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The Value of Personal Branding

Featuring Jerry Wilson, Senior Vice President and Chief Customer and Commercial Officer – The Coca Cola Company

July 13, 2011
Competency: Awareness and Insight

“Whether we realize it or not, we are all brands”. What if you thought of yourself as a brand? What would you do, or not do, to differentiate yourself from others?

July’s episode of Success Talks is designed to further your understanding of your personal brand and your “customized” personal career journey.

Jerry S. Wilson, Senior Vice President and global Chief Customer and Commercial Officer from The Coca-Cola Company, has been with Coke since 1988 and has carefully balanced the art and science of leadership to strengthen Coca Cola’s position in the marketplace. Leveraging over thirty years of consumer brand leadership and strategic marketing, Jerry co-authored the book Managing Brand YOU, 7 Steps to Creating Your Most Successful Self.

Episode Recap and Wrap Up

Jerry’s formal agenda included:

Lessons from Successful Brands

  • Consumer Brands
  • Personal Brands

Creating your own Personal Brand

  • Managing Brand YOU
  • 7 Steps to creating your most successful self

Lessons from Successful Brands:

Promise + Experience = A Relationship

  • A promise combined with an experience (that the brand performs) forms a relationship.
  • A brand is a promise to consumers
  • For example, Zappos
  • Position yourself or others will position you
    • If you make a mistake, don't stop stretching, and learn from those mistakes
  • What is your brand promise?

Focus and Excel

  • As women, we want to please everyone and try to be all things to all people.
  • This is a common downfall; at the end of the day, success will probably mean that you must sacrifice a certain audience and maintain focus on a specific (or targeted) audience.
    • For example:
      • MTV:
        • Targets teenagers and young adults
        • They don’t care that grandparents or older individuals hate the brand; they know that they sacrifice market share, but are true to their brand and brand promise
      • Lady Gaga:
        • Lady Gaga is not concerned about turning off a certain audience
        • She loves her “little monsters” and is focused on celebrating the unique-ness of others
  • Have you identified your core audience?

Communicate with consistency

  • Everything communicates (ie. your non-verbal cues)
  • Actions should follow intent
    • Sephora is an example where there is a clear consistent experience each time you walk into the store. The store is alive and vibrant, and when you enter the store, you enter the brand.
  • How well do you communicate with consistency?

Differentiate with Authenticity & Passion

  • How passionate are you with what you do on a daily basis?
  • If passion is not a core ingredient with your actions, your actions will not be authentic.
  • For example: Tom’s Shoes
    • Tom’s Shoes matches passion with a purpose (buy a pair of Tom’s shoes, and they will donate a pair of shoes to an individual in need).
  • How passionate are you?

Creating Your Own Personal Brand:

Some questions to ask yourself:

  • What is your personal plan for success?
  • What if YOU thought of yourself as a brand? How would you change your actions and behaviors?

Jerry Wilson covers 7 steps to Managing Brand You:

7 steps

Step 1. Audit: Who am I and How did I get here?

  • Important to do a self evaluation especially if you are considering re-branding yourself, or have decided to change direction in your career path

Step 2. Image: How am being I perceived by others?

  • What image am I conveying to others? Is it in line with the message I want to be sending out?
  • What qualities make you unique and distinguish yourself from others?

Step 3. Identity: What do I want to stand for?

  • How do you want to define your brand promise?
  • What is your “platform”?

Steps 4. Positioning: What makes me unique and how can I stand out?

  • Position yourself as a winner
  • Who is your target audience?
  • Differentiate yourself

Step 5. Goals: What do I want to accomplish?

  • What life do you want to lead?
  • Be very honest with yourself
  • Take control and set personal goals
  • Is your short-term plan taking you in the direction of your vision/goal?

Step 6. Strategies: How will I achieve these goals?

  • Look at multiple options to best achieve your strategies

Step 7. Implementation & Monitoring: What will I do?

  • Commit and measure your goals to your actions

For more information, you can visit: http://jerryswilson.com or email jerry@jerryswilson.com

To read about “Managing Brand You”

Managing Brand You

Available at amazon.com