (correct)
    Lindsay (not correct)
    Pollack, Pollock (not correct)

    I also purchased all potential spellings of my name as well as adding them all to my profiles on LinkedIn, my blog and elsewhere. I used to complain about it, but now I’m just proactive about it.

    I promise I will spell your name correctly from now on!

    Lindsey

    Comment by Lindsey Pollak — February 19, 2008 #

  11. Unique names are unique for a reason. They rank high in search engines, but at a cost of misspelling them….

    Good examples by everyone! Thanks.

    Comment by Dan Schawbel — February 20, 2008 #

  12. This is a fun one for me. When I would Google my name a few years back it was all Sandusky, OH then my brother who was Texas A&M captain when they won the Big XII, than minor league baseball regular press. There is a davidsandusky.com in TX so I had to do http://www.DavidSandusky.net and make it netWORK since I can’t have the .com.

    As time goes on with a ton of networking, interviewing executives and business and public speaking – people I have never met say they have heard of me. My work is part of it, but, ahm, Sandusky, OH is part of it as well. I need to get online more!

    Now people from the past find me online with ease which is fun and when I speak, I am introduced as “David Sandusky, sounds like a city in OH” – people laugh and remember my name. As Dan so well advises, find ways to get that name recognized!

    Comment by David Sandusky — February 20, 2008 #

  13. My last name is long and Eastern European with lots of consonants juxtaposed that just shouldn’t be neighbors. I’ve taken to using my nickname zak as the abbreviated version of my last name. Thus I’m always signing my “first name” “nick name” “last name.” The majority of the time people cut off my last name in correspondence and introductions, and I’m fine with that. I’ll eventually legally change it, when I can afford to. Until then I make sure my online presence utilizes both the nickname and last name so people can find me.

    Comment by zak — February 29, 2008 #

  14. I can’t even begin to diagnose all the ways my last name is misspelled. All the o’s get replaced by various vowels, or someone will add an “and” to the end. It’s a tough one. Add to that the fact that I’m getting married in two months to someone with a universally recognized, easy to spell, yet common last name, and this whole name issue is incredible hard for me to come to terms with.

    Comment by Tiffany Monhollon — March 1, 2008 #

  15. It is one thing to have another human being misspell or mispronounce your name but when your own computer and phone constantly auto “correct” your name to Kate Gillion instead of Katy Gilloon, that is when I am most frustrated. Thanks for the destresser- Katy

    Comment by Katy Gilloon — March 19, 2008 #


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