Personal Brand Equity: What’s it worth?
I had an interesting conversation with Peter Kim while out at SXSWi last week about my recent personal branding post and the comments he left a comment asking me to expand my thoughts from a corporate perspective and to explore the parallels between corporate and personal approaches. During our conversation Peter said that he thinks that most people will have a personal brand over time, so I asked him what he thought that would mean from a corporate viewpoint. He asked me to write a post on what I thought it meant and, well, you know me, I have lots of opinions and thoughts…so here goes.
I agree that most corporate people will begin to create online ‘personal brands’ by setting up LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, insert next new cool online tool here, accounts. But is that enough from the corporate perspective?
Having these accounts doesn’t automatically grant people with personal brand equity. And I think that’s the disconnect that I have with personal branding. Having a bunch of online accounts doesn’t just automatically equate to equity. But what you do with those accounts including the conversations you have and the people you are connected to does have the ability to establish online personas and reputations that might equate to equity and that’s what corporations are interested in. It’s like the new sales person showing up with an already established network. The sales person is implying that they have established relationships that will help to generate revenue (and their bonuses!). Sales people sell against a revenue number and that’s the potential equity they bring to the table. But what if you aren’t in sales? As a marketer, what does your personal brand bring to the table in the form of equity?
Let’s take a step back and wrap our heads around traditional corporate branding (there’s a method to the madness and boring definition review).
Brand: A name/mark intended to identify and differentiate a product/service of a seller
Brand Mark: The part of the brand that appears in the form of a symbol, design, distinct color/font
Brand Name: The part of the brand that can be vocalized (words, letters, numbers)
Brand Loyalty: A buyer’s commitment to repurchase the brand
Brand Equity: The value the brand adds to the product/service
For generations marketers have been branding with these terms in mind (think Coca-Cola, Nike, Amazon.com, etc.). But let’s look at it from a personal perspective in relation to working for a company, government agency, non-profit, university, etc. (the “corporate” perspective).
Personal Brand: A name/mark intended to identify and differentiate a product/service of a seller
Personal Brand Mark: part of the brand that appears in the form of a symbol, design, distinct color/font
Personal Brand Name: The part of the brand that can be vocalized (words, letters, numbers)
Personal Brand Loyalty: A buyer’s commitment to repurchase the brand
Personal Brand Equity: The value the brand adds to the product/service
So how do the definitions change when “personal” is added? And what should corporations look for or expect? You didn’t think they should hire you just because of your cool online presence, did you?
- What are you selling? How does your unique skill set, experience, reputation, etc. achieve corporate goals and objectives?
- What’s your brand mark? Perhaps you have a personal logo or an avatar (photo). Are you distinct?
- What’s your name? That’s obvious. But is it a well known name that a corporation would embrace? Is it a name recognized and established in the industry?
- How much loyalty do you have banked? Can you bring ready-to-buy customers/prospects to the table upon hiring? Does the brand loyalty you’ve established help shorten the sales cycle? Do you have marketing/PR relationships that help save money or generate revenue?
- What is your personal brand worth in revenue? What value does it add to the existing corporate brand? (Or does it conflict?) Does your personal brand help propel the corporate brand forward or create buzz?
The last one, personal brand equity is of a lot of interest to me. Years ago there was a push to make marketing professionals accountable (brand valuation) for the financial well-being of corporation brands. Wikipedia explains it this way: “[to] measure the brand as a financial asset. In short, a calculation is made regarding how much the brand is worth as an intangible asset. For example, if you were to take the value of the firm, as derived by its market capitalization–and then subtract tangible assets and “measurable” intangible assets–the residual would be the brand equity.”
From the brand equity perspective, what I am wondering is that if you feel strongly about personal branding, would you stake your income on it? Would you be willing to derive a portion of your income based on how much you positively or negatively influence brand valuation from an accountant’s viewpoint? (i.e. if it’s positive, more income; if it’s negative, less income perhaps even termination).
From the corporate perspective, should corporations pick people with established online personal brands over those that do not? What if their skill sets are the same? Should someone with an established online personal brand be paid more?
From a personal approach, what if you are the personal brand that owns the company? Do you view your personal brand equity stake to be even higher and therefore riskier?
Would a company full of personal brands that were compensated on personal brand equity provide a better customer experience?
What are your thoughts? What am I missing? What would you add?
[Image: iStock]
Tags: 31 Responses to “Personal Brand Equity: What’s it worth?”
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Beth –
Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
The question that most intrigued me in your column was: “If you feel strongly about personal branding, would you stake your income on it?”
For those of us who are entrepreneurs — and particularly ones who incorporate their personal brand into the name of the company — I would reply that yes, this is a question you had better become pretty comfortable answering in the affirmative. One of the hardest things to get used to as an entrepreneur is the reality that your personal income is completely dependent on your success as a business owner.
I’ve had some interesting discussions over the years about whether to brand a firm with one’s own name or not. When you open your own shop or sell yourself as a consultant, there is an implied promise that the personal brand behind the entity is adding some additional value.
Not all of us do it well, and certainly not all of the time.
But for the brave souls who try to build something themselves — and back it with their personal brand and promise to deliver an added-value X factor because it’s their brand behind it — it can be a powerful message , a powerful distinguisher and a powerful tool.
Great questions. Should companies hire people with established personal brands over those without? Should those people be paid more?
In most roles I’d hire for or be considered for, interest, expertise and online savviness are important. So absolutely yes to the first question. If someone is taking the time to position themself as an expert in their field, that is a more engaged, thoughtful and expert individual.
I know I was thoroughly Googled and my blog and network profiles reviewed before I was offered my most recent job. Fine with me – that’s one of the reasons I work to have a good online profile or “googleprint.”
Should I overall be paid more for that? Not if I’m not delivering more value. To the job-hunter or the entrepreneur, managing online presence is a way of being found and positioning oneself as an expert. Makes you more likely to be hired and strengthens your original negotiating position a bit. But if I don’t follow through on that brand promise, I’ll tarnish my personal brand (or “reputation” as some of us still call it) and in the long run cost myself money and opportunities.
Russ Somers’s last blog post..When Common Sense is a Startling Revelation
Beth, thanks for writing this post. Some additional thoughts:
- Personal brands seem best suited for awareness, consideration, and preference. But a different skill set takes over to drive purchase and loyalty.
- When the tangible (e.g. salary) meshes with the intangible (e.g. personal brand), objective metrics for evaluation are critical. We need to solve measurement, fast.
- With the changing nature of work, should employers even “buy” personal brands anymore? Or should they be thinking of leasing them for shorter terms for specific purposes?
More questions than answers! Great meeting you in Austin.
Peter Kim’s last blog post..Reflections on SXSW ‘09
Great question! A current model for “companies full of personal brands compensated on personal brand equity” may be law firms. Typically, attorneys are expected to build their own client list in a practice area (such as labor law, tax law, etc.) through networking and marketing. They directly benefit from compensation they generate while sharing some with the other partners in the firm. I know, hard to believe–lawyers on the cutting edge of personal branding!
Kirk Phillips’s last blog post..Fear of failing and the courage to be different
[...] Beth Harte has a great post on Personal Brand Equity. And it’s very timely discussion for me because we talked about it at MSP Social Media Breakfast yesterday. Our topic was the community manager role. In discussing the role & the impending culture changes that Gen Y’s are going to bring to the workplace someone asked, Will companies want to hire people with strong personal brands? [...]
I think “personal branding” is an expression that causes misunderstandings. I agree with you if you mean “personal branding” as “working to build your personal brand”.
But “personal branding” is also “being a brand”, “building an ecological self”, something much more natural than a complex plan to achieve awareness, trust, goodwill and to build positioning.
More in depth reflections here, what’s your take?
http://stefanomaggi.blogspot.com
Beth
I think personal brand equity has been around for a long time; social media just makes it kind of more tangible.
A top salesperson is hired based on their history, network, market knowledge etc. Social media makes it sometimes easier to validate this and good people should be building a strong online presence. Their Linkedin and Facebook profiles are personal. If they Twitter to clients who are they? Company or person? People talk to people rather than Brands so Fred or Mary may *currently* work for IBM but they are still the same person if they leave; so who does the client really have the relationship with?
There was a case in the UK where a recruiter was told that the network he had created as an employed recruiter was not his own – what a debate in its own right!
I think Peter Kim’s final point is very interesting – will employees even exist in the next generation so personal branding becomes even more critical. CV’s will not be used to get information as an ‘application form’ will ask for:
Name
Online ID (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc)
All your history and contact details will be pulled in just from that so your personal brand will become that much more critical.
Peter Gold’s last blog post..How to significantly improve staff retention – Ryanair style
Thought provoking… In addition to my own personal branding efforts, maybe I should begin establishing an online identity and the beginnings of personal brands to give my kids an electronic head start??
Rob Stoesser’s last blog post..Would you rather a) Buy a new car, or b) Light $20,000 on Fire?
According to Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” you must think about the people and then the product. Your people make up the culture of your company and what your customers experience when they interact with your company. Based on this, I think personal brand is very important but to a certain extent. As an owner, you will pay more for good people (who will be easier to find using social media) but there’s a limit to the value based on personal brand.
Jess Dennis’s last blog post..Add Twitter to Your Job Search Strategy
Good discussion once again. I think the individual needs to have the same goals as the company in order to be successful using these tools to build a brand. When the individual has a different agenda, things don’t work out so great.
Great discussion. Let me come at it from a different POV.
Look at the clamor over Steve Jobs and his health. His name and style (personal brand) are so intertwined with Apple that there was media meltdown over the situation.
My work history is handled like a brand. Worked for IBM-must bleed blue.
Stickiness of your past and your work will become more and more important in the future. The semantic web will make all facts threaded–good and not so.
In banking terms, it’s important to keep in mind your “et brand worth.”
Beth — much has been written about the need for a personal brand, however, I like that you hit on the importance of brand equity. It’s the equity you’ve built in your personal brand that makes it worth anything, otherwise it’s simply a collection of meaningless blog posts/tweets/logos/etc that actually offer no value to anyone. In fact, corporate brands can actually have negative equity (AIG anyone?) that destroys value rather than creates it.
I agree with Peter Kim as well (what’s new), in the future everyone will have a personal brand or be a recluse.
Alex Hillinger’s last blog post..BAM Party Recap
Great insight Beth. The value of a personal brand results from the sense of self-ownership and self-responsibility that it gives employees. When employees work with ownership they are more motivated to do a better job because well, their brand is on the line. The term brand then is much more effective in communicating what the term reputation has been trying to do for years. In that sense, an employee who is aware of a personal brand will be more mindful of the quality of their work – this does not necessarily guarantee better results but enhances the employee’s experience – by giving it a greater reason for being.
Silvana Avinami’s last blog post..Selfishness is so passé…
Beth, I totally agree with Peter Gold’s comment — this storyline has a long history, and it’s merely being amplified by the latest social influence marketing practices (people, process, tools).
Well over a decade ago, Tom Peters convinced me that we’re all self-employed — and we all have a “brand you” opportunity as he refers to this phenomenon.
I personally started building my online portfolio using GeoCities, because it was one of the best free platforms that was available at the time. Twelve years later, my media creation skills have evolved (I now use video) and the online collaboration tools are much better.
Regardless, my persona and credo remains the same today — If it’s worth doing at all, then do it with passion — http://www.geocities.com/dhdeans/portfolio/
To those who haven’t already opened their own personal brand equity account, and started to deposit unique content assets, I strongly suggest you begin ASAP. Realize, you won’t be a trailblazer, you’ll actually be a late adopter.
I’m not a marketer and I don’t necessarily consider myself one.. or a salesperson for that matter. However, because of how the “game” has changed, it now is required that I be both for myself and the companies I work for.
If we are looking at equity in its purest form – isn’t it the bank of wealth that one has earned from engaging successfully in their chosen niche. If that’s true then I wonder, can our personal equity’s value really be determined ourselves? Or is its value determined by the ones we engage with, our peers? Or maybe its both.
The subject of personal brand is something that I’ve just started learning about. This was a very helpful post to stretch my mind around… and its even a Saturday!
I think there needs to be an understanding of the separation between the personal brand, a quality employee (diligent worker, good natured), and simple name recognition.
Quality employees can contribute greatly to a companies success, and to its culture. Also they can contribute to its bottom line. But that may be do to many things, from good management, the right situation, a good system, the right talents, etc.
Name recognition is about what it says – hearing a name and recognizing it. An example would be of knowing and recognizing a salesman at a competing company that is their top man. You know who he is, and that he is top, but not more.
A personal brand comes with more than name recognition, it comes with knowing that the results can be duplicated, that it was that person that caused the top results. Often it is even defined how the results were obtained – e.g. Joe has the best closing ratio in the industry so he is top saleman, or Jane really builds good relationships and that is why she is our top saleperson. It has less to do with the situation, and everything to do with the person and their unique talents and skills.
my thoughts . . . . Jack
Jackz’s last blog post..CANADIAN AGRI-MARKETING ASSOCIATION ALBERTA CHAPTER REACTIVATED
It’s strange that this topic isn’t touched on more often. With the recent emergence of social media each individual in a sense is branding themselves. I find that the perception of any given name I have will influence my interest in articles or links provided by that person, hence, ‘individual brand value’ I’ll assume the same is true for most of the readers here.
Excellent post!
Great conversation! Thanks for sparking it, Beth!
I think the greatest impact this will have is not so much in changing the way companies recruit new hires or promote employees (based on their personal brand equity – btw, MS is already doing this), but rather in changing fundamentally relationships between companies, partners, customers and blurring the lines of these relationships.
To quote Charlene Li from her SXSW presentation: “where are the consumers in the org chart?”
Personal brand and brand equity will have (and in some ways is already having) a tremendous impact on these relationships. Would you treat the same way a customer complaining about your company’s services on Twitter if they have 5 followers or 5,000 followers?
Pierre-Loic Assayag’s last blog post..The social web is already like air!
Personal branding is one of the most ludicrous terms I have heard in a long time. We have become a society that has become obsessed with the way Hollywood is able to take normal folks and put some money behind them and create a facade that makes us all think that they are somehow better.
The personal brand is an oxymoron, its called a PERSONALITY! If someone is able to express that online, offline, wherever then they have what is called “it” and that has value to our world because we all want “it” and will pay to be around “it”.
Please, please please! lets not start this conversation of the personal brand. Next thing you will mention is personal branding agencies… then i shoot myself.
[...] Beth Harte put an intriguing blog post on Personal Brand Equity: What's it worth? | Harte Marketing …Here’s a quick excerptIn banking terms, it’s important to keep in mind your “et brand worth.” 10 Alex Hillinger // Mar 20, 2009 at 7:03 pm. Beth — much has been written about the need for a personal brand, however, I like that you hit on the importance of … [...]
Very interesting. As a serious geek for most of my career, I’ve not until recently paid much attention to marketing. Twitter, more than anything has changed how I think. That said I’ve been developing my “personal brand” for many years now. Since my “real” name is quite plain and common, I’ve used my screen name (which is very unique) as my personal trademark. And I protect it as much as one can (by having my name everywhere I possible can) .
When I hire on with a company, I basically expect the to pay me for “who I am” not “what I do” part of what comes with that is the (as someone above put it) “lease” on my personal brand. If I have built up a great deal of goodwill in the community, and then use that goodwill to the betterment of the company that I work for, I should be compensated -Because I am risking some of that goodwill (should the company not turn out, upset its customers, etc) .
But the flipside of that is also true: If I have a large personal brand (online presence) then the company risks ITS goodwill should I happen to use my personal brand in a way that upsets their customers, partners etc.
So: should I get paid for it? Yes. Should there be some financial repercussion if I should tarnish the company’s image with my own online shenanigans YES.
But then, I did say, I want to be paid to be me, not to do the assigned work. It takes all of me to be involved in any project, and that’s how much I give. Not all employees are that way, but I suspect that anyone who’s invested the time to develop their own personal brand, especially online, IS that way.
Hey Beth,
Corporations have always hired executives based on their REPUTATION. You can call that their Brand too I suppose.
However your post confuses something, I think. Social Media has made superstars out of some folks, who frankly have little to no value to corporate America because they have never produced anything. Corporations are looking for folks who can produce. Having X followers on twitter, or facebook or a significant blog following or whatever the tool of the day is has NO bearing on their ability to Produce Income.
It seems that folks think that X followers, or X Blog Posts or X Comments increases their value. While it may help, at the end of the day, it is about what you have produced.
Great post. To my mind, though, the mark is besides the point, if only because the actual mark has zero value as an identifier without positive equity provided by an enthusiastic consensus. Therefore, it seems to me that the best strategy to employ is to develop one’s personal reputation by doing good work (or demonstrating one is a valuable resource), and then promoting the heck out of it. That means using social media in order to broadcast accurate information to an authentic network, not simply hyping one’s self to a bunch of virtual ‘friends’.
Terry O’Gara’s last blog post..Co-Branding as an Alternative to 360 Deals
Outstanding thoughts about an ancient idea. In Othello, Iago declares “But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”
Branding, marks, equity, loyalty are just extensions of this idea. As a lifelong sales person, from vacuum cleaners to enterprise software, the personal brand boils down to whether your actual capabilities match your perceived (by others) capabilities.
We’ve all seen products to sell that didn’t live up to their brand marketing and known that our reputations could suffer if we were associated with them. In the internet age, where information integrity is frequently suspect, a personal brand defined by an internet presence begs a cautionary approach.
As a corollary to the bromide “Computers allow you to make mistakes at the speed of light” let me propose the following: “The internet enables intentional misinformation to go global.”
At the heart of personal brand equity is your ability to make only promises, implied or explicit, that you can keep. And then you can brag without lying.
Lots of great comments and discussion here…thanks folks! I think Eric Brown hit the nail on the head (as usual!). None of the “social media fame” means a darn thing if you can’t produce results.
So I’ll ask it this way…
Would you put your money where your mouth, er, personal brand is?
Meaning, if you normally made $100K a year, would you work for $50K and then earn the other $50K as you made each benchmark (goals/objectives) throughout the year that your personal brand promised to deliver to the employer?
In other words, work on commission. Perhaps a new perception of a salesperson as a forward thinking marketeer rather than as a Willie Loman dinosaur?
Fascinating conversation! I hope you’ll allow a ‘dinosaur’ to peek in to the room.
While ‘personal branding’ is simply a new term for an old concept, the use of the term in the context of this blog seems to give a blanket moral sanction to the me me me me generation in today’s workforce. It’s OK to be totally self serving. It’s OK to spend half my waking hours trying to develop my ‘personal brand’ on the social sites. My ‘brand’ is more important than my actual contribution.
Does anybody do anything for the good of the company anymore? For the community? The country? For each other? Eric Brown (Mar 21 Above) cuts to the chase here, “…at the end of the day, it is about what you have produced.” As an employer, I want productivity – not just the sizzle. At the same time, if an employee’s personal brand creates added productivity or value to the product and the employee can prove it, fine! But don’t expect to get paid for it without a trial period, no matter what your resume or your Twitter following or your virtual image happens to be.
Politicians position themselves for reelection. Executives position themselves for bonuses and stock options. With good or bad intention, most of us seek to improve our lot. But do we always do it with integrity? Or are we just enthralled by that image in the mirror?
Terry O’Gara (Mar 23 above) is right on the mark, “…the best strategy to employ is to develop one’s personal reputation by doing good work.” I still believe that approach is best. And Beth, to answer your question, I am happy to work and be compensated based on performance. I hope many others are as well.
Thanks for bringing up an intriguing subject.
Your thoughts here are well articulated. Individuals must think of equity that his/her brand is building
yinka olaito’s last blog post..Brand reputation management
[...] Cherry Fire, personal branding, Slogans So, I’ve been spending a lot of time pondering about personal branding lately and what that means to me. It all started when one of my professors said that most people my [...]
I wish there was an equation that could tell us the exact value of a personal brand!
But failing that, what I’ve noticed in the past 12-18 months is this: 99% of the time, when I go into a presentation or meeting with potential (or even existing) clients, at least half the people in the room have Googled me beforehand.
Since I have a pretty strong Google ranking (something like 25 out of the first 30 returns are me, and from a variety of sources including ‘real’ media, not just stuff I’ve put out there myself), the people sitting around the table tend to be more prepared to listen to what I have to say.
So it cuts down on the time I have to spend building credibility in the boardroom.
Sarah,
Google ranking is definitely a good place to start to assess someone’s personal brand though a John Smith will have more trouble emerging from a Googl search than I would.
The equation you describe to measure someone’s personal brand / reputation is exactly what we do at TRAACKR. We try to get a full representation of someone’s online presence to value their public persona. We have a rough beta already available on traackr.com.