THE ART OF "DELIVERING MESSAGES CONSISTENT WITH YOUR AUTHENTICITY"

tie To accompany Peter York's cover story for the autumn issue on how marketing has got under our skin, Intelligent Life talked to six consultants based, variously, in Britain, Ireland, France and America. Two were men, four women. Four were over 40, and two of these were over 50. One would not reveal an exact age.

All worked to some degree on personal brands, though they had different approaches: one stressed “leadership development” through a psychoanalytical approach, two worked on image and presentation, and two specialised in internet marketing and networks. One covered all of these.

The majority were born, or had worked, in places outside Britain, including America, South Africa and Europe. Most started their businesses within the past five years; none had been going longer than 12 years. Previous careers included science and the law, but most had spent at least some time in marketing and/or human resources.

When asked what a “personal brand” was, the majority failed to give a concise answer (the longest racks up ten, mostly unintelligible, minutes on the tape), but there was a tendency to roam around the idea of “communicating yourself as unique to your target”, and “delivering messages consistent with your authenticity”. The clearest reply was: “Your personal brand is other people’s perception of who you are.” The majority agreed that there was a big difference between personal branding, PR, personality and reputation, but none was able to encapsulate this difference succinctly.

When asked to list five practical steps to achieving a personal brand, five stressed that increasing “internet presence” was vital. All of these recommended starting blogs, though there was disagreement about whether or not a client’s blog should be ghostwritten by their brander: “The worst blogs”, one said, “are always the real ones.” Other tactics included using PR companies to place stories “in suitable environments”, asking friends, family, employers and employees to “identify strengths and weaknesses”, and writing lots of book reviews on Amazon.

Two branders charged an average of £150 an hour; one of these suggested clients would need 15-20 hours of meetings; one charged £350 an hour; two charged around £10k for six months’ work with a private client, and corporate retainers of £50k-60k per year per person. One didn’t reveal charges.

Individual clients included politicians (one consultant claimed that all elected politicians above local-government level have been professionally branded), senior civil servants, and a small percentage of actors and writers. But all said the majority of their clients were in business—a lot were chief executives, but a growing share were middle management.

Corporate clients included BT, American Express in Amsterdam and Britain, Goldman Sachs, and parts of the Ministry of Defence. Three agreed that a significant proportion of clients had been sent by their employers because they were bullies.

All were convinced that “being the real you” was at the core of successful personal branding—all used the words “authentic” or “authenticity” within the first few minutes of the conversation. When asked what would happen if the real you was horrible, one brander replied, “Well, we’d need to have a look at changing that—in the sense of you working on that material.” Other memorable phrases included “I won’t make you famous. I’ll make you selectively famous”; “You need to become a hub”; “If you don’t show up on Google, you don’t exist”; and “Everyone should have a personal pitch.”

When asked if they could tell if someone had been “done” (given a personal brand), four said yes. But one said that everyone “already has a personal brand. It just may not be clear to them yet.”

~ ISABEL LLOYD

Picture Credit: karsten.planz (via Flickr)