Why is the term “personal branding” wrong?

As with many buzzwords, the term obscures and dilutes useful meaning. It also misappropriates the word “brand.”

Personal branding has come to mean both too much and nothing at all. It hides something important. And it is simply incorrect.

A person has inherent value

Businesses are valuable only insofar as they bring something of worth to their trade partner—their customer. This is how businesses deserve a place in commerce.

People, unlike businesses, are inherently valuable. People deserve to exist simply by being human. Therefore, people do not need a brand.

There’s quite an irony here.

20th-century consumer packaged goods brand builders such as Proctor & Gamble amassed market cap through the discipline of filling inanimate objects with human-like characteristics. An inanimate object like toilet paper is boring and commands little intrigue. But toilet paper that is like a cuddly, giggly, child-like stuffed animal facilitates customer bonding, rendering that toilet paper business less a commodity and more of a vibrant, profitable business.

A toilet paper business is more profitable when it becomes human-like. But humans are already human-like! Brands imbue non-people with people-like characteristics. But people are already people and don’t need to be people-ized!

Personal branding has little to do with brand

Brand is what a business means to the people it wants to serve. It is an encapsulation of the business’s value.

Brand is integral to commerce. Where there is a trade of a scarce resource, there is brand. There is a side offering something, and a side considering the offering in exchange for money, time, or attention. By promising and delivering value to customers, businesses earn their right to exist.

In contrast, personal branding means something with limited overlap with commerce. When most people use the phrase personal branding, what they are referencing might better be described as either “reputation” or “personal promotion.”

• Reputation Many use the phrase personal brand as synonymous with “reputation.” For example, “what do you want your personal brand to be?” This could better be articulated as “what do you want people to know you for? What do you want to be your reputation?” Your reputation is social capital, and so you should protect and nurture it as the important asset that it is. To prevent conflating the important idea of reputation with the vague buzzwordy phrase of personal brand, use the more precise term: reputation.

• Personal Promotion Personal promotion may be a chef who posts videos of herself cooking gluten-free meals for her children with food allergies. An author who both podcasts and tweets about the intersection of big tech and politics. A single dad who blogs about raising happy kids on the cheap. They are talking. But brand is not just what you say. Brand is bigger than promotion . It’s your product offering, your pricing, your sales and distribution, and your messaging. It is the value you bring, how you bring it, and why. It is the sum total of all that you mean to your customer. If personal promotion is what you really mean, call it by this more accurate phrase.

A person cannot be reduced to one thing

A business exists as part of commerce. It has value only insofar as it delivers value to a customer.

The path to value creation in commerce is customer ease. When you make it easy for your customer to see you and buy from you, you’re more likely to succeed. A company that has distilled its offering to something readily graspable will invite in more customers. Simplicity, clarity, and accessibility lead to ease, which facilitates trade.

By definition, business requires a trade of something for something. The business charges money (or some other scarce resource) in exchange for giving customers something they want. The act of defining that “something they want” – the business’s brand promise – is an act of making the business relevant to the customer. The simpler and clearer, the easier you’ve made it for your customer to say “yes.” This is a gift to your customer and a gift to your bottom line.

Said another way: a business must strip away complexity for the sake of customer ease. Ease requires ruthless simplification and reduction.

But a person is a person and is therefore irreducible.

When people ask me about my personal brand, I wonder to which facet of me they are referring. To my kids, I am a mom. To my team, I am boss. To my clients, I am a guide. To my girlfriends, I am a slightly-goofy-but-earnest pal. Is my personal brand supposed to suggest that I am only one of these?

Multi-faceted-ness is what makes us human, and what makes life rich. We are people, so we transcend commerce. We don’t have to be simple and accessible if we don’t want to be.

While I wince when people ask about my personal brand, I light up when people ask about my business’s brand. Ironclad Brand Strategy exists to bring a razor-sharp focus to leaders through brand. We have our own distinctive personality and voice and ethos and culture. Our distinctive, singular promise is to create growth-building brand strategy. This is our brand. We give value to companies through this brand strategy, and they pay us in return. By distilling our promise, we make it easier for our clients, facilitating our relationship.

While brand strategy for a business makes the commerce between customer and company thrive, personal branding reduces something that is irreducible.

Get curious.

When you hear or want to use the phrase “personal branding,” get curious. What is the real meaning here? If it is reputation, call it “reputation.” If it is personal promotion, call it “personal promotion.” If it is a business engaging in commerce with an audience and you are defining the value of the trade, call it brand strategy.

The buzzwordy, watered-down term “personal branding” hides important meaning. Get real about what you mean so that you can move beyond the superficial.

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About Lindsay

Ironclad Brand Strategy ?owner Lindsay Pedersen is a brand strategist whose clients include Duolingo, Starbucks, Expedia, Accolade, Pantheon, and IMDb. Her brand strategies are tested in the crucible of her proprietary Ironclad Method. Lindsay arms leaders with an empowering understanding of brand, and an ironclad brand strategy so they can grow their business with intention, clarity and focus.

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LEADERS:?Lindsay’s book?Forging an Ironclad Brand: A Leader’s Guide ?will teach you the what, why, and how of using brand to supercharge your growth.

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Originally published at?ironcladbrandstrategy.com/ask-lindsay