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Become a Little Bit Famous
By Catherine Kaputa, Personal
branding strategist, coach and speaker
Well-known personal brand
status has tremendous advantages in the marketplace.
First of all, when you are
a well-known business person or professional, you are pre-sold, a huge
advantage over everyone else who has to sell themselves. It gives
you "mental shelf space in a market where many products are bidding for
that space," as Cook and Frank point out in The Winner Take All Society.
When you become known as
a brand in your field, the balance of power shifts in your favor. You
are perceived to be in demand. You are sought out and bought.
Just like in the product world, people build a strong personal connection
with your brand
Brand status also has tremendous
financial rewards. We've seen how brand status drives up the bidding
for celebritized business people, lawyers, doctors, politicians, what have
you.
The celebrity CEO
The selection of a brand
CEO can drive up a company's stock. And a recent study conducted
by two university professors of 250 CEOs of major US firms in 2002 demonstrates
that company performance is better in companies run by "charismatic CEOs."
The more charismatic the
CEO, the better the firm's performance was. Depending on the measure, roughly
10% to 15% of performance came from the degree of charisma of the CEO.
(Source The Wall Street
Journal)
Likewise, the troubles of
a celebrity CEO can drive down a stock price, as we saw with Martha Stewart.
Her company is in essence her self brand. The company lost hundreds of
millions of dollars in value the first weeks after the ImClone investigation
came to light, because of the perceived loss in value to the company due
her tarnished reputation. Indeed the celebrity of a chief executive
like Martha Stewart may be worth more that what the company's material
assets are worth.
We not only pay more for
brand executives, lawyers or architects, we give higher value to everything
they are associated with: their charities, homes, even the objects
they owned. Just look at the final bids at the Jackie Kennedy auction.
A pair of her costume jewelry earrings by Kenneth Jay Lane went for over
$28,000, over eighty times the Sotheby's estimate.
A good strategy for entrepreneurs
and professionals.
Self branding can make a
big difference for entrepreneurs and professionals.
If you can build a brand
identity around your business or your practice--something that differentiates
you, is memorable or creates a reaction in your audience--you will stand
out from the competition. You will attract clients and maintain your
client base, no matter how tough times get.
Who can forget the celebrity
lawyer brands that were created in the OJ Simpson trial? There was the
courtroom drama unfolding and the actions of the branded lawyers.
We saw Marsha Clark transform
right in front of us on the picture screen. At first, she appeared as a
tough, no-nonsense attorney with a frizzy perm, but by the end of the trial
she wore a sophisticated hairstyle and designer clothes and received a
$4.5 million book contract.
And Johnnie Cochran towering
over all the lawyers by the end of the trial with his media savvy and bold
courtroom style. His brilliant summation reduced the complicated OJ trial
to an advertising jingle, "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit."
And of course, he went on to an incredible bonanza with contracts for two
books, a movie and his own television show.
But on a larger level, brand
business leaders or brand achievers in any category will always be important
for the inspiration, achievements and other intangibles that they symbolize
to people.
Or don't symbolize for people
upon repeated brand exposure: consider the flameout of Ross Perot, or Al
Gore or Harvey Pitt. |
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