Download - Brand U: Building a Personal Brand

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BRAND U: building a personal brand

A graphic workbookWords and story by Jonny and Simon Arrowsmith

Pictures by Luke Orrin

Based on the Grow the People workshop Brand U!


Published byGrow the People Press

Tel: 0207 557 [email protected]

Copyright 2014 © Grow the People Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator” at the address below:

Grow the People Ltd2nd Floor6 Flitcroft StreetSt Giles in the FieldsLondonWC2H 8DJ

Grow the People Press is a trading name of Grow the People Ltd.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

Printed in the United Kingdom by Comic Printing UK

First Printing, 2014

ISBN 978-0-9928666-0-0


Welcome to our graphic workbook Brand U! This book is something a little different; part graphic novel, part business book, part workbook. It’s something that we hope is unique, interesting, and fires the imagination. Personally, it’s something we’re passionate about, something true to who we are at Grow the People.

Let’s start by telling you what we’re not going to do. We won’t give you interview tips, tell you how to dress for success, or show you how to use body language effectively. There are plenty of great resources available that can give you that kind of information. We’re not going to claim we can make you into something you’re not - we can’t make you into a celebrity superstar, unless of course it’s your destiny to become a celebrity superstar. And if you are a celebrity superstar, there’s a PR company out there that will want to help you become an even bigger superstar.

If you want to be successful in life, the way the world experiences you matters. How you define success, is of course up to you - making it to the top of your chosen career path, living a certain lifestyle, finding your personal happiness (or being a celebrity superstar). Whatever your definition, you’re communicating who you are constantly to the world around you. Doesn’t it therefore make sense that you should have some influence on the way you’re broadcasting those messages?

The term ‘personal brand’ makes some people a bit uncomfortable, they might think it’s a bit of a gimmick, or that it’s about projecting an inflated or false image to the world. We hope to show you that when personal branding is done right, it’s actually about focusing on what’s really going on for us as individuals and presenting that to others in a compelling way. Building and maintaining a personal brand is about creating your story with authenticity and living that story with consistency. The aim of this book is to help you extract and build your personal story to find ‘Brand U’ - the ingredients that will support you to be more successful on your chosen path.

This book is made up of three elements. There’s the story of Ian and Barbara, two employees who attend a workshop with a difference. There are sections where we break down their experiences, discussing models and tactics that will help you find your core values, build confidence, and improve your awareness of how you operate in relation to others. And then there are the ‘break out’ pages, where we invite you to consider your own brand through exercises and questions. We encourage you to join in; make notes, explore the models, mull over the questions we raise, and then review your thoughts and findings.

So if you’re ready, let’s go meet The Prof, our guide to discovering ‘Brand U’!

What’s this all about then?

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The world’s best and biggest brands are the ones that tell the most engaging stories. They inspire followers to become advocates: people who become participants in what that brand represents. Think about giants like Apple, Coca-Cola, or Virgin, or smaller, yet just as impactful brands like Innocent, Johnny Cupcakes or Zipcar. They’re not just selling a product, they’re selling an idea. People are buying into those ideas and sharing the brand’s story with others, people they feel will make best use of that brand’s products and services.

At the heart of this success is a set of core values that inform how the brand operates, both internally and externally with its customers. A great idea for a product doesn’t necessarily mean it will capture the interest of the buying public. However, by setting strong brand values, a coherent mission for what needs to be delivered, and a clear vision of where that business is headed, a brand has a set of guiding principles to support them and their advocates through even the most difficult times.

These values have to truly represent how the business operates; they can’t be a generic shopping list of values. They have to be backed up with actions if the brand

is to thrive. Consider this corporate value:

“Integrity - we work with customers and prospects openly, honestly and sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we cannot or will not do something, then we won’t do it.”

This was one of the values articulated by Enron… need we say more? (Apologies if we do need to say more, please feel free to Google Enron’s story!)

In contrast consider one of the brand values from car-share company Zipcar:

“Obsess about the member experience - build trust and confidence among our member community by delivering leading convenience, dependability and service excellence”

The Zipcar value is far more likely to tell a prospective customer what they can expect from the brand promise. The value (and in particular the word ‘obsess’) also allows a Zipcar employee to fully understand how to behave. There is little room for ambiguity and yet enough space for flexibility of action – clear brand parameters.

From corporate brandto personal brand

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It may seem odd to think of ourselves in the same way as these organisations, but the parallels are compelling. If we want to influence the way the world experiences us, we have to tell an engaging story too. And of course, it isn’t enough to merely tell it. It has to be a story that has truth at its heart, a story that can grow and adapt with its surroundings. We need to learn how to tell our stories to an audience whose attention-span is shortening and in constant demand from other sources. And we have to be able to live and breathe our stories day-by-day.

It is important to acknowledge we cannot control the response to our brand, personal or corporate. How others respond to us is something that they control, and we must accept that not everyone is going to buy into our story. What we can do is create the best opportunity for our brand to be experienced as we would want it to be; for our brand to have the impact that matches our desired intent.

The best chance of this happening is not to create a persona or character to play, but to accentuate the positive elements already within ourselves. Our brands develop over time of course, and we can work on minimising those parts of our personality that are less helpful to others and to ourselves. To have a strong brand we must recognise what works and what doesn’t and evolve with our audience.

Building a personal brand with impact can be a straightforward process; albeit one that requires some time, a little bit of personal reflection, and a certain amount of bravery.

Let’s continue by exploring the four key elements that we all need to work with in order to define and sustain a personal brand…

“…one does not have a choice of having or not having a personal brand. Everyone has one. The real question is whether someone’s personal brand is powerful enough to be meaningful to the person and the marketplace.”

Tom Peters

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Developing our Credible requires us to understand our authentic and believable superpowers – our vision, mission, and personal brand values. There is a pressure, particularly in the work environment, that makes some people feel they need to change in order to create a successful personal brand. While we may want to develop some of the actions and behaviours we display, we’re at our best when we are consistent with our personal strengths and with what is most important to us. We all have something to offer the world and we all approach things in different ways. This is something to be celebrated. The last thing we would want from developing a personal brand is to remove the personal!

Defining our vision is all about articulating our ‘higher purpose’. Many of us move from one chapter of our lives to the next without much thought to where we’re going. By determining where we would ideally like to be we create a rudder to steer us in the right direction. The direction isn’t permanently fixed, and the path we follow isn’t always a straight line, but with a ‘polar star’ to guide us we have something to move towards.

To find our vision, we have to ask ourselves the really big questions:

• What gets me out of bed in the morning?

• What do I want out of life?• Where am I going?

When we have an idea about our vision, we need a clear mission to help us deliver it. In personal brand terms this is where we bring in the key skills we possess – the activities that we believe we perform best. By acknowledging where we’re strong we can find the optimal path towards our vision, the path that gives us the best chance of success. That’s not to say that this is the only way; at some point we may choose to strengthen one of our weaker skills and our mission could then evolve along with our expanding skill set.

• To understand where we are now, we should ask:

• What are my personal strengths?• What expertise or specialism can I

provide to others?• What tasks or activities do I lose

myself in?

Vision and mission are the cornerstones of our brand, but the thing that really creates a difference is the way they are delivered – through our personal brand values. It’s only when we get to know more about our values that we can begin to get

Defining the credible

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to grips with the way others experience us. Being real and genuine are key factors in creating a credible brand story. People respect us for being true to whom we are, which in turn builds trust.

In his book Winning the Story Wars, Jonah Sachs examines the use of values as a higher purpose for business, a way to move beyond products and services and into the reason for customers to advocate a brand. He describes three approaches businesses adopt when defining their brand values; those that have ‘natural’ born values, those that create their values as a result of their actions, and those that define their values and then demonstrate them through activities*.

With a personal brand it is pretty much the same. Some of us we have an unerring sense of what is important to us and what we offer the world. Some of us choose roles or activities that naturally lead us to a set of values, while some of us have to look a little deeper to understand what we use as our guiding principles.

However we arrive at our personal brand values, they are crucial to understanding how we function and what is driving us. Spending time reflecting on and defining them allows us to gain clarity on where we start in our relationships with others. Barbara’s brand consists of five values:

bravery, collaboration, competition, passion and optimism. She might consider how she articulates these as action-oriented statements (she’s a superhero after all!):

• Always act with bravery• Work in collaboration with others to

find solutions• Enjoy healthy competition to motivate

myself and others• Engage with passion• Start from a place of hope and

optimism

This activity allows Barbara to demonstrate how her brand values support her vision which is “being the go-to person on all things corporate finance”; and her mission is “to bring ten years of study and experience in the world of finance to the organisation I work for, in particular my expertise in European tax law”. The values will be the reason why her employer chooses Barbara over a colleague who may have the same level of expertise and goals in life but doesn’t approach the work in the same way.

The three elements of vision, mission and values give our personal brand its starting point – the ‘superpowers’ that will help bring our promise to the marketplace.

*see Winning the Story Wars, Jonah Sachs for examples of businesses and their brand values approach

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accountability

accuracy

adaptability

adventure

agility

ambition

approachable

ambitious

artistic

boldness

bravery

buoyancy

calmness

camaraderie

candid

careful

challenging

change

clarity

cleverness

community

compassionate

consistency

creativity

curiosity

determination

discovery

diversity

economy

education

empathy

energy

ethical

experienced

extravagant

extroversion

fairness

family

frugality

gratitude

growth

harmony

honesty

hopefulness

humour

imagination

impartiality

influence

integrity

intellect

introversion

intuition

justice

learning

loyalty

maturity

meaning

modesty

neatness

openness

optimism

originality

patience

passion

peace

perfection

persistence

playfulness

popularity

pragmatism

rationality

reflection

relaxation

reliability

respect

responsibility

self-control

self-reliance

sharing

simplicity

sincerity

sophistication

speed

status

strength

support

thoroughness

tidiness

tranquillity

truth

uniqueness

visionary

warmth

willingness

wisdom

youthful

Circle the five words you feel most drawn to as your values (feel free to add your own!)

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What’s my vision?

What’s my mission?

My top 5 action-oriented values statements are:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Define the credible

(What gets me out of bed in the morning? What do I want out of life? Where am I going?)

(What are my personal strengths? What expertise or specialism can I provide to others? What tasks or

activities do I lose myself in?)

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Credible works best for us when we play to our strengths, and we do this by identifying the elements of our personality which matter and those we consider ‘surface’ elements that we can be flexible with. The question we should ask ourselves is - how well is our brand going to work within the environments around us (workplace, family, society/culture, school) and in relation to other people?

Let’s consider one environment that impacts most of us - the workplace. How do we think we can retain our authentic Credible brand while we are at work and while operating within someone else’s system of rules? Well, we have options:

1. We can choose to totally ignore the system and remain just ‘me and my brand’, no matter how out of step that is with the work environment

2. We can change completely – so there’s the ‘work’ me and the ‘home’ me

3. We can find a system that better matches our brand – perhaps a new job or employer more suited to our values

4. We can find a path where we flex, maintaining our core brand principles whilst working within the parameters of the work system

Option 1 rarely ends well. In his seminal book What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, Marshall Goldsmith highlights a habit that managers often adopt at their peril - “an excessive need to be me” where an individual provides all their values as virtues simply because it’s ‘who they are’. Here the brand doesn’t see strength in adding flexibility to the situation. This approach may work for some people with very strong personalities, like Gordon Ramsay for example, but would that rigid approach work for you?

Option 2 can work for a while; however it takes a certain kind of individual to maintain a dual life for a prolonged period of time. If the two worlds are wildly disparate then things will probably start to strain.

Option 3 may feel extreme, although changing environment sometimes is the best option. It’s an opportunity to assess what we really want in life and re-align ourselves to a role that has real value to us. Sometimes an individual will operate within a system that is ‘toxic’ to them, only to realise the compromise they’ve been making to their values when it’s too late.

Brand in context

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Option 4 is perhaps the most workable option for the majority of us. It allows us to keep hold of our Credible authenticity and find a flexible path through Context to match the needs of our surroundings.

In the book The Chimp Paradox, Dr Steve Peters talks about the need to work with what he calls the ‘Chimp’ in all of us. The ‘Chimp’ is housed in the part of the brain that creates raw emotional responses not based on rational thinking, but on a physical response. Peters describes how the ‘Chimp’ can get out of control sometimes and needs to be ‘boxed’. This is done with the help of both our ‘Human’ brain (the rational and true person we wish to be) and the ‘Computer’ (our system for learned action and behaviour). By exploring the relationships between the ‘Chimp’, ‘Human’ and ‘Computer’ parts of the brain we become better equipped to understand how we relate to others.

Our brand has a ‘Chimp’ side and a ‘Human’ side too. Neither of these is wrong, they just come at life from different perspectives.

Let’s consider Barbara’s values, and take passion as an example. To Barbara’s ‘Human’ side, passion could mean energy, devotion, and direction. To her ‘Chimp’ side it could mean explosiveness, evangelism and single-mindedness. All these traits have their positive uses when using our Credible brand values. The trick is to decide which elements we want to display to others in the systems we find ourselves in.

To help us decide how to effectively apply our values, we can do a number of things:

• Explore our purpose: what is it we want from each situation? What is our desired outcome?

• Develop a greater understanding of the current reality of the situation by paying attention to our surroundings – what external signals are present that will help us achieve our purpose?

• Bring the right parts of our Credible brand values to play in Context – how can we tap into the positive aspects of our value-set to ensure an effective path to our desired outcome?

This situational Context model can help us determine the right course of action and the right values to utilise. We also need to think about our personal parameters. In what system or circumstance would we absolutely not want to operate? For example, if truth is one of our most sacred values, being asked to enter into even the smallest amount of deceit would be a step too far. It would certainly create anxiety for our ‘Chimp’.

Knowing what makes up our core brand is important. Understanding when and which values to use, and when to tone down our values to fit the situation is equally important. This is sometimes seen as the toughest part of developing a personal brand, as it requires us to pause and reflect on what the situation really needs from us. And with the speed in which the world moves, pressing the pause button is something we can easily forget to do.

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1. Purpose - what’s the outcome I want to achieve in this situation?

2. Situation - what can I see/hear? What are the external signals telling me?

3. Values - which of my values will best match the situation?

4. Action - what will I do to demonstrate those values to support my purpose?

Match to the context

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Parameters

List your values statements and for each one define the boundaries you believe you can work within. Define what you would find unacceptable behaviour.

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3.

4.

5.

My value statement Unacceptable behaviour

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Doodling is good for the soul!

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The story of Frank

In which a monster finds a friendand a village finds a hero

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Once upon a time there was a lonely old scientist who lived on a hill above a village. He was feared by the villagers because he was mad, and slightly bad, and so had no friends to play with. This made him a sad slightly bad mad scientist.

His sadness grew so heavy that one day he decided to make a friend to play with.

Every night he would steal into the graveyard and take the good parts from the recently buried bodies. There were many accidents in the village so he had an easy time finding what he needed. He carefully sewed the pieces of his new friend together, and one night gave him life using electricity and science.

The scientist was overjoyed, and called his new friend Frank. He couldn’t wait for the next morning so that they could go out and play frisbee in the hayfields together.

The scientist ran out with his new friend into the hayfields just outside the village, busy with villagers pitchforking hay. Alas, Frank’s patchwork appearance was so scary to the villagers that they called him a monster, and stabbed the scientist repeatedly with their pitchforks for creating such a thing.

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Frank ran away, pursued by the angry and scared villagers who had decided that they should also stab him repeatedly with pitchforks. It was the fashion in the village that year to stab things repeatedly with pitchforks. Frank fled into the dark forest, flailing wildly through the thicket. Eventually he stumbled into a clearing where he found a young girl crouched by the side of a pond, crying.

“Oh Mister, my kitten has fallen into this pond and I cannot swim out to rescue him. Will you help?

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Frank reached out and with one hand scooped the kitten out of the pond. Delightedly the little girl snapped pictures of the rescue on her smartphone and set about posting it on the massively popular networking site FacePamphlet. “Oh thank you for saving Mister Kitteh, kind, if kinda gross looking, sir! Would you like to stay awhile and play?”

Frank sighed and said that he must continue to flee into the woods, for the villagers were surely pursuing him with pitchforks for being so fearsome.

“Well, that is the fashion this year,” said the little girl. “But why do they fear you so? You are kind and gentle and your eyes remind me of my old dear grandpa who passed away just last week in a mysterious pitchfork related accident”

“I don’t know - you’re the first person to even talk to me. I don’t have a job, I don’t have any friends. How can I make the villagers see that I’m not so fearsome?”

Suddenly, Mister Kitteh mewed. The little girl gasped, “why that’s right Mister Kitteh! Let’s show the villagers what a good person you are! Come with me to my house - we’re going to get you connected!”

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The young girl took Frank by his large hairy hand. “You know, your hand is just like my father’s. He also passed away last week in a mysterious pitchfork related accident.”

“The same one as your grandpa?”

“No, we have a lot of mysterious pitchfork related accidents in the village.”

At home, the little girl sat Frank in a chair and combed his hair. “Now you’re ready to have your profile picture taken for LinkedUp. Just turn slightly to the right and look over your shoulder. And smile, but look natural.”

Frank asked, “why are we doing this again?”

“We want your true personality to shine through. If you want people to see the real you, you need to shape your story,” said the little girl.

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“You seem to know an awful lot about this stuff for a 6 year old girl,” said Frank.

“You grow up fast when pitchforking is your village’s favourite pastime,” she replied.

A couple of days later Frank asked, “How many people have checked out my profile?”

“46 requests to play Choco Smash Drama on FacePamphlet. 17 requests to connect on LinkedUp. And following my online recommendation for rescuing Mister Kitteh you have an email from a villager asking if you would rescue his pitchfork from the backside of an angry bear that fled into the woods. My plan has worked - I think you’re a hit!”

And Frank soon became known as the Village Rescuer, helping the villagers rescue things (mainly pitchforks) from other things, and he lived with his best friend the little girl until she grew into a young woman.

They would have been happy forever but for the day she fell in love with a villager who came to stab Frank to death with a pitchfork after a heated game of Jenga. For pitchforking things to death was once again the fashion that year, which just goes to show that what goes around comes around.

The End.

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After defining the core of our brand and exploring ways to ensure we can flex it within different situations, we must now Connect. A successful brand cannot exist in isolation. It’s worth revisiting the idea that the most loved brands are the ones that tell the best stories. In order for others to understand who we are we need to harness the power of story.

Stories make us human; they are how we make sense of who we are and how we relate to others. Story engages the brain much more effectively than simply trying to remember the facts. We have an inherent need to sort facts into a narrative structure; this is how the human brain is hard wired. Jonathan Gottschall’s book The Storytelling Animal looks at this in some detail and makes for a great read. Finding and telling our brand story is the key to letting others know what we’re all about.

A compelling story starts with a clear message. The good news is that we already have this. We have our Credible brand as the message we wish to communicate. Even better news is we’ve already started on the next step! A gripping tale draws us in through a cast of relatable characters that populate the story and we already have our central character: ourselves!

The final two elements of a story are the plot (the events and facts) and conflict (the decision points that drive a narrative forward).

The biggest challenge we face when telling the story of us (who we are, why we’re here, and what we want) is that our story could be huge! We shouldn’t let that scare us too much. The first draft of any great work may often seem like an incoherent ramble, but it is a crucial first step. The hard work comes when we edit our story down, but for now we just need to write.

Let’s extract the elements of our brand story:

• We’ve already done the first steps – we have our message (vision, mission, values) and our main character (us!)

• Next we draw a personal time line populating it with all the key milestones of our life or career to date. We don’t hold back, we should include everything we think is important. This is our plot, and acts to remind us of key characters in our story we may have forgotten

• Now we highlight the key moments of change along the path. When did we have to make choices about the direction of our lives? When

Making it connect

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did we have a significant change of circumstances? These are our moments of conflict

We now have the ingredients that we can combine to create our story. It’s here that we add a dash of emotion and a pinch of drama to the dish!

A lot of stories follow a three act structure (beginning, middle and end) and all include another key ingredient: emotion. Gripping stories have events that incite change, where characters struggle and their challenges are resolved. This structure elicits an emotional response in the listener/reader. As we start to explore our full story we begin to see the moments that naturally demonstrate our core brand elements. We can then extract those moments and decide which we wish to share as our brand stories with others.

Animation powerhouse Pixar have a simple and effective way of describing a story structure: Once upon a time there was___. Every day___. One day___. Because of that___. And because of that___. Until finally___. This small structure is a wonderful device to help us create a short, coherent story that will connect our brand quickly to others. We can break this down with an example from Barbara, using her core value of bravery:

• Act one (beginning): Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___.“Once (upon a time) I was a shy and quiet person. Every day at school I would let the other children answer up in class while I remained silent.”

• Inciting event: One day ___.“One day my teacher, Mr Turner, told another student that she had got

an answer right when I knew it was wrong.”

• Act two (middle): Because of that, ___.“Because of that I could no longer keep quiet, and I nervously poked my hand into the air and politely corrected the teacher, who thanked me for my bravery at being honest with him.”

• Climactic event: And because of that, ___.“And because of that moment, Mr Turner always referred to me as Little Miss Bravo, and I was encouraged to speak up more often in class.”

• Act three (end): Until finally ___.“Until finally I didn’t need my teacher to call on me anymore and I found the confidence to speak up, which I continue to do to this day.”

The story we tell will depend on the situation we find ourselves in. The length, the tone, and the style of story will vary depending on the needs of our audience. In the digital age we are presented with a number of opportunities to tell our brand story, each with its own slight nuance. These opportunities need to be managed effectively in order to ensure that we remain consistent across all our interactions.

Consistent doesn’t mean that all our connections should be the same. The way we represent our personal brand through a medium like LinkedIn will differ from the way we present ourselves face to face. The two methods of communication have to sit comfortably side by side. The same goes for the way we represent our brand with colleagues and the way we are in front of a client. It won’t be the same, but it should be aligned. The world is shrinking and a casual comment on a message board or

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in the line for coffee can have significant repercussions. Twitter has given us some spectacular examples of this in recent years, from celebrities facing the consequences of their inappropriate views and actions to individuals being investigated by the police for bullying.

So how do we remain consistent yet targeted across all these different types of media? The answer comes back to the points raised within the Credible and Context sections - we have to find the core stories that communicate our brand values and then find ways to flex our language as appropriate to our audience.

Barbara may choose to communicate her core value of bravery in the following ways:

• Face to face with the boss – by providing an example of a time when she’s made a difficult business decision, highlighting her professional bravery

• Face to face with her team – by telling the story of her teacher Mr Turner, showing her humility and humanity as a manager by sharing a personal experience

• On Twitter – by linking to a news story about an act of bravery she admires, thereby associating herself with the values demonstrated

• On LinkedIn – by linking to a white paper that others will find useful on the power of managed risk taking, recommending the article to others as a way of establishing her authority in this area

These are just a handful of examples. They are each different and stand alone as actions, but they are still consistent with Barbara’s core story of bravery. Each element adds to the whole. Barbara is telling similar stories across all the elements of her vision, mission and values, to demonstrate to others how she lives her brand day to day.

Story is a powerful tool and when used with thought it can be your personal brand’s greatest ally. With that in mind, a final word on social media…

The digital world feels transient. It isn’t. Stories, statements, photos, comments, links, and associations - they all contribute to the complete picture of our brand available to others. Once they’ve been created they leave a digital footprint. Nothing is truly deleted, and in cyberspace everyone can hear you scream. This means we have to exercise care when posting, liking, tweeting, etc.

The rule of thumb: if your gran wouldn’t like it, don’t post it!

“I believe that stories are incredibly important, possibly in ways we don’t understand, in allowing us to make sense of our lives, in allowing us to escape our lives, in giving us empathy and in creating the world that we live in.”

Neil Gaiman

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What’s my story...?List one of your brand values and write a story using the Pixar method.

Brand value:

Once upon a time...

Every day...

One day...

Because of that...

And because of that...

Until finally...

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Flexible connections

The workplace face to face version:

The 140 character personal Tweet version:

The LinkedIn professional post version:

Now tell your story in different ways, choosing a style appropriate to your audience and the medium.

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Building a brand is one thing, but keeping it on track is another. Without our final ‘C’ the whole thing would collapse. If our brand is a promise to the marketplace, then we have to make sure we keep that promise. Telling the world we’re one thing and then behaving in another will do us no favours. However, if we choose to live our brand consistently, that will reinforce our Credible.

To help us remain Consistent we can create a manifesto: a set of actions and behaviours that support the delivery of Brand U! A manifesto is a published declaration of intent (they’re often used to express the intentions or views of an individual, group, political party or government.) A brilliant example is the one created by Brooklyn based clothing company, Holstee. Their manifesto not only defined their behaviours as a company, the inspirational artwork went viral. For a personal brand we need to get our manifesto to a place where our intentions are articulated as actions. They are the statements we will hold ourselves accountable to, the statements that best demonstrate our values in action.

Barbara has already given an example of how this would work for her. She knows that she is competitive, and that’s a

strength if used wisely:

“I will demonstrate my competitive nature by setting myself small challenges to continuously improve. Instead of competing against others I will help them to challenge themselves too.”

Not only is this a positive statement of intent, it also focuses on the actions Barbara will take. She could make it even more specific if she wanted by including time-specific elements: “...by setting myself challenges every day...” for example.

The important thing is that we are creating a series of statements that we can share with others about how we put our brand into practice. How are we moving towards how vision? How do we demonstrate the core competencies that make up our mission? How do we live and breathe our values?

A word of caution. Consistency doesn’t mean only doing things one way. We still need to be flexible. Consistency of brand means working within the parameters we’ve defined. We can still do unexpected things that delight our customers while remaining true to our core values.

Being consistent

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My manifesto

List your values and the behaviour that demonstrates the value, outlining how others can hold you to account.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

My value My supporting behaviour

50


Feedback checklist

Which behaviour do you want to improve? Create a checklist and ask others to provide you with regular feedback and track how you’re doing.

Consistent behaviour:

Feedback on date 1: ___ / ___ / ___



51


52


53


So there we have it, we’ve come full circle on our journey through the 4 C’s with each element working in conjunction with the others:

• Defining our CREDIBLE core – vision (where we want to be), mission (the skills we have to get us there), and values (the way we live our life)

• Flexing our brand to match the CONTEXT – knowing when to use which value to good effect

• Using story to CONNECT our brand promise to others across all channels

• Behaving in a CONSISTENT way through positive actions that reinforce our CREDIBLE

Before we finish, it’s worth reiterating that the most important thing about building and maintaining a personal brand is the ‘personal’ part. It’s about who we are at our core and how we can make the best of that. We can evolve our brand further with support or training to improve our skills, and coaching can help improve our behaviours. The purpose of the 4 C’s model is to provide us with a starting point to work from. From here we need to build a ‘quick and dirty’ plan to get us into action. We don’t want to spend too long here, as can often be the danger with planning; we want to strike while the iron is hot!

Our plan should include most of the work we’ve done in the pages of this workbook. A strong plan will also use the check points we created to understand how our brand is working. Asking ourselves:

• How are we using feedback from others to see if our brand is delivering on its promise?

• Where can we make improvements on each of the 4 C’s?

• Is our story compelling enough?

In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Steven Covey talks about “sharpening the saw” where we balance and renew our resources to live a more effective life. The re-brand of a large company usually only works if the new ‘look and feel’ remains true to the core of the initial brand. Think of Burberry, reclaiming its brand by returning to the roots of its 150 year history; or McDonald’s selling salad and coffee in a cafe style environment whilst staying true to its core of family friendly restaurant. We need to stay sharp and relevant, whilst remaining personal and true to ourselves, keeping our story fresh and at the forefront of our customer’s minds.

The best brands tell the best stories...

Putting it together

54


The ‘quick & dirty’ action plan

Action Who & what do I needto help me?

Date to complete

55


What’s your 3 - 2 - 1?

What are the 3 key things you’ve learned in this workbook?

What are the 2 things you can change for the better?

What’s the 1 thing you can put into practice immediately?

56


57


The Prof will return!


Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the support and assistance of a lot of people. So this is a big thanks to Linda and Richard for their total support and belief in us over the years, Amanda for her keen eye and sage advice, the team at Just Add Water for their generosity and for guarding the thresholds, to John for his cheer-leading skills and tambourines, to James and James for the introductions and cocktails, and to Jo, Karen and Lula for the inspiration.


Book sources

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleby Stephen R. Covey (1989)

Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron (2012)

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How successful people become even more successfulby Marshall Goldsmith (2007)

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall (2012)

Brand Bible: The Complete Guide to Building, Designing, and Sustaining Brandsby Debbie Millman (2012)

The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness by Prof Steve Peters (2011)

To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Persuading, Convincing, and Influencing Others by Daniel H Pink (2012)

Winning the Story Wars: Why Those Who Tell and Live the Best Stories Will Rule the Futureby Jonah Sachs (2012)

Online sourcesPlease note that all links to online sources were live as of print of the first edition

(March 2014)

Grow the People brand workshop: www.growthepeople.co.ukHolstee Manifesto: http://holstee.com/pages/manifestoJohnny Cupcakes: http://www.johnnycupcakes.com/blogNeil Gaiman: http://www.neilgaiman.com/Tom Peters: www.tompeters.comWalter Landor: www.landor.comZipcar values: http://www.zipcar.co.uk/mission


Jonny Arrowsmith (story and dialogue)

Jonny’s passion for stories started young with a specific interest in comic books and gaming. He also has a deep love for both stationery and spreadsheets, which some find disturbing. However, this does stand him in good stead in his role running Grow the People with his partner Simon. Jonny also designs learning games and workshop content. He is currently learning to play the ukulele.

Simon Arrowsmith (story and text)

Simon does lots of different things in life. He writes plays, creates music, consults and facilitates through the practice of arts in business. His experience includes brand story development, using stories for large scale curriculum design and delivering storytelling skills workshops. Simon founded Grow the People to bring some of his passion for the arts, creativity and storytelling to business and learning.

Luke Orrin (pictures)

Luke graduated with honours at the Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. He has since been caught working as an animator for companies such as Machine Molle, Premiere Heure and Kawanimation. His own animation short film Chère Esther was selected and shown in over 20 festivals around the world. He is the creator of critically acclaimed comic series Taroch.

About the authors