The Top 5 Ways to Brand Yourself Inside Your Company

November 19, 2008 at 12:22 pm | In Career Development, Personal Branding, Success Strategies | 11 Comments

Lately, there has been a raging battle, where people have lashed out at personal branding. First, we heard from Geoff Livingston (a friend), who says “I don’t care about your personal brand.” There were a lot of comments on that blog for and against personal branding. Then, Mitch Joel, a personal branding advocate chimed in, telling people that they need to care more about their personal brand. Finally, Pete Kistler, an up-and-coming personal branding evangelist, summarized the arguments in a nice post.

I’ve already gone over the top 5 personal branding myths and feel that some people just have a lack of understanding on this topic, and are afraid of it, so they go against it. Personal branding is NOT all about you. Personal branding is for everyone and you simply don’t have a choice, whether to brand yourself or not, because you’ve already been branded since birth.

You know where I stand (it’s pretty obvious), so I’d rather give you a post that positions personal branding as beneficial to corporate America, so you understand that this process isn’t just for consultants. Sure, you can brand yourself to get a job, but a lot of people have difficulty succeeding in the workplace. Just because you get the job, you certainly aren’t off the hook! The following are five proven ways for you to successfully brand yourself within a company.

1) Become the go-to personal for a specific skill or expertise

If you’re a millennial, this tip should be easy to implement, especially if you work in a workplace, where there aren’t many other millennials. People our age grew up in an ocean of technology, fabricated with text messaging, instant messaging, VOIP and much more. We also are very computer savvy, so when someone needs help with Excel, PowerPoint or blogging, we should jump in the air and say “I can help you.” You want to become known for something (brand yourself), so that when people need help in a specific area, your name pops into their head.


2) Dress the part

What you wear in an interview might be different than working at the company. Depending on your style, the companies culture and the day-of-the-week, you may dress differently. Also, a factor is the nature of your job. For instance, engineers typically wear t-shirts and jeans (I lived with one last year). Startup companies are usually more flexible, especially web 2.0 ones (the Facebook founder wears sandals). If you do sales for a Fortune 500 company, you are probably going to wear a suit. Be conscious of how people dress in your role and dress the part.

image provided by lumaxart.com

If you find yourself taking all the credit for your projects and isolating your team members, you are clearly doing something wrong. The best brands in the workplace thrive on helping the team succeed. You will benefit by being a good team-player by forging stronger relationships with colleagues and by the results you will obtain through your overall effort. People will want to work with you on your next big project if you treat them right and you follow-through on commitments.

4) Blog on behalf of your company

There are a lot of people who blog about their position or on their expertise, as it relates to their company. I rarely do this because this blog was built to be the HQ of personal branding worldwide (#1 resource for you), and not a corporate blog. I do, however, blog about interesting things going on at work as they relate to personal branding, such as how we’ve used social media to build EMC’s brand and how our employer brand is very attractive. Richard Binhammer (DELL), Jeremiah Owyang (Forrester and winner of the Gold Personal Brand Award of 2008), Bill Marriott (Marriott), and Richard Edelman (Edelman) are great examples of corporate spokespeople who are blogging for their company. Blogging for your company can help get the word out and, from the corporate perspective, it’s not costing them a dime! You will also establish fame and reputation inside your company and it could boost your career.

5) Make your manager look like a rockstar

In general, one of the reasons I’ve been successful is because I’ve helped make other people successful first. This is the ultimate way to make a name for yourself. I’ll be talking about this for years to come. When it comes to branding yourself within a company, the first person you need to make successful is your manager. Good managers will give you credit on your work and talk you up to their manager (typically a director). By doing quality work, your manager has heavily artillery when venturing into the executive jungle. If he gets a bonus, raise, promotion or some other special recognition, you better believe it will work in your favor.

Exclusive Interview with Marketing Pioneer David Aaker

November 19, 2008 at 12:27 am | In Book Reviews, People, Personal Branding, marketing | Leave a Comment

Today, I spoke with marketing pioneer, David Aaker, about his new book “Spanning Silos.”  The main idea we talk about is how silos are impediments to great marketing.  Silos isolate people, ideas and creatvity and by making it a corporate wide issue, companies can become more successful.  Innovation is the key these days and when it comes to personal branding, you want to be in a creative environment, where you can interact (network) with as many as your coworkers as possible.  Networking within a company harvests productivity.

What are spanning silos and why are they jeopardizing companies’ marketing efforts?

“Silos are organizational units defined by product, countries, or functions.”

They can be monumentally inefficient and, worse, barriers to great marketing and brands. Most operate in isolation if not in competition with each other.

They foster inefficiency, inhibit synergy, fail to leverage skills and successes, lead to resource misallocation, diffuse competence in key marketing activities, and create brand confusion. In tough economic times, such inefficiencies and barriers can mean the difference between business success and disappointing marketing performance or even survival.

What are some ways a CMO can break down silo walls to foster cooperation and synergy?

My research involving over 40 CMOs reported in my book Spanning Silos has several headlines.

  • First, the role of the CMO team in the absence of a crises and changed business strategy, may be a nonthreatening one such as being a facilitator, consultant, or service provider. Such roles can avoid organizational stress and CMO flameout while still going a long way toward creating a communication and cooperation processes and culture and thus addressing many of the silo-driven issues.
  • Second, silos can and should be a vehicle to test and refine ideas. Perhaps more important, silos can be a source of ideas for breakthrough products or marketing campaigns that can be rolled out across the organization. McDonald’s “I’m lovin it” came from Germany and Pantene’s “Hair So Healthy It Shines” came from Taiwan.
  • Third, one way to get buy-in from the organization is to align the role of marketing with that of the CEO’s priority agenda. Focus on growth objectives instead of brand extensions, efficiency and cost objectives instead of marketing synergy or scale, and building assets to support strategic initiatives instead of brand image campaigns.
  • Fourth, use cross-silo teams to create relationships and communication channels. To succeed the team needs to have members with good group skills as well as the right expertise, leaders that can deal with multiple cultures, and clarity of mission.

What is the impact of globalization on corporate marketing programs?

They need to be concerned with coordinating the programs across countries and regions. Usually brands and programs need to be adapted to local culture but, also there is potential for shared ideas and synergistic programs of the “I am different” silo culture can be overcome.

CMO’s only last a few years on the job. Why is this? What stories have you heard from the more successful CMOs?

Actually, the number is 23 months less that half that of a CEO. The basic reason is that silos have power and don’t have to communicate and cooperate. The often believe that they know their products and markets well and that anyone else inserting themselves would only waste time. They usually have no motivation to reduce the silo walls because they are evaluated solely on the silo performance.

How can we apply many of the concepts and ideas in your book to the individual trying to market their own personal brand?

The major takeaway for an individual is a recognition that silos are a major organizational challenge and that everyone has an opportunity to be part of the solution. There will be a big payoff to the person who can network, establish relationships, and communicate across silos. Even more to the person who can initiate cross silo programs. Some organizations formally measure such things but even those that don’t will recognize success that results.

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David Aaker is the Vice Chairman of Prophet and the creator of the Aaker Model™. He has published more than 100 articles and 14 books, including Managing Brand Equity, Building Strong Brands, Developing Business Strategies, Brand Leadership, Strategic Market Management, From Fargo to the World of Brands, and Brand Portfolio Strategy. David is author of a forthcoming book, Spanning Silos: The New CMO Imperative, to be released October 2008.

He is also featured in a chapter of Conversations with Marketing Masters – a collection of insights from some of the world’s most influential marketing gurus. As the Professor Emeritus at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, he has been awarded four career awards including the 1996 Paul D. Converse Award for outstanding contributions to the development of marketing.

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