Last month we had our personal branding Lab with Luigi Centenaro. One of the experts in the field here in Italy. Each time I attend anything on that matter I get completely overwhelmed and feel a mix of frustration and complete ignorance.
What does someone that ‘Googles’ you see? What image do you put out? Is it the one that you want to convey? What makes you unique in what you do and why would someone pick you over the crowd?
The key concept in Personal Branding is to be the purple cow in a crowd of ‘standard’ cows as Seth Godin would say, a big Marketing name. He came up with the idea while driving through France and being fascinated by the beautiful postcard-looking cows he saw, until after a while he wasn’t interested anymore because he got bored. The idea is: Something remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to. Boring stuff quickly becomes invisible.
People get bored quickly nowadays because we have too much of everything. Few things stand out, and for those, we are willing to go beyond some of our limits. Do you remember the lines of people outside the apple stores to get the new ipads or iphones? Or the last Harry Potter book? I do.
What are the common denominators of the creators of amazing products that stand out?
Which of people that you consider special? What is it that makes them special? Commercials that leave a sign?
The originality, the passion, guts, and daring.
As Gerry Garcia would say (heart and soul Height Street of San Francisco!):
“You don’t want to be the best at what you do. You want to be the only one who does what you do.”
One day talking to someone that specializes in marketing he told me that my blog is a disaster! I write in three different languages, about different issues and rather inconsistently…all true!
Since then I’ve been thinking about it and deciding what to do. In a way I don’t want to let go of what I love and am.
The ‘strategy’ would be for me to decide to only write in Italian since this is my current market. To decide the niche I’m going to focus on and target only that market.
But, how can I do that? If personal branding is about what your uniqueness is, then, in my case, it’s precisely the fact that I’m multicultural and multilingual.
That I think we are all human beings that have the same needs and wants.
We all want to love, be loved and have fun…that’s it in a nutshell!
How can I aim only businesswomen if I’m convinced that at the end of the day EVERYONE, everyone, has to take care of their personal affective matters to be totally happy and fulfilled?
So my decision is to focus on my uniqueness, and grow it.
For the rest it’ll happen by itself, or, as you say in Spanish “caerà por si propio peso”.
My invitation to you is to put less focus on what you don’t like about yourself or what you still have to do and learn, this could be endless.
Think of YOUR UNIQUENESS or uniquenessES.
It can be the simplest thing, but a simple thing that people like about you, that makes you special.
Take that, and GROW IT.
If you already have it, it means that it’s something you are naturally or that you love, so use it and EXPAND IT.
That is your brand and that is what will sell you. That will attract people you want to attract.
It’s all part of the cycle to CREATE YOURSELF!
