A top expert on personal branding called for “Festejar” and said “Russian Planet”, as competently and profitably for businesses to change your name to a famous brand
Publicity in business and not just a meaningless burden to assert themselves or… tool for the development of themselves and their business?
Founder of the Agency and online Academy Brandme Julia L. insists on a third option. Recognition is a tool, not an end in itself. It helps the entrepreneur to open new opportunities for your business and get what he needs for development, easier and with less. So, if the investees turns entrepreneur “named”, it is with almost absolute probability receives them. His name is a guarantee of reliability and the trust factor.
Positioning – this term has long included in the “internal dictionary” everyone who wants prosperity for his business. DNA of any business is the personality of its founder. Julia L. with a team of professionals over the years of successful work has gained enough knowledge about how a strong personal brand opens up new possibilities, is converted to useful contacts and lucrative deals – whether you are the owner of the pizzeria or the budding star of show business…
Julia L. in coworking Phystechpark
RUSSIAN PLANET: Julia, a simple but important question: how it all began?
JULIA L.: On the first education I am an economist-marketer, and after University I worked for several years in large international agencies: BBDO Branding, Leo Burnett, Ogilvy & Mather the big brands. I was “closely” in all of this, I wanted more influence on the result and be totally free in making decisions. Like, in the end, working with real people, not impersonal corporations.
I have received additional training in image consultancy, many trained in Moscow, Paris, London and pretty soon realized that the work on the formation of high-quality brand person, you must use a synthesis of previously acquired and developed with experience skills. Brand building one is always a complex and challenging work, ongoing simultaneously in several areas: psychology, marketing and style, where every detail can be critical.
So, all my knowledge and skills I had accumulated in the author’s method by which and running today my Agency. My team I created 5 years, long and hard, even had some way to adapt the already established experts in the “classic branding” (I’m talking for example about the designers, the creators, the couple, the strategists) to solve completely new tasks based on the unique personality of each client. And now for the past two years we’ve had some really interesting cases which I am proud.
RP: How difficult was it to adapt by going into your business?
Yul: it is Important to understand that if the person is retiring from a large Corporation to float freely, it is first necessary to very quickly navigate and understand, who is now his client. We must learn to be flexible, because working in big companies, we always get used to certain schemes, we are so comfortable.
I went all in another profession, which didn’t even exist. And I had not just adapt to the new customer (and it is very much “easier” to forget about all their previous 200 slide presentation and learn how to speak in plain language), but also in fact to develop “from scratch”, to introduce a brand new methodology.
The lion’s share of the time I have spent and still spend to detail and patience to explain to every potential client, what “personal branding” and why is it so important today in connection with the development of social networks and technologies. For personal and business success.
RP: Julia, why do you think that is so important currently?
Yul: the Main purpose of building a personal brand that you need right reputation helps to promote your product (idea, product, service, community etc), to establish communication, to achieve the best conditions to increase its influence, a positive influence on the world. A well-built strategy and PR allows you to start word of mouth and significantly reduce the financial costs of promotion. The human brand is much easier to launch new projects and achieve the desired results, managing the expectations of their audience.
Now a lot of talk about Ksenia Sobchak. What is the phenomenon of her personal brand? She was always a “rebel” (one of the 12 archetypes that we use in the development of a semantic platform for personal brand), able to provoke. Its strongest quality – the ability to “pull” from the interlocutor that he might want to hide. This image of a rebel now resulted in the decision to go to the polls and selected the slogan “the Candidate “Against all””.
Another example is Dmitry Nagiyev, using the archetype of “the lover/macho”. However, he is self-ironic, which adds to the seemingly battered image of some twist, turns it into a distinctive “signature” line. The inner content of the brand “Dmitry Nagiyev” ably supported by a set of external “special” attributes – brutal appearance, naked Breasts, cut “under zero”, glasses, beard and, of course, recognizable phrases, and intonations of “Bye, bye!”.
And, finally, my favorite example is Vladimir Pozner. Before us is the archetype of the “wise” – intellectual, lover, man, interesting and age, and a young audience.
The same thing happens with people from business: those entrepreneurs who have their own recognizable semantic way, style, a set of associations –a personal brand that helps them in advancing any new project with their participation go under their name. For example, Oleg Tinkov, Vadim Dymov, Fedor Ovchinnikov, Evgeny Demin, Artem Agabekov – everyone has a clear and straightforward-to-remember way.
RP: From the recent past remember another striking brand – Nikolay Fomenko. Today he is no longer “center stage”. The brand has run out?
Yul: Not quite. All the same person-the brand is always the man himself. And if/when a person changed plans, lifestyle, ambitions, changes or transformered into something new and his public image. The brand identity cannot exist apart by itself and is directly connected with the physical resource of the person and his ambitions.
Work on the positioning of a person competent brand consultant takes into account the peculiarities of character, values and human experience, and not just follow the market or guided by the needs of the target audience. This is probably the most complex and interesting in personal branding. While personal brand grows in a global scalable business, as happened with Ford, Dior, Virgin…
RP: And yet still remain a doubt, whether so important to become a “brand” for gaining success? Yes, there are Tinkov, but there are other top bankers, no less successful, but their names are scarcely glow in the press…
Yul: I Think the difference is that there are people who perceive themselves more as “option”, albeit extremely important, but that “feature”. And they develop as super-specialists, without requiring more from the world and not wanting anything more to give to the world.
And there are other “tops” who think big, think change and values they produce. And then everything that they do, whatever they do, becomes their method of influence on the world, interact with it, self-realization, the desire to leave a mark. For example, Richard Branson does not perceive himself as a simple businessman, albeit extremely successful, he has a mission to “blow” people’s minds, open new worlds in the old system, tear patterns and to “infect” others with their philosophy and way of life, full of fun and excitement.
If a man clearly sees himself as a hero of his time and realizes that he can really give to this world more than the rest – it becomes a brand, regardless of whether they had been initially, this is the goal. Sure Oleg Tinkov or Vadim Dymov is not addressed to any consultants, and just do what their “rushing”. And everything else already “kissed”. But times have changed…
RP: it Seems that now in the era of ultra-high technology and the lack of barriers in the external positioning of a loved one through the social networks, it is much easier to become a “star” without unnecessary rituals. Poured a good video on YouTube, gathered millions of views…
Yul: the Social network, as well as any other form of publicity is, of course, helper, tool. But, first, not everyone can under your post to get a million hits and, secondly, not everyone can repeat that a million. Not enough to master the technology and all the secrets of promotion. If the technology/brand is Personality and a good product, then inflated bubble will burst sooner or later.
Moreover, even if you see yourself as a “option” and running away from publicity, time requirements are such that still for each founder have to know yourself and your product well-positioned in the same social networks or through public speaking at business events. It is inevitable. People are always interesting people. It is now possible to know who is at the helm.
Here is an example from my recent practice: a successful entrepreneur, I won’t mention the name, failed in negotiations with an important partner only because he found his page in famous social networks. And the contents, shall we say, significantly different from the image of his company. Despite the fact that he spent significant funds to the company “looked good” on the Internet.
RP: to sum up our interesting conversation. What are the basic steps on the way to your own brand?
Yul: the first and main step is to see if you’re ready, in principle, be the public face. However, if it leads you in horror, it doesn’t mean that you don’t need to go into this fear, because where scary – there is always our most important growth point. Behind every fear is a gift and kind of an amazing opportunity to reach a new level, especially in work.
But not necessarily to become a brand “through I can not”, if you wonder – think of how many of your trusted environment may be suitable for the role of the public face of your company.
The most important thing when deciding to “brand” yourself – understand who you do this (by the way, take the free test archetype on our website) that may be useful to offer people, what are your unique competencies the big idea the mission of the business. And then choose to remember the attributes that will help non-verbal to convey your values and where you will be organic. Then you can do the promotion, because you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
The material was prepared with the support of “Technopark”
