“It’s the anthem of your reputation – and it deserves respect as such”…

To be clear, a brand, as treated in the substrates of conventional marketing wisdom, is the anthem of your company’s reputation. As a brand is a measured promise in commerce, a promise revealed, monetized and measured through revenue, profit and market share results, so is your personal brand. And as any product or service for sale should be viewed as the pillars under the company’s brand anthem, the pillars under your personal brand anthem will also be measured. Most importantly, brands must be designed, fueled and matured to accelerate products and services, profit the cold steel of the P&L. 

In essence, you always represent two brands. Your brands will be compared and either monetized through your ability to lead and compete in a market or become business-recessed and degraded within your core mission. The latter result is well known as accelerating towards brand evaporation. The net? Brand is a promise; what’s yours? Brand is a promise; what’s your personal brand worth inside the hallways of your company, as well as through the eyes and ears of your customers?

(Peter Weedfald admiring Rudy Guiliani and Joe Torre's big-brand-hearts)

The ribs under your company’s anthem leadership umbrella should reign and shine upon your personal brand reputation. And the pillars of your personal competitive engine deliver your ability to lead through your vision, determination, teachings, disciplines and team results. In point of fact, your company’s brand anthem and under-pillars should be an absolute reflection of your own personal leadership – as goes the value of your personal leadership mantle, as goes your company’s reputation, as goes your company and your own future net worth.

Let’s dig deeper. To be clear, the product itself, a current-constant, is your working hero, while your brand performs, acts and evolves as your emotional hero. To elevate, promulgate and create emotional brand value, always authorize and drape your product with highly relevant and energizing creative-competitive-advantage. As brand, in many cases, is the refuge of the unsure, product as the immediate object of consumer desire must be visibly anointed as the hero of this dynamic relationship – must be over amplified above the din of competitive brand and product noise. The stronger the working hero (pillar) appears and performs, the more relevant and magnetic the advantage of emotional capital for the brand (anthem).

10 Attributes of Brand Prowess

In either the case of building your company brand or prinking your personal leadership brand, your ability to over-value attributes and benefits will warrant a positive overall comparative brand attitude. It will also build brand elasticity and desirability, translating to steady demand in product preference and product deliverability. This successful formula for brand and product duopoly also delivers a ubiquitous opportunity to build lasting attention, interest, conviction, desire and corresponding sales for your Brand X, for your Product Y.

To amplify and enlighten this discussion we underline 10 proactive, protective and meaningful attributes of building competitive and lasting product and brand prowess, ensuring lifetime personal and or company brand equity. As you read each of these descriptive multi-modal product to brand anchors, think of brands and products you personally associate with, you respect and you have purchased over time. Further, as your own brand and product litmus test, consider whether your personal leadership DNA is viewed and appreciated by customers, peers, reports and executives positively through each of these core value elements.

In order to ensure lasting brand and product infatuation united tightly as one, to ensure you receive a few more pennies versus your competitor’s brand on the shelf, to ensure you build personal brand infatuation, you and your company’s brand experience must be inclusive to the following 10 reflective brand (anthem) and product (pillar) elements:

1. Unique. 2. Exorable.

3.Transferable. 4. Protectable.

5. Profitable. 6. Meaningful.

7.Valuable. 8. Creative.

9. Affable. 10. Memorable.

Whether you are focused on varnishing your own personal leadership brand or focused on your company’s brand and product building chores, keep in mind these critical elements are all about meriting and muscling up long-term profitable equity. The most formidable – and frankly, smart – report card for your company’s brand efforts is: what consumers would think about your products if they only knew about its brand name and were only exposed to brand logo characteristics without product. As your competitors’ branded products are never static, always developing, always enhancing, a formidable and durable brand position both protects your current family of products as well as sustains your buying fans to wait for your next product launch in response to competitive offerings.

I respectfully suggest (as outlined in my book Green Reign Leadership) that the same formula and examples within apply to your personal business brand-building chores and corresponding leadership measurements. Building formidable brand leadership through your own personal “product” actions can also build the same for your company brand and family of products. Brand infatuation begins, accelerates and competitively matures best when in direct congress with personal and company brand leadership across the entire sales and marketing organization.

Green Reign Leadership is available for review here: https://t.co/FO6QP6IWHj