Stop Overthinking It and Start Doing It!

Branding, especially personal branding, can be a fairly cerebral process in the beginning. As I think of simplifying brand building, I see it as the convergence of three attributes. Without question, the most difficult and critical attribute is identifying differentiators that translate into your audience value proposition. Oh, by-the-way branding is not just for media or entertainment personalities. Everyone has a brand and the audience can be clients, employers, or those you are involved with from your charitable causes or community. Your brand is important to them as well. It's what sets you apart from the pack.

From nearly ten years of experience building brands in the multimedia space, I see two different things that happen almost immediately after we build the brand persona:

1. The client runs off without direction and starts posting social media that they (not their audience) perceive to represent that brand persona. Seeing the content through the eyes of your bff, bae, or bruh, isn't going to cut it. It's just driving more of the same. In truth, many clients never get beyond this point.
2. We become paralytic. We start to overthink it and that results in doing nothing. We strive for perfection or worst, there isn't the clarity and definitive info that we think we need to be successful, so we refuse to start until everything is in place. It can be said that "perfect is the enemy of good enough." When we get started, good enough by definition is good enough.

Just yesterday I had a conversation with an amazing lady. Talented, ambitious, and full of hustle. Things I can't teach. She personifies the nature, and we can coach the nurture. We spent time crafting an identity of her brand. Now the ball is in her court. No more questions. It's time to start doing. Why? We need to learn.

By building content and publishing or posting, we are going to learn what resonates with her audience. It will tell us where she is getting her highest levels of views and most importantly, engagement. This is the data that telegraphs if we are on the right track and what we need to tweak to reinforce or build. It's not big numbers of the wrong audience, it's the engagement of the right audience and influencers that we are driving.

If you are in the corporate workplace you are saying "how does all of this apply to me?" The short answer is the audience for your brand are the important influencers within your organization. If your brand, the differentiators specifically, are delivering value you will have a significant following from the most influential members of your organization. Recall from previous posts the "push and pulls" of your career? These influencers are the ones pushing and pulling you.

In summary, none of this happens without the initiation of some type of activity. You can strive for perfection but if that need to be perfect before acting results in more questions and paralysis, your brand will never be differentiated nor will it ever get off the ground. Doing nothing ensures that you will never leave the pack and recall the horse racing analogy used by Wayne Lucas, "the speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack". If you aren't able to get started you certainly can't lead. Get that website, blog, or even LinkedIn posting up today. Start that Wix or Wordpress account. Both are simple, inexpensive, and they immediately give you an anchor to work from. It becomes the 'hub' of your 'hub and spoke' approach to your social media strategy (whole different topic). When you get started, shoot me a link. I'd love to follow your work and be an advocate!

About Mike McNamara:

Mike has held C-Suite, Executive and Senior Sales, Marketing, Business Development, and General Management roles with Equifax, Cox Enterprises, WW Grainger, and Federal-Mogul Corporation. Mike has led sales, service and operations organizations of over 1,500 associates and accountable for P&L responsibility in excess of $250M.

Dedicated to giving back, Mike formed The MBAR Group in 2009 with the sole intent of providing pro bono career and business consulting services to underprivileged and under-served markets. Today as founder | CEO of TalentBlvd, he coaches a number of high profile executives and media personalities as well as holding advisory board positions guiding a number of multimedia and small business startups.

Mike earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University. He is a past chapter President of the American Marketing Association. Mike and family split time between their adopted state of Missouri and family home in NW Michigan where their philanthropic causes include The Kingdom House - St Louis, BACN in Benzonia, MI., and Samaritan’s Purse, Boone NC.