Personal Brand: What is One?

Brand (n): A class of goods identified by name as the product of a single firm or manufacturer; a characteristic or distinctive kind.

How does a brand come to be? Every product we use, every person we know that is famous, at one time was as ordinary as any of the others. At one time, there were multiple computer makers including Apple; now, there is a brand of computer (Apple) and other companies that make computers.

Or individuals: there are certain actors or sports personnel or public personnel have such a reputation (brand) that they are almost guaranteed a success with whatever they participate in: JK Rowling (Author), James Cameron (Director), Dan Elway (Sports, both as player and manager),

In both cases, what they do has become so associated with who they are that by the very presence or name, a certain level of excitement is generated and a certain amount of success is guaranteed - it's not as if Hewlett-Packard were to annouce a new product release that they would ship 3 million units as Apple has recently.

So a brand is both an association with an individual or company (class of goods) as well as a reputation that comes with that individual or company (characteristic or distinctive kind).

But there's a second, older meaning of the word "brand" that also works: "A mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership."

We think of branded cattle of course, but throughout history a brand has been used on items (and not just wood; Japanese blades carry their own "branding" - the "mei" or signature on the blade) to indicate the manufacture by an individual (usually). The mark ("brand") becomes the sign that that object has a high probability of delivering the quality of the individual producer.

In the same manner, the mark of ownership also indicates a certain level of quality - if I see anything that is an broken down or slovenly condition with a company or corporate name attached, my impression of that company will probably drop, knowing nothing else except the fact that their mark is associated with something I personally don't want to be associated with.

All well and good. But on from the theoretical: If there are such things as brands (and there are), what do I do?

The first exercise is to understand what your brand is currently (we'll deal with what your brand could be tomorrow). So do this: sit down and treat yourself like a product. In a short paragraph make an effort to write down as clearly and unemotionally as possible what you believe your brand to currently be. Be honest: you only hurt yourself by pretending that your brand is other than what it is. Don't be brutal, of course, but if one of your brand marks is "I'm late all the time", put that in there.

If we are the product (and we are), then in order to improve our brand we have to understand what our brand is. But don't despair: Apple went from technological innovator to yesterday's news (remember when the stock was $14.00?) back to a technological innovator with a brand reputation that is among the highest in any industry (and a stock price over $600). The same is true for us, if only we can start by understanding the branding we consciously or unconsciously project to others.