Breaking Bad’s 10 Personal Branding Tips

Breaking Bad’s Heisenberg has given us some amazing personal branding tips, here are my top 10 favourites:

1. Know the power of your personal brand

 One of my favourite lines of any character in any TV series is when Walter White (who by this stage is very much drug warlord Heisenberg) declares to his rivals in the middle of the desert (having just blown away the Mafia and his rival and is now the undisputed king of drugs), “Say My Name. Say it. Say My Name”. Heisenberg is the trembling answer. King of all he surveys!

 Brilliant moment which encapsulates the journey that Walter has taken from nerd and part time drug creator to mega drug dealer and full on feared gangster. The power of the personal brand of Heisenberg has overwhelmed anything else he was before and he wants everyone to know who he is.

 2) Build a business in your personal brand

 Early on in “Breaking Bad” Walter White realises that he can’t use Walter White as a drug lord name, it doesn’t really put fear into your hearts. So he creates the mythical alter ego name of Heisenberg. Heisenberg resonates a personal brand of intensity and fearsomeness.

It’s a reference to German physicist Werner Heisenberg, famous for his "uncertainty principle" which states that the exact position and momentum of a particle cannot be simultaneously known. On a deeper level, the name symbolizes Walter’s Jekyll and Hyde transition from weak chemistry teacher to feared drug lord.

Walter can therefore be viewed as a human manifestation of the "uncertainty principle" -- as he gains momentum as a murderous drug lord, he loses sight of his original position as a family man with a strong moral code.

The personal brand that the business is founded on is Heisenberg. Walter lives that personal brand in order to do business in that context.

 3) Dress to match your personal brand

When Walter puts on his black porkpie hat and black trenchcoat he becomes Heisenberg. He is then able to commit hideous murderous acts that the regular, down to earth Walter would never be capable of. It's a form of psychological partmentalization that lets Walter distance himself from his evil acts and convince himself that he's still a good person.

Walter wears the uniform of the personal brand that hs has created. That is very much part of his personal branding. It is also the symbol everyone associates with Breaking Bad.

 4. Know your competition and deal with them

Walter also had more notorious and often aggressive partners/enemies. The most infamous being Gus Fring. A partner to start with Gus turned into an enemy who then didn’t last long. Heisenberg took on the mafia, his own brother-in-law who was a DEA agent, the FBI and anyone who got in his way.

The personal brand of Heisenberg sought out and dealt with all manner of competition in every way you can imagine. It dealt with them in ways that science teacher Walter White wouldn’t.

Just like The Joker or The Batman enabled those people to do good/evil by wearing make up/costume Walter White turned into Heisenberg when he needed to operate as the the drug lord and ruthless businessman Heisenberg. The effect was the same, especially as unlike Bruce Wayne/Batman people who came across him did not know him as the Walter White personal brand only the the ruthless, not to be messed with Heisenberg one.

5) You need partners to build your business

No matter how strong your personal brand is you can’t do it alone. Whether you are Richard Branson or Heisenberg you need partners to build on your personal brand. In Breaking Bad Walter had Jesse a willing and somewhat all over the place and comical side kick.

Chalk and cheese but they both bought into the business those and Jessie more importantly realised that it was Walter’s imagination, technical know how and personal brand in the form of the alter ego Heisenberg personal brand that built and continued to build the business which he benefited from

 6) Stay out of my territory

Another great quote from Breaking Bad is when the now fully formed and fully menacing Heisenberg sees some potential competition shopping and lets them know in no uncertain terms that this is his business territory. His personal brand by now is so menacing and all consuming these hardened criminals scoot away as far as possible.

The personal brand that Heisenberg has developed has given him so much confidence as to enable him to do things he would never dream of doing before. Personal branding himself has allowed him to live and by his true self, to delve deep into his inner darkness and use that to achieve his business objectives. No one was going to take his territory away from him, this was what he had worked for, sacrificed for and no one was going to get in his way.

7) I am the one who knocks

Probably the most famous and iconic quote from Breaking Bad that really sums up how far Walter has come to transform into Heisenberg. He used to be the one who was cowered by now he is the one who knocks to frighten and kill. No more on the other side of door he is the one hitting that door to intimidate and frighten his competition and anyone who gets in his way.

Heisenberg’s personal brand is now full of confidence. His brand is now the one that goes around making things happen. It’s a lesson in how the strength of a personal brand can give someone the missing power, inner belief and focus that they have missed before. You too can make something happen, you too can ensure that you are being proactive and not reactive, you too can be the one who knocks!

8) Don’t let fear stop you

Personal branding can be a holistic way to give every aspect of your life confidence to move forwards. Fear is the number one reason why people don’t do anything.

In Breaking Bad Heisenberg has an answer to this to ensure that his personal brand is fearless. The quote goes “what I came to realise is that fear is the worst of it, that’s the real enemy. So get up, get out in the real world and you kick that bastard as hard as you can right in the teeth”.

 9) I’m not in the meth business, I’m in the empire business

Having been short changed in his original company Grey Matter, selling his stake for $5k which then turned out to be worth hundreds of millions, Walter has vengeance and a determination to recoup everything that he believes should have been his. This was after he and Jesse made $5m each from some deals, Jesse was happy, Walter was not.

Walter had a long way to go. He has a goal, a vision, a driving force to build an empire. He was not in the meth business, he was in the empire business and he wasn’t going to be taking any soldiers or any quarter getting their.

Everyone with a personal brand needs to have an objective, what is your personal brand achieving, what is your long term vision as to where it might go and what it might achieve? What is the empire that you are building with it? 

 10) “Tread Lightly” - do your research

Heisenberg utters this line to his brother in law and DEA leader Hank when Hank finally realises what has been staring him the face for several years, that the drug lord he has been after all of that time is Walter, his own brother in law.

Walter relishes this as Hank has always looked down at him and underestimated him and all this time Walter/Heisenberg has been running rings around him building a drug empire business worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

In terms of personal branding there are two lessons here

 1) don’t assume/underestimate someone’s personal brand just because they don’t tell you everything about themselves, there will always be aspects of their personal brand that they may not wish you to know about/keep secret/have a darker personal brand elsewhere and

 2) do your research on who you are working with on their personal brand or at least their public personal brand, everything is out there, up to you to find, no excuses for not knowing about someone’s personal brand before you meet them. You never know you could be meeting the next Heisenberg…...