If You Suck, Your Personal Brand Does, Too
Personal branding is not shameless, endless self-promotion. It’s not direct messaging me with your faux request to “take this IQ test and see if you’re smarter than me.” It’s not directing me to your website with every post. It’s not seeing yourself as the epicenter of everything to do with your industry, category, talent, idea, or area of expertise. It’s not starting every conversation with “I…”
Maybe you shouldn’t be personal branding quite yet. Here’s a quick self-assessment to tell you if you need 
to keep your personal brand really personal right now.
- You don’t shower everyday.
- You’re been house-bound since Oprah’s announcement.
- You’ve been blocked for stalking or spamming.
The list could get pretty long, but you get the idea. You can’t be fundamentally anti-social, greedy, jealous, boring, self-centered, creepy or anything else that ensures you’ll be someone’s ex-husband (or ex-wife) someday (or again) and do yourself proud in personal branding. You have to lift the other end of the couch, not sit on it, while your roommate is moving out – unless he’s trying to take your couch.
Consider what’s real for you. Maybe you don’t have even a smidgeon of the mensch gene, that is, you’re a person with little or no empathy for others. You don’t connect with people in person. You don’t consider public service anything but a way organizations sucker people into doing free work for freeloaders. You’d 
like to compete in the Special Olympics because you’re not in any way challenged, so the odds are really good you’ll win.
Social media merely amplifies your personal brand
In that case, you just might quietly get into group therapy before letting us all know the real you. Seriously, you aren’t doing anyone any good – especially yourself and the company you represent – by using social media to broadcast just what a lout you are. Of course, if this cautionary post doesn’t apply to you, then print it out (wear gloves so it can’t be traced) and put it on the desk of someone who it applies to.
What brought all this on? A recent YouTube video on personal branding by Carlos Mandelbaum poked holes in my personal branding bubble.
Plus, perhaps like you, I have found too many of my friends do too little to report, yet they report way too often on Facebook. For example, a whole lot of people tell me when they’re turning in for the night or that they’re coloring a girlfriend’s hair before baking brownies in their hometown in Kansas (I live in LA, so no brownies for me; hence, I don’t want to know). A lot of the chatter reminds me of flying to Hong Kong from Los Angeles, lying next to a stranger (business class seats go all the way down). For 20 hours I knew everything about this woman, in real time and in the mini-series she relayed of her past.
Preparation is key
Before you make another social media move or affix your name badge at the next mixer, be ready with no 
less than 3 entries for these categories:
- Unusual facts or advanced tips that can help a person move forward in your area of interest.
- Experts in your field that you can learn from and connect with, along with a question you want to ask them.
- Reasons why you want to serve and lead your tribe.
Get Really Personal with Your Personal Brand
What is your brands DNA?
You might not be the offspring of Trump, Branson or Vanderbilt, but you do have a personal brand legacy. Consider your heritage: your parents, community, region, country, culture and ancestry. Pegging to your authentic underpinnings, which is your brand DNA, might be the platform you need right now, as you define the constellation of characteristics that sell you as a personal brand.
Of course, it helps if the name, brains and trust fund you inherit get you through Wharton without student loans and onto Trump National golf course with a really good tee time.
Just keep in mind: jealousy isn’t a strategy. You probably inherited better hair and a less bellicose manner (or just a better catch phrase than “you’re fired!”) than the Trump brood. Most star power personal brands come laded with such big baggage that legacy brands don’t really have a chance to shine on their own. The results may vary, but Jamie Spears’ fate is lot more common than Miley Cyrus.
Anderson Cooper has kept his family’s personal brand legacy pretty much a secret. He’s a Vanderbilt (robber baron and jeans queen) on the one side and the son of Wyatt Cooper (actor and writer) on the other. Anderson is kind of like Sprite. The world’s most popular lemon-lime beverage is the offspring of Coke, but you don’t see Sprite being marketed as a junior brand. However, both Anderson and Sprite appreciate their heritage, and have taken advantage of the lessons learned on their family brands’ climb up the ladder.
So, if you are the scion of a milkman and homemaker (me!), you might have to do more digging to find gold. What are you looking for? Great stories, the older the better. For example: how bravely did your family leave everything familiar to immigrate to where you now call home? Or how did they stay and defend the homestead while under siege? Who sacrificed so someone else could go to school? Who had talent like playing a musical instrument but never risked the farm to make it a career?
How bravely did your family leave everything familiar to immigrate to where you now call home?
Stories of perseverance, pride, principles, and personalities that inspire you are what you need now. Open up a dialogue with purpose: appreciate the people who weren’t thinking about personal brands, because they had simpler, smaller dreams and maybe more formidable obstacles or opponents.
Ask the right questions and have patience when you sort through the meaning in the answers. Consider this your personal brand DNA mapping.
- Gather your old family photos and have the “what’s my heritage” talk with your folks.
- Listen for the stories of how your forebears overcame adversity, or failed to reach their potential.
- Decide if there are any dreams or lessons you’d like to build on.
- When it’s appropriate, reference these experiences in your job interviews, client calls and networking. Knowing where you came from is a component of the world’s most attractive quality: genuine self-confidence.
Nance Rosen is the author of Speak Up! & Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers. Read more at NanceRosenBlog. Twitter name: nancerosen.
