The Personal Brand "personality test"
Patrick gave me my content idea for this newsletter this week. We got into a conversation about how much of your personality you inject into your content.
Here’s the actual conversation thread (who says you can't get content ideas from comments).
I would say it’s damn near impossible to have a personal brand without a personality.
The term “personal brand” was coined in 1997 by Tom Peters in a Fast Company article titled “The Brand Called You,” (for the nerds out there).
I’m going to break down two polar opposite ends of the spectrum here and deal with introverts and extroverts.
I sit (I think just in between these two as an ambivert).
So let’s do some digging and break down a few of my connections into what makes them tick!
Extrovert
James Clutterbuck James run a company that deals in live events and experiences. He loves to use humour and satire in his content. What you see is what you get with James (and I speak from first hand experience).
He wants you to feel comfortable with his brand of humour and he gives off a host vibe.
Let’s look at some example content of his
His style is unique and instantly recognisable and not at all at odds with who he is at his core.
James (and I'm sure he won't mind me saying it) is at the more extrovert end of the spectrum. Likes a laugh and exudes that through all his content (he also does do serious occasionally).
Which leads me nicely to Chris.
Introvert
Chris Do a self confessed loud introvert with a big mission.
Chris has a very value heavy, educational style of content.
He’s very serious and can occasionally give himself over to humour (he does this more in live events).
He create a teacher student dynamic through his content and articulation, which creates authority.
I have personally learned a lot from him and his teaching has spilled over into my core messaging as well. How everyone needs creativity at their core.
Chris is much more focused on creating authority from sharing ideas, which creates a strong feeling of trust and gravitas through his personal brand.
Here are a few example of his content
I am also uniquely aware of how much my own bias and the way I view the world also plays into the way I perceive both of these creators.
One thing they both have in common is making you feel a certain way through their personal brand. So there is no disconnect between the trust and feeling being built around who they are and the experience or service they sell.
But absolutely core to both of their personal brands is their personality!
And that’s the beauty of building a personal brand, you and a competitor could sell the exact same product or service with the exact same outcome but have completely different personalities, which makes how a future customer feels about you and that product unique!
Your personality is what distinctly separates you from your competitors OR to put it another way, if you work for a large company it’s that level of diversity and experience which will allow you to run circles around even your biggest competitors. Simply because your team is so diverse it appeals to as many different people as possible.
It's your inherent uniqueness which gives your personal brand it’s superpower!
Neil Chater a professor of Behavioural Science says this -
"I suggest that people are traditions, too: traditions of thoughts, actions and reactions, patterns of movements, and tone of voice. Each new thought and action is a recombination and variation of what we have thought and done before – and, to an extent, borrowing from what we have observed others say and do. Over a lifetime, our patterns of thoughts and behaviour become entrenched – it is our unique history, our unique habits and patterns, that make us special."
He goes onto say.
"We are like jazz musicians – our distinctive style is built up, snippet by snippet, layer by layer, through a lifetime of improvisation".
Do do you need a personality when building out a personal brand, the verdicts still out, but I know one thing.
It’ll make the process a heck of a lot harder if you don’t!
See you next week kids and remember to put some YOU into your content.
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