Establishing Your Personal Brand Identity

The following is adapted from Beat the Bots.

To be an extremely high-performing sales professional, you need a strong personal brand identity. Your brand identity is what people know you for—your claim to fame or area of expertise.

For example, I seriously think my friend Joe knows everybody worth knowing.

Whenever I have a problem—anything from fixing the plumbing in my house to revamping my website—I call Joe. He always says something like, “Oh, I have a guy for that. Let me give you his number.” 

Joe is a loyal soul, and his standards are high. When he makes a recommendation, I know his “guy” will deliver and be well worth the price. Unless they are too far away or we have some other logistical challenge, I always go with the people Joe knows.

I want you to be the Joe of B2B sales professionals.

I am fortunate enough to be this trusted person for my customers. I have been in business for myself since 2014, and I am proud and humbled to say that all of my customers to date have come to me through referrals. The most incredible part is that these referred customers keep me so busy that many times I’ve had to turn away new business or schedule projects a few months out. In a million years, I never could have imagined that I’d be so blessed.

Build Your Authentic Brand

In my business, I practice everything I preach, and I’ve cultivated my own brand because of it. My brand has become trusted and it means partnership, emotional acumen, and psychology in sales. 

My company itself is a brand, but my service and care for clients have made Anita Nielsen a brand. The human-to-human (H2H) interaction that comes from having a personal brand is so much more powerful than all the things that companies try to do to engage with customers. Company brands can’t reach the level of loyalty that you can at an H2H level when you have built your own personal brand identity. 

Now it’s your turn to discover and build your brand.

As you get better at incorporating personalized value into your sales motion, your personal brand identity will naturally emerge. It’s cumulative, getting more powerful and better defined the more H2H relationships you cultivate. And though you may not recognize it initially, I can promise that your customers will. They will create a perception of you and the way you do business. That perception, which essentially becomes your personal brand, revolves around who you are, what you stand for, and the partnership you create throughout your H2H relationship with that customer. They will be loyal to your brand regardless of where their career takes them because you are trusted, you are their person. They see that no one else can do for them exactly what you do, the way you do it.

Authenticity is intertwined with your ability to create a powerful, memorable, personal brand. An authentic brand is one that people trust. It helps people feel safe because they know they are in the presence of someone who is real and vulnerable. When you lead with sincerity and vulnerability, who you are and what you stand for, truly, will be one of the most endearing things about you in the minds of your customers. Customers want to know what they are getting; they need to know that the person that they are entrusting with their money—and often their reputation—is genuine.

Authenticity is a prerequisite to ensure the brand that emerges from your efforts is one that you and your customers can be proud of. Without authenticity, not only will you be unable to connect to your customers’ emotional side, you’ll fail to differentiate. There are too many self-serving sellers still out there, sadly, and if a customer senses that you are not being real, you will become obsolete.

Neil’s Big Deal

As your authentic brand identity emerges from delivering personalized value to your customers, you will benefit from deep loyalty. Not only will customers be loyal to you, but they will also happily refer you and your services to others.

I have had the pleasure of coaching a client named Neil and celebrating his wins with him over the course of a few years. He’s the kind of client you dream about because he is willing to do the hard work to shift his mindset and actions in order to elevate himself and his sales career. 

Recently, Neil worked on a complex, large deal with an insurance company throughout which, with coaching, he became a master of personalized value. He won the deal, of course—and the monster commission check that came along with it. 

Because I am always looking for stories and examples to share with other reps, I asked Neil if I could ask his customer champion, Tom the CIO, about his experience with Neil. Neil had already earned the right to ask this of Tom, as his relationship was built on trust and mutual respect. Neil set up my conversation with Tom and it is one I will never forget.

I asked Tom, “You had three vendors trying to win this business from you. Why did you choose to award the business to Neil?”

“Look,” he replied, “in the past, when we needed to buy some equipment, we had a bunch of vendors that we called for quotes and we’d pick and choose what we needed based on the price. A few times I even approved technology purchases direct from CDW. I realized, though, that I need to work with someone who can help me figure out what I need to be buying in the first place. Someone who can help me keep up with all the shit going on at this company and with our competitors. Neil has my back; he is always trying to make me look good.”

I pressed Tom for more. “How does he do that?”

"I can call him anytime to help me figure out what I need to do or to help me get shit off the fan. I trust that he'll help me handle whatever IT related problems I have. The fact that I always kick his ass on the golf course is a bonus.”

I chuckled and I’m sure my joy showed on my face. “I get it. He’s pretty great—not that I’m biased or anything!”

Let me tell you, this is the kind of conversation coaches live for. I left that meeting overwhelmed with pride, and there may or may not have been some tears when I got back to the car. Neil’s brand identity had emerged as an advisor and fixer for IT leaders. Not the Ray Donovan kind, but a strategic, business-partner sort of fixer. They counted on him for proactive and reactive support in their business. But it didn’t stop there.

A few months later, Tom referred another CIO from his peer group to Neil, to address an issue similar to those Neil had resolved for him. In fact, within a year of closing that first deal, Neil had gotten four referrals from Tom. One of these wasn’t a good fit due to the size of the company; two are currently in progress and will be closed by the time you read this book; and the last one resulted in a multimillion-dollar, five-year contract—the largest deal of the year for Neil’s company.

The bonus for me is that, because Neil was kicking ass so hard, his company asked me to begin coaching additional sales professionals on Neil’s team. This gave me the opportunity to convert a whole new group of reps into masters of personalized value, who can differentiate themselves and future-proof their B2B tech sales careers. Neil’s shiny new brand identity actually put some polish on my personal brand, as well. 

For more advice on future-proofing your B2B sales career, you can find Beat the Bots on Amazon.

Anita Nielsen is a sales performance consultant with over twenty years of experience in B2B sales and support. As an advocate for salespeople, she is dedicated to coaching and equipping these professionals for success. For her efforts, she was named one of the Top Sales Enablement Consultants of 2018 by Selling Power magazine. With a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s in business administration from the New York Institute of Technology, Anita is uniquely positioned to help salespeople adapt and thrive. Anita lives in Chicagoland with her husband and two teenaged children. Currently, she is trying to survive her children’s adolescent years without going completely grey or succumbing to overwhelming tiger mom urges.