What’s Your Personal Brand?

As a Sales or Account Manager (for that matter anyone who sales anything) you are constantly asked “What Brand or Brands do you Sell?” But have you ever asked yourself “What’s my Brand?”

When a customer or client thinks of you what quickly pops into their mind?

Companies spend enormous amounts of time and money trying to create and market their brand. These efforts are an attempt to influence how customers both present and future think about their products and services. They hire marketing teams, sales teams and advertisers to influence how we think and feel when we hear their name or go to buy their product.

Let me try to give you a quick example. As I mentioned last week, I’m in the process of buying a new truck. I’m worrying everyone around me to death about which brand of truck to buy and they wish I would just buy a truck and be done with it. My Son-in-Law told me I needed to just “go ahead and pull the trigger” and I agree. But I digress.

Automobile companies spend huge amounts of money to influence which brand of car or truck we buy. Take for instance General Motors with their 3 divisions. There may be more but Cadillac, GMC and Chevrolet are the big three. They are all owned by the same company and each of their vehicles do essentially the same thing. They get you where you want to go and back again. Most of the parts are the same and in many cases they look almost alike. But through their successful attempts to brand each of these divisions differently there is a perceived difference. If I say I’m looking to buy a Cadillac you have different thoughts that if I say I’m buying a Chevrolet. Agreed?

I know there are some differences in the two and I won’t get into that but besides being a bit jealous of you guys in your nice Escalades, I feel Cadillacs and Chevrolets are basically the same. That’s just my perception. I see very little value in the brand differences but apparently others do. Cadillac still has some marketing work to do on me.

This leads us to “What’s your Brand?”

As Salespeople I think we spend all our time influencing our customers on our company’s brand and the products and brands we sell. Many times we forget to think about our personal brand. That’s a lot of brands to worry about.

Many of our customers see us as just another salesperson, grouping us as all one and the same, much as I did above with Cadillac and Chevrolet but we can help change that with our personal brand.

Being a Sales Manager, I spend much of my time making sure we are promoting and influencing the brands we sell. We take the lead from marketing and hit the streets trying to influence our customers to buy our products. When they have a need, we want them to think of us.

But just as important is how they think about our Account Managers.

If you are a Salesperson or Account Manager do you give much thought to what your customer perceives when they think of you?

Are you thought of as:

* Smart

* Trustworthy

* Helpful

* Part of their team

or:

* Never prepared

* Sloppy

* Pushy

* Just another Salesman

When you go into your customer or client’s office are you projecting the image you want your customer to see?

Have you prepared for the sales call well enough that your customer always feels they are getting a value when you see them?

But most importantly, when you leave are they thinking about you the way you want them to think about you?

This is your personal brand. It is no less important than your company’s brand or the brand of the products you are selling.

I can’t stress enough that as Sales and Account Managers we must be intentional in everything we do. To build your personal brand you must do so with intent.

In our company we have a Corporate Philosophy that “Everything Matters.” We try extremely hard to pay attention to the details and not take things for granted.

I encourage when looking at and building your “Personal Brand” that you pay attention to the details and remember to your customer “Everything Matters.”

Everyone has a personal brand whether they know it are not. Your brand is how you are perceived by others.

Do “you” want to be perceived or thought of as a Cadillac or a Chevrolet?

 

If you have any helpful suggestions please leave a comment below or you can email me at feedback@wewaonthenet.com.

You can also follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WE_Ward.

Now let’s get out there and over-deliver!