Salamon Rules of Personal Branding: Rule # 6 – Establishing Credibility

Without credibility, creating a brand becomes very difficult.  You earn credibility by proving you are qualified to as many people as possible and showing that you are consistent and trustworthy.  There are several ways of accomplishing this, especially as it relates to Personal Branding.  For example, a professional bodybuilder is more likely to be trusted and followed for muscle building advice than someone who is a middle-aged overweight school teacher.  People want to have proof that you’re worth investing in.  For the bodybuilder, you can see direct evidence that this person’s advice works.  While the school teacher may have great advice, people would be taking a risk by following their advice.

When trying to demonstrate credibility, you can do it in 3 general ways.  This is discussed in my Dessert Theory post, but very applicable for establishing your brand’s credibility.

-Tell: If you can avoid having to validate your credibility by telling someone, you should.  But there are effective ways of establishing your credibility through explanation.  For one, you should learn what SPIN Selling is.  In short, by asking relevant questions and being truly interested in figuring out core issues, you can present yourself very authoritatively.  For example, the bodybuilder could present an audience a series of questions to find out their core problems.  Once he understood the situation, he could explain that he once had those same issues and has overcome them.  This is how you build credibility through explanation.

-Demonstrate:  Demonstrations speak for themselves.  When you are demonstrating, you are showing examples of your expertise.  Showing client demonstrations or different people reaping the benefits of your services is a very strong mechanism for credibility building.

-Word-of-Mouth:  The last, but most powerful form of credibility building, is word-of-mouth.  When someone says you are the best thing since sliced bread, you are building your credibility in a much stronger fashion then if you yourself were telling that person.  But the secret to word-of-mouth is that the more authority the person who recommends you has,  the more authority is placed on you.  When the CEO of a company says you are a prized asset, that recommendation is much more powerful than the recommendation from someone less known.

It’s important to gauge your perceived credibility with an audience.  If you don’t calibrate correctly, you can lose them.  With credibility, people are more likely to buy into your brand and pay attention to you.  It starts with curiosity and your own pursuit of knowledge on your given subject.  Read voraciously, start writing, tell people what you do so you can start establishing your credibility!

Salamon Rules of Personal Branding: Rule # 5 — Be Consistent

Good brands build over time. 

In the first four editions of ‘Salamon Rules of Personal Branding’ we learned how to set your personal brand up for success.  We learned that you must know how to mass-communicate.  It is the basis of creating a recognizable name.  We learned how to improve your ‘product’ and how to refine your unique value proposition to the world.  We showed that you have to have an innovative take on the world and your specialty.  And last, we learned that your brand has to be accessible—that is, creating a relationship with your customers is far more powerful than any barrier to entry you have set up. 

The fifth law in my series is consistency. 

The reason consistency is important is because, consistency isn’t a one off.  Consistency implies that your brand will be interacted with on more than one occasion.  Wow someone once, and that’s great.  But in order to create a loyal following a build your name brand, you need to be patient and win people over one experience at a time. 

The best brands in the world are consistent.  You know what you will get when you interact with their brand.  It is the reason why established brands are so successful.  For the most part, you know what to expect when you go in.  Consistency breeds trust, and trust breeds good experiences and good word-of-mouth.  William Arruda explains the value of consistency in this article where he says, “When everything is consistent about your brand, you can become known for something. A successful personal brand is always the same. It’s your promise of value to your customers, clients, managers, peers, etc.”

Build yourself a code of consistency to live by, and start being consistent! 

Salamon Rules of Personal Branding: Rule # 4 — Be Accessible

I recently wrote about my trip to New York where I met a rapper selling his Cd’s on the side of the street at $20 a pop.  I wrote that giving away your content and mass-communicating your brand will get you much better results than creating a barrier to entry.  Acquisition is king.  You have to do what you can to create a relationship with people.  Companies do this all the time.  Read here about a movie theater that gives away popcorn for free.  What they’re doing is giving their customers a reason to be loyal.  Even though most theaters make a killing by charging $4-8 on popcorn, this theater is making their money by creating loyalty.  Giving away their popcorn sparks their customers to return and tell their friends. 

While part of value-building is exclusivity, even the most exclusive of brands (Oprah, Trump, Tiger Woods and others) stick with the basics.  They are big and have brand names for a reason.  They mass-communicate their value and they’re accessible to their fans through PR, TV, Books, etc.   

I have a personal philosophy of providing value first, connecting, and creating the relationship.  Are you a person is who’s looking to take value rather than add value?  Is there a barrier to entry with your personal brand?  Do people first have to invest in you before you ever add value to them?  How many of your bosses know what you do and what your brand really offers?  This type of information needs to be accessible. When creating your brand, be sure to let others know what kind of value you have.  Be open and have easy ways for people to get in touch with you.   

All the best in your journey!

Salamon Rules of Personal Branding: Rule # 3 — Innovate

Innovate 

Do you know who you are and how you stand out?  Do you know what your unique perspective of the world is?    If you don’t, then I’d be willing to bet that others don’t either.   

Think of an innovator as someone with a pair of glasses who can see things through those glasses that other people can’t.  Innovators mold the world through that vision so that others without the glasses can see what they see.  Think of great personal brands like Carnegie, Jobs, or Einstein.   Each of them changed the world.  People like this are innovators.  They see things other people can’t–or rather, they see things from their unique glasses that others would never see. 

Your vision’s impact on others is the measure of how innovative you are.  Good innovators attract others to see their vision.  Whether directly or through word-of-mouth, your vision has to be mass-communicated to others.  The more people that identify with that vision, the more powerful your brand will become. 

Find your glasses.

 

Salamon Rules of Personal Branding: Rule # 2 — Create The Product

Personal Branding seems to have a lot of opponents, that is, people who don’t get the concept in its entirety.  Many folks I’ve spoken with think Personal Branding is all about self-promotion.  It isn’t.  Personal Branding is about branding yourself like a good company or product would be marketed.  Make the product good as hell.  Have something to offer the consumer and always improve it.  When Personal Branding is explained like that, I usually get nods in agreement.  

How do you create the product?  How do you self-develop and market what you can you contribute? Everyone has a unique set of talents.  Yes–I know, you’ve already heard that one.  People talk about talents, but what do they really mean?  

When I talk about your unique talents, I am talking about those which are created when your habits, natural abilities, and experience converge into focus.  My younger brother, Jacob Salamon, is a very talented designer.  His main habit is that he’s anal retentive.  When we lived together he despised the fact that I didn’t squeeze the toothpaste to the top of the bottle.  If I took the hand towel off the rack and didn’t put it back….well, you get the picture.  Jacob has a natural ability of having everything in his life fit his picture of design.  He knows how he wants his world to look which is why he is a designer.  What makes him talented is the fact that he uses his design skills every single day.  He has created countless logos, brochures, and websites, including my own. 

You can only market your talents once you have a product or something to contribute.  Sam Decker, a fantastic marketer, and CMO of Bazaarvoice, is a perfect example.  He markets himself as “The World’s Cheapest Marketer”.  One of his main talents is resourcefulness.  He can make people talk without having to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars.  The point is that he first has to prove himself as a successful marketer, before he can claim to be a successful “cheap marketer”. 

As an exercise for yourself, try figure out your talents.  What are your habits & natural abilities?  How have you used them to be successful now and in the past?  Now how can you market them under one package? In short, focus on two things:  Self-Development and Mass Communication.