The brand called you ebook

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Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Tim Vandehey. Want to make money with less work? Create a Personal Brand that tells customers how you're different from your competition and build your relationships with them daily.

The Brand Called You is the ultimate resource for building your Personal Brand, one that sells you, not your product or company. With action plans, insight and case studies, The Brand Called You is your guidebook to getting the best customers, growing your business, and making more money.

Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions 1. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Brand Called You , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Keep the basic message the same and keep plug- ging away. This usually means dressing more pro- fessionally than your clients.

If they tend toward jeans, dress in Dockers. If they prefer khakis, wear a casual suit, and so on. Always remember that bad branding is worse than no branding at all. Jones burst on the scene in with her album Come Away with Me. How has she done it? The best way to explain it is that Jones has remained true to herself and therefore to her Personal Brand.

Norah Jones has mastered the final crucial element of a winning Personal Brand: authenticity. You have to be real. With so much mar- keting swirling around consumers at all times, we all have extremely powerful B.

We despise phonies. Be yourself. Do not try to be all things to all people. It defies logic, but visibility increases your credibility. When people see your name or face consistently, they assume you must be more successful—and therefore better—than the service providers they never see. Those businesses that are highly visible will get the calls.

Visibility becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your Personal Brand is your weapon in the visibility battle. It keeps you visible to prospects and constantly reminds them of who you are and what you do.

Ability does matter, of course. Once you get the business, your ability to perform and provide value helps you keep it and turn it into referrals.

Visibility gets prospects in the door. Ability keeps them with you for many years. The final building block in the DNA of a Personal Brand is a clear understanding of how creating a brand around yourself translates into bottom-line benefits. Begin compiling all your client e-mails into a single database. Reach out to newspaper and magazine editors in your area about their willingness to run original articles with your byline.

Make an appointment to have new photos taken of you and your business. Calculate the percentages of your income provided by your A, B, and C clients. Call local colleges to find a journalism student who can ghostwrite articles for you. Based on my more than ten years working to help professionals build and maintain their Personal Brands, I would say that a well-built, well-supported, well-maintained brand is worth at least percent of the value of your business over five years.

It all depends on four factors: 1. How thoroughly you integrate your Personal Brand into every as- pect of your business and your life 3. How consistently you follow up your initial effort with communi- cations, marketing, and outreach 4. You could do a lot more and become like Omaha, Nebraska — based financial advisor Ron Carson, who developed a ster- ling client service program and today is ranked as the number one in- dependent financial advisor in the country by Registered Rep magazine.

When was the last time you did that? Have you ever done that? For some people, the ideal client is simply the most affluent individ- ual possible, someone who can pay an exorbitant fee. You already know who your ideal client is. To paraphrase my mother, knock it off! Specialists are the people in this world who make the big bucks. Specialists who zero in on a market with specific needs can charge more for their services, work with fewer clients, spend less time servicing those clients, and work shorter hours while increasing their per-hour income.

So if you want to become more successful, I have a very simple, terrifying piece of advice: Cut your number of clients in half. Let the prospects be attracted to you through your branding. All members of your staff should have their own Personal Brands for the people they come into contact with.

They might total 15 percent of your client base but provide 50 percent of your revenue. These are the clients you want to keep. You want to kick them to the curb in the next three months.

Good riddance. By identifying the qualities that make your A clients your best clients, you will tailor your Personal Brand to attract more of them. Identify the clients who meet all these criteria; they are your ideal clients. Your mission is to clone these people and bring in more of them. So you identify the 25 patients you currently see who can afford to do this, start referring all your other patients out, and launch a branding campaign to attract more ideal patients.

Begin scheduling meetings with colleagues to whom you might refer the clients you no longer want. Send your new business cards and letterhead out to your current A and B client base. Have one of your staff contact local sports teams, schools, youth sports leagues, and so on to ask about sponsorship opportunities.

Work with your Web developer to create a new structure and con- tent map for your new online presence. If you have profiles on social networking Web sites like LinkedIn, delete them and replace them with new profiles that reflect your Personal Brand. But the friendly, laid-back Wyland is much more than his paintings and his famous paint-signature logo: He has built a brand on goodwill, global eco-awareness, educa- tion, and his latest passion, his own jazz label.

With the thirtieth anniversary of the Wyland Studio and the fifteenth anniversary of the Wyland Foundation, the artist has a lot to celebrate. Without any real intent to turn himself into a franchise, Wyland sensed that to promote his art, he needed to promote his love for the sea and its inhabitants.

He proved to be a natural. I love people. I love the response I get to my art. With his cool beach crib, his travels, and his aquatic ways, Wyland has created a lifestyle brand reminiscent of this singer who lives in someplace called. Doing good things and giving back, people want to be involved in something like that. It elevates the whole thing. The music business was so dysfunctional, I decided to start my own record company with no ob- stacles and create a new paradigm for distribution.

The theme was the ocean and the art and the message. I put together the greatest musicians on the planet, write the melodies and the words, and put it all together. The next one will tell the story of water through the blues: the Mississippi Delta, Memphis soul, all that. His brand is consistent and is always tied to the same ideas: the ocean, marine life, and clean water conservation.

X-Factor: The Whaling Walls. Wyland might have remained a success- ful but regional personality had it not been for his Whaling Walls. These enormous murals, each depicting an underwater scene of great whales and dolphins, began in with the Laguna Beach wall.

I will also dedicate the first sculpture I did for the Olympics, three dolphins. And for the next 25 years, I want to do monumental sculptures in cities around the world. The idea was that people would see the art and the beauty and see the message. The investments you make, they eventually bear fruit. The biggest barrier to reaching this promised land, sadly, is fear: fear of cutting business loose and not being able to replace the income.

After you identify your best clients, find the clients who meet only half of the A-client qualifications. These are your B clients. Phase them out slowly. C clients are not fun to work with, they think you charge too much, and they bury you in complaints. Try not to cackle with glee as you mail the letters.

You may want to post that on your office wall for about six months and say it every day as a sort of mantra. New deadbeats will call or come into your office, and your reflex is going to be to process them and turn them into clients.

Most will come via referral from your current clients. That takes a while. Have a system in place to refer them elsewhere. More on that later. You want to attract more and more ideal clients, so take the time to deconstruct those ideal clients and write down the qualities that they share.

Those are the qualities you want your brand to appeal to. They average 53 years old. They own businesses. They are politically conservative. They live in the same mile-radius area around several pre- mium golf courses. They are not technology-savvy.

Your Personal Brand must push those six buttons in order to at- tract both referrals from your existing client base and new ideal clients off the street. And your in-office experience will be as elegant as the Ritz-Carlton. Once you know what makes your A clients lucrative and enjoyable to work with, and what they have in common with you, you can tai- lor your Personal Brand to attract people with those qualities.

Hire a graphic designer to begin work on your new collateral ma- terials. If you work from home, begin searching for an affordable office.

Apply for a bulk-rate mailing permit from the post office. Put together your basic press kit. Attend your first professional networking events with your new business cards in hand. By limiting your services to a more select group of people, you create what economists call scarcity.

The demand for your services exceeds supply, and prices rise. By becoming exclu- sive, you can justify raising your fees. But be prepared to deliver that premium-quality ser- vice, not just lip service.

But it gets better. Maybe you can let some people go, or you can turn them toward marketing and bringing in new business or creating customer delight. In general, fewer clients means reduced costs, and that also raises your net income. Fewer clients who are not wasting your hours with ridiculous requests translates into less time spent at the office. Doing that not only creates tremendous goodwill for you, but also creates a potential reverse referral channel that can bring you new ideal clients from time to time.

This is a big deal. Maybe your mail- ing list or client database has some resale value, but not much. But when you build a Personal Brand that attracts top-quality clients and gives you an elite reputation in the community and the industry, your brand becomes your biggest asset.

You can open new locations and eventually sell your business when you retire early, because your brand has the value. Charles Schwab will go on long after its founder retires or dies because the brand is so strong. A great Personal Brand allows you to sell your business or pass it on to an heir.

Part of the reason you got your education and went into business for yourself was to control your time and enjoy being your own mas- ter. The purpose of launching any career is to fuel a lifestyle that gives you joy and meaning.

Un- fortunately, many of us forget that in the rush to build a company and the headlong panic to stay ahead of expenses and grow.

You run the business. Of course, doing all this demands a financial investment. The first and most indispensable of these components is specializa- tion. Why did the late, great Bo Diddley remain a familiar face and name even though his music was more than 50 years old?

Because he was a specialist. Specialization is the single most important Personal Branding strategy in your arsenal. You simply cannot build an effective brand without being a specialist. Specialization builds on the ideal client you chose in the last chapter and uses that information to help you narrow down the scope of your brand communication. When you specialize, you run counter to the common business impulse to do more for more people. Specialization lets you pick a few lucrative, in- demand areas of your business and build your brand around them.

Instead of being a generalist who tries to be all things to all people, you set yourself apart from your competition by doing a few things very well. We remem- ber those people who spark our interest with a precise talent, a precise field of knowledge, or a precise fact. They respect what you say and are more likely to pay more for your perceived special knowledge. So you get to enjoy your work and make more money. What a waste of your time.

If you are, they call. But I think the best reason of all to specialize is that it makes your business more manageable. That costs a lot of money. By restricting the scope of your business, you reduce your costs and your work. Instantly, your work and your costs go down. You can laser-focus your communications materials, sales presentation, signage, staff training, and Web site on this one small market. Life gets easier. Make a list of special events you could hold to reach out to your clients, such as ice cream socials, free classes, or fund-raisers.

Make a list of physical locations around your area where point- of-purchase displays might reach your ideal clients. Search the Web for sites related to your business where you might run articles or place advertising. Research possible venues for public seminars, such as conference centers or churches. Check with any organizations you belong to—churches, political groups, or civic organizations the Elks, for example —about the possibility of making a presentation to the membership.

Decide on your new fee structure. This does happen, and it can poison your image a bit if former clients are left resentful. It is possible to be too specialized and there- fore too limited in how big your business can get. As you can see, the benefits of specialization far outweigh the risks. Without them, you have nothing. We identified your ideal client, but your ideal client and your target market are not the same thing.

Your ideal client is just that: an ideal. A target market is a group of prospects that can be defined by a broad range of possible characteristics, including geographic location, lifestyle and hobbies, income, gender, life stage, occupation, religious belief, or ethnicity. You could even have a target market consisting just of people work- ing at a single company or attending a single megachurch.

In any case, your job is to figure out what target market, defined by what characteristics, gives you the best odds of attracting the largest num- ber of ideal clients. This may seem daunting, but you probably already know a lot about what your perfect target market is.

Well, what demographic group is most likely to include the largest number of those ideal clients? The best way to launch the target market discovery process is to write down your ideal client profile, then brainstorm possible demographics. As you do this, keep four questions in mind: 1. Is this target market big enough to allow me to reach my income goals? Is there already entrenched competition? Do I enjoy working with this type of person and in this area of my business?

Is there an unmet need that I can meet? Where are you most likely to find such people? Using your common sense and experience, along with resources like Lifestyle Market Analyst and Web sites like www. Now you ask the four questions: 1. Some, but no one has dominated the market. Yes, for green living. Looks like this target market is a fit! When you know your target market, you can create your specializa- tion and design your entire business to appeal to that market.

It was funny, entertaining, and charming. For Schlessinger, integrity is her most prized possession. That really means defending traditional, conservative family values against modern cynicism, relativism, and political correctness.

It also means candor. She is renowned and in some quarters, reviled for giving her unvarnished opinion about such topics as feminism, child rearing, sex, and pornography. Millions of others do. Her integrity and sense of moral val- ues have also led her to support foundations that serve abused and neglected children and the families of fallen military heroes. Even when a scandal erupted in when a former boyfriend published nude photos of Schlessinger on the Internet, she did not cave.

She went to court to prevent the release of the photos and explained her prior actions as a result of her once-feminist mentality. I have consis- tency in my message, and I focus on getting it out through my Web site, radio show, and books. The consistency and focus of the mes- sage create the brand. Laura—themed cruises. She knows how to work brand development. But that statement has become her trade- mark and a flashpoint for people who love to criticize her.

Someone of national stature had come out of the feminist closet and stated that her family, not her career, was the focal point of her life. It made Schlessinger an icon. In fact, she hates to be called one, because she feels that it makes her seem like her persona was created by a cor- porate marketing board. But she knows the power her brand has and always puts respect for her audience first. People see that I mean what I say and what I do.

This approach has earned me my tenth New York Times bestseller status. That depends on three factors: your income goal, how much you earn from each ideal client, and what percentage of your total prospect pool you can expect to turn into paying clients. You should already have your income goal. Next, he looks at his list of A clients, the ideal clients that he wants more of.

So he needs 40 A clients to reach his goal, right? Not necessarily. He also wants to raise his fees by 25 percent. So 36 clients is the goal. Now the third factor: market penetration. What percentage of the prospects that see his marketing will actually become his clients? That includes people who are referred to you though referral conversion rates tend to be quite high as well as those who see your ads, brochures, direct mailers, and Web site, and people who en- counter you through any sort of community outreach or public re- lations you might do.

That means that to get 36 ideal clients per year, he needs to reach a total of 1, prospects with his Personal Brand. My answer is, probably, once you get rid of those time-wasting B and C clients. Finish reinventing your physical office environment. Begin developing a curriculum for seminars—coursework, a work- book, and so on. Contact companies in your region about private seminars. Start your own blog if you have time to post to it at least four times a week at blogger.

Surf the Web to remove anything that might be potentially embar- rassing, e. You need to specialize your service for your target market. Be precise and anticipate what your market needs. If filing articles of incorporation is a small sliver of your law practice, get rid of it.

The more focused you can be, the better. In specialization there is value. Step 3: Reinvent Your Business Model Reaching your goal depends entirely on connecting with this collec- tion of prospects in such a way that they become ideal clients. You might end up leaving some as- pects of your current business model alone while changing others radically.

It all depends on what will make the people in your target market feel that you understand them and can give them what they need. Clients will base their opinion of your trust- worthiness on the smallest of factors. Make it clear that if something is outside your area of expertise, your clients will have to find an- other vendor.

Then have a list of possible vendors to offer them. That will drive away some, but attract others. Your specialization statement must tell your prospects: 1. Who you are 2. What you do 3. You should have in mind a more precise description of who you are as a professional, a honed and razor-sharp service offering, and a clear idea of your target market. Each element is precise and specific, not general.

The gerontolo- gist works only with women, the financial advisor appeals to Ivy League snobbery, and the lawyer handles only drunk-driving cases. Practice writing your specialization statement. Try to make it as con- cise and exact as the ones given here. Think about who your ideal clients are and write it for them, no one else. Brainstorm and have fun with this. It should be fun, not a chore. But also keep in mind that your specialization statement is not a public document.

The greatest Per- sonal Brands today are specialists. Rachael Ray, who has become an industry unto herself with her multiple television shows, her books, and her Every Day magazine, has built her booming brand around one simple idea: minute meals. Rather than try to be a general cuisine wizard, she staked out a position that she knew would appeal to busy women everywhere.

Jim Cramer, host of the popular Mad Money cable TV program, has also built a thriving, growing Personal Brand based on a special- ization, but his is more about style than about content. His specialization is his personality, not the information he delivers.

If I can serve this one target market so well, they think, why not choose two or three more? Diversification creates confusion. It plants seeds of doubt in the minds of prospects. Get competitive bids from mailing-list companies for lists that go to your target market. Hire and train a telemarketing staff. Send your letter to your C clients explaining that you are reengi- neering your practice and will no longer be able to service their needs, but will be happy to recommend other service providers.

Develop your time management system: mobile electronic calen- dar, e-mail alerts of upcoming meetings or events, a Web-based system for communicating with your clients, and whatever else works for you. Work with a copywriter to craft your first set of direct-mail mes- sages. A good example of the damage dilution can do is Calvin Klein. For decades, his brand of clean-lined, stylish attire set the standard for the industry. Then he made a critical error: he decided that if he was a specialist in mainstream retail, he could make even bigger profits in discount stores.

Hence the appearance of Calvin Klein clothes at chains like Costco. Sure, he sells more of his low-end product. If you want to increase your income, offer new, more costly services or add a partner.

If you must take on more clients, stick to your ideal client core. Be aware of emotional needs. You can specialize in such areas. Create something new. Focus and get smaller. Instead of constantly doing more, do less. The trick: knowing exactly what your prospects would love to have in a service provider, providing that single gold-plated service, and having strategic partners who can give clients the other services they need without poaching them.

Find partners. Like I just said, find specialist partners who com- plement what you do. Become a resource, not just a service provider. Change as your needs change. But in five years, you might, and if you do, your needs will change. You might need to cut back your hours, earn more money, or work closer to home. Be ready to change your specialization and business model to work with your life, not against it.

Sent a direct-mail postcard to clients? Done cold calling? Branding channels are the second brain of a Per- sonal Brand. There are two categories of branding channels: inclusive and exclusive. This works for build- ing seminar attendance and a mailing list. With these channels, you can control who sees your message, but you reach fewer people. Ideally, your branding strategy should include a blend of both.

Buzz marketing involves doing provocative things to create a buzz about yourself in the community, such as supporting a political cause or making a very public donation to a charity. Canvassing means going from door to door. This is something that Realtors commonly do, but it can be used by those in other profes- sions as well.

But canvassing is obviously very time-consuming, so I recommend it only for professionals whose business is so predicated on personal contacts and relationships that face-to-face branding is the only way to go: Realtors, midwives, landscapers, contractors, and so on.

Also, the more educated and perceived as elite your profession is, the more inappropriate canvassing is.

That said, if you decide to canvass, make sure you have three things: time, a great collateral piece as a leave-behind, and a brief, informal script to start a conversation.

And be prepared to have doors closed in your face. No ad or brochure will get you in the door with a new prospect faster than a referral. Nothing builds your Personal Brand better than a great story from someone who likes you, trusts you, and wants to help someone else get to know you.

Some professionals get all their new business through referrals. You turn your happy customers into an army of unpaid marketers. There are three keys to making client referrals work: 1. Ask for the referral! Create a referral program. Develop a special customer-service program to make sure that re- ferred clients are treated better than gold.

Choose the five channels that you think will work best for you. Run your specialization statement by your staff and clients to get their feedback. Start creating a manual that dictates how professional referral prospects are to be treated hint: like royalty. Write a press release about your relaunched business. Get printing quotes for key collateral materials like your Personal Brochure and postcards. Direct mail can be the most strategically important channel for de- veloping your brand.

It can also be a money pit that costs you the hair you have left. It all depends on how you use it. More on those collateral pieces later. Sales letters bore people to tears. Keep people guessing and forget the hard sell. A brief monthly newsletter containing easily scanned legal advice makes more sense.

Direct mail takes repetition and time. Make postcards and brochures glossy and beau- tiful. Send letters on expensive letterhead. Have newsletters pro- fessionally designed. The look and feel of what you send makes as strong an impression of your brand as what you say. Indoor advertising includes things like airport signage, cinema advertising, and marquee advertising. If you can get a great deal and you have other targeted brand mar- keting channels working, indoor advertising can be worth a shot.

You have to have a great Web site. Having an easy-to-use site with lots of useful information and features gives you a hour information and brand- ing center that your clients and prospects can access anytime. You can control their user experience, publish arti- cles, share useful resources, capture contact data, distribute private client data in password-protected areas, and drive home your Per- sonal Brand with graphics and copy.

Done right, your Web site is a powerful tool for building your brand with prospects, the media, and influencers in your profession. But this goes beyond Web sites. The potential of the Internet is virtually limitless; it can be a marvelous tool for growing your company. The only real downside to using the Web is that anyone can con- tact you and ask you about your services.

But you can do a great deal with design and copy to discourage so-so prospects and bring in only the ones you want. The Net should be a major fraction of your Personal Branding budget. At the very least, you must have a good Web site.

Your Web address should be every- where. New articles, blog post- ings, links to relevant news, and client testimonials are all good ways to keep a Web site interesting. They can be fun and useful, but solid design, strong copy, and ease of use are more important. Very personal, a great opportunity to distribute materials and explain what makes you different. Can be difficult for shy people or those who like to sell aggressively.

Usually takes time to produce business. Networking involves making contacts with colleagues and influencers in your profession, most often at public gatherings and at professional get-togethers such as chamber of commerce meetings. The goal is to get people familiar with you, to lay the groundwork for productive relationships, and to hand out materials that people will keep, usually your Personal Brochure.

As we know, people do business with people they like, so networking can be a bonanza. However, networking for the purpose of generating quick busi- ness is almost always a dismal failure.

The best networking, and therefore the best business relationships, involves mutual benefit and the building of trust. That takes time.