Ready for Your Close-Up, Mr. CEO?
February 08, 2007
Brand like a celebrity
By Stacy Straczynski
 Lights, camera…action! Picture any celebrity. Whether it's actor Brad Pitt, rocker Steven Tyler of Aerosmith or talk-show host/comedian Jay Leno, you know not only who he is and his level of talent, but also what quality of showmanship to expect. Hollywood and musical icons have perfected what it takes to stay in the limelight because staying in the public eye means staying in business.
As an executive, why should you be any different?
A good deal of your career success today depends on your public image. Professional colleagues need to immediately recognize and associate your name as a business icon if you're going to be a coveted hire. But like the celebrities, you'll need to promote your self as a brand to get that fame.
Strike Up the Brand
The concept of self branding in the corporate world is nothing novel—Tom Peters, chairman of London- and Boston-based management and training firm The Tom Peters Company, was one of the first to pioneer the idea in an article entitled "The Brand Called You," back in the August '97 issue of Fast Company.
In his article, Peters writes, "Today, brands are everything." Disagree? Look around. Everything you buy—from your pen to the shirt you are wearing—is branded. And in a market where brands so heavily influence consumer buying purchases, professionals need to step up and become their own brand to gain success and acknowledgement. "Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You."
But operating as a brand means applying a new strategy to your career. "No more vertical. No more ladder. That's not the way careers work anymore," Peters writes. "A career is now a checkerboard. Or even a maze…a portfolio of projects that teach you new skills, gain you new expertise, develop new capabilities, grow your colleague set, and constantly reinvent you as a brand."
As a former filmmaker and the founder of Hollywood-based talent management company Cine Paris, Stephen Mitchell is particularly intrigued by the enterprise of branding executives. During his 20-plus years in the entertainment industry, Mitchell knows first-hand the power that personal branding gives to an individual.
"I started as a filmmaker," Mitchell says. "My experience is that writers, directors and actors all need to brand themselves in order to break into the industry." He says he believes the same goes for executives' careers, and to that end recently expanded his company to offer an executive management consulting service.
"Executives have a need for visibility," he says. "No producer wants to cast an 'unknown.' The same goes for corporations." Companies are looking for a star to act as a business magnet and therefore want to hire an executive who has an established relationship with the public. They want their own industry celebrity who never fails to draw positive and profitable attention.
But the problem is many executives don't know how to market themselves, and without correct self-positioning, companies will overlook them. "What actors have and CEOs don't is someone to help manage an executive's trajectory and career or even market them," Mitchell says. Executives often need help.
From Your Office to the Big Screen
Time to bring in a professional, namely a new type of career specialist called a "branding strategist."
"More and more people are becoming aware and jumping on the 'brandwagon,' " quips Wendy Terwelp, personal branding strategist and president of Mequon, Wis.-based Opportunity Knocks, a career-development coaching and consulting company. She says she sees the influence branding has had on the market and the consumer population; she now sees how entire companies are now beginning to utilize the benefits of branding.
"Companies are now trying to craft an employer brand," Terwelp says. "For example, Nike executives ask, 'What does Nike convey to the world?' and, 'How can we create a way to get like-minded employees to work for Nike?' " It’s about achieving a comprehensive culture that is emitted through every aspect of an organization, down to each individual department.
The development of employer branding makes it more important than ever to brand yourself as an executive. "I can’t imagine anyone in sales and marketing not becoming a brand—it's crucial for success," Terwelp says. "In recruiting, you are a public figure. Even I have used Google searches to find certain professionals, and when you can't find them, you have to wonder why they’re not there." Companies want someone whose name is known—to both investors and clients—and who carries a like-minded image to act as a forerunner in the public sector. "If you’re a C-level executive, you really should be creating some sort of presence in the marketplace," Terwelp says.
While the need for executive visibility with the public also reminds Terwelp much of celebrities, she explains that branding is about much more than appearances. "Being average doesn’t make you stand out," Terwelp says. "Branding [in turn] identifies what attributes make you unique and then you capitalize on those."
She offers talk show host Oprah Winfrey as an example. Oprah is more than a person; she's a well-developed multimedia brand with a wildly popular TV show, book club and magazine. When you hear her name, you automatically think of all these things simultaneously. "All these products generate a consistent self brand—herself. It's what we call 'living the brand,' " Terwelp says.
Executives need to take control of living and marketing their own brand, but it's even more essential that executives make sure to promote positive attributes—or else it's easy to create a career disaster. "Did you know that 97 percent of a first impression is how a person comes across in personal appearance and voice tonality?" Terwelp asks. "If you don't take control of your own brand, people will assign you one. It's like getting a default brand. Who wants that?"
Here's Looking at You, Kid
To begin building your personal brand, Mitchell says you need to start with the most important part—you. "When executives begin to find their interests and focus on areas in which they have a lot to say, they can begin to get a sense of who they are—and bring attention to themselves. It's a way to make a career out of being you that is separate from any corporate climate and affiliation," Mitchell says.
But finding that real sense of self is easier said than done. Companies tend to rate success on profit margin, de-emphasizing job impact and fulfillment. They likewise encourage executives to rate career success on a similar scale. "Very often a man has to put on blinders to take a job and his vision is limited—it can't exceed the scope of the man in charge," Mitchell says. Many executives thereby forgo their personal ideas and desires for career development as they are pressured to fit within a company's scope. And deviating from that mentality can be difficult—sometimes even scary—as executives find themselves in unfamiliar territory.
Terwelp agrees. "It's a pretty intense process," she says. "You have to dig down deep to find what your drives and passions are. And it's an ongoing process since you are constantly evolving and changing." She says that while many executives are afraid to limit themselves, having a targeted direction is actually advantageous. "It's important to focus yourself in a niche—that's what makes you special and unique and differentiates you," Terwelp says.
It’s key to remember that your niche is not just a professional one, it’s a psychographic one as well. "It's more important to play on your strengths and refine your brand to become the expert and become known as one in your field," Terwelp says. "The more confident you are in your own skills, the more you play to your strengths and the more you are branded by them. If you enjoy writing, write a lot of books and articles to help get the word out; if you're involved with sales, you may choose to join certain types of networking associations; if you're in IT, write a whitepaper."
Above all, Terwelp says to stop obsessing over your weaknesses. If you focus on your weaknesses, so will everyone else. "Why not delegate your weaknesses and focus on your strengths?" After all, that's why celebrities have personal assistants.
Sidebar: Branding for the Lower Levels
Self-branding strategies sound great, but what if you aren't—or don’t plan on becoming—a C-level executive?
Terwelp says that branding is beneficial for employees at any level, not just for CEOs and executives. "It’s very important for lower levels as well," she says. No matter what level your position is, you can still "pass on your self brand to other employees and to customers. If you want to move up the ladder, you need to make a name for yourself in a positive way."
Terwelp recommends simple networking strategies to get started. "Even just keeping in touch with your contacts can help you in a career later on. You never know who will be able to give you a job in the future." And when it comes up, you want to make sure you have projected a positive and developed brand so you can progress toward career success.
(Excerpts from "The Brand Called You" used by permission of Tom Peters. Please see www.tompeters.com for more information).
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