Today I read a blog post – thanks to the Google Alert I set up for “Personal Brand” – that says Personal Branding needs to go away. This is from someone who writes “The BrandBuilder Blog”. His comments indicate that having a personal brand makes you a fake. I beg to differ.
The definition of a brand, as defined by the American Marketing Association is “A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name.”
By definition, a Personal Brand is what sets you apart as distinct from others. That’s not being a fake. It’s being totally authentic. If you’re being a fake and calling that a brand, you’re doing no one any favors, especially yourself.
Be yourself, be unique and capitalize on it to be the most authentic, true person you can be. THAT is your personal brand. Being yourself. Where people get the idea that a brand is a mask instead of what makes you unique – or younique as my friend Andee Marks describes it – I just don’t understand.
I’d love to hear your feedback on this. Do you feel the term Personal Brand is about authenticity or about putting on a mask and not showing your true identity?
