Six Ways to Make Your Personal Brand Matter in the Marketplace

Whether you’re a waiter, CEO, politician, account director or job candidate, your personal brand and all that it conveys make a dramatic difference in how effective you are in achieving support. In essence, everyone who “supports” you – the diner, board member, constituent, client or hiring manager – does so because they believe in you. Those who support you are your customers, often known by another name. And in the game of Customer Relationship Management, who you are matters even more than what you say.

Read many of the personal branding books, and they’ll tell you to ‘package yourself well’, dressing the part to reinforce the image you’re trying to convey. Red power tie for the politician. Fashion statement for the account director.

What’s more powerful, though, is a personal brand that shows compassion and caring for others. In a genuine way. Think of John McCain’s courageous POW-limited crowd wave. Angelina Jolie’s sacrificial adoption of a third world child. The job candidate you interviewed who is lovingly caring for a sick wife. Even last night’s waitress who casually mentioned she’s saving every penny earned to send her son to college. You can relate to them because of who they are – people with true character and compassion. People who have a heart.

The question is: what is there about you that demonstrates your compassion and caring? That you love others, even more than yourself. This is perhaps the most essential part of your brand, flanked by substance that you can deliver what your customer wants.

If you examine your own brand today, how would others see you? Do you give consistently to a particular cause? Are you known for how you care for the sick, disabled, widowed, orphaned or lost? Do you sacrifice your own success for a cause or person of greater significance?

For those who answered no, it’s okay, and not uncommon – most of us are simply too busy or too fortunate to be so noble. Many of us are simply trying to survive in a challenging economy. However, you’d be amazed at how you just will actually thrive in tough times by investing some of yourself into others. In a genuine way.

Try any one of these six secrets to unlock the heart of your personal brand:

1) Focus on a Cause to Advocate: You may be drawn to a number of worthy causes, but you won’t be known for any of them if you don’t focus your time, talent and treasures on one. Orphans. Families. Environment. Cancer. Battered women. Street children. And so on.

2) Find a Person Who Needs Help: They may very well be right under your nose – your child, your parent, your spouse. These people are more or less your responsibility. Stretch out … Become a Big Brother or Big Sister. Try Foster Parenting. Mentor someone. Adopt someone. Make meals for a widow. Feed the homeless so you know them by name.

3) Unpack Your Own Story: What you do may relate to your own history, such as hosting an annual cancer benefit because your sister died from it; or underwriting marriage conferences because of a family legacy of divorce; or planting trees because your hometown was clear-cut. Write it out and be prepared to tell it, briefly and with compassion.

4) Test Drive a Mission or Voluntourism: Ready to make AIDS in Africa your personal cause? Try taking a mission trip there first with your church. Or spend your vacation days building homes for Katrina victims in New Orleans. This speaks volumes about who you are. Share stories and photos on social networking sites and via email to engage your customers in your cause.

5) Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve (or Page): Pink Ribbons for breast cancer and yellow Live Strong bracelets for Lance Armstrong’s cancer foundation are well-known. The tiny pair of feet on a friend’s lapel invited a question that opened a conversation about her support for unbo
children, part of her personal brand. If nothing wearable exists for your cause, add an icon or group on Facebook’s or LinkedIn to show your support.

6) Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: If you don’t invest a great deal of time or money, your convictions may be questioned. Are you prepared to take a salary cut to work for your cause? To take unpaid leave to volunteer? To commit to a percentage of your earnings to support your cause? If actions speak louder than words, money screams.

Most practical people will begin wondering whether they can afford to take any of these steps. Will it matter to your customers? Will it give you the edge over another candidate or competitor?

There’s no way to predict that, and if that’s your singular motive, then it will soon become transparent -- and thus fail. However, if you give a share of your heart to something or someone else that truly matters, you will undoubtedly be rewarded in the marketplace.