I first met Scott at a branding summit where he impressed me with his innovative and fresh ideas. I e-mailed him after the summit to work on my own branding and learned so much from the process that I just have to share!

The jeans you wear are branded. The company you run or work for is branded. And you, yes you, are branded. In fact, you are multiply-branded. That’s the good news. The bad news is that your multiple brands may not be working together. They may even be working against you!

No matter whether your brand is Wal~Mart; Fred Smith, CEO; Juanita Gomez, Director of Training; honey; or Mom you have a brand. And not only do you have a brand, as we’ll see, you have multiple brands!

Brands serve as mental shortcuts that help consumers make their buying decisions. Brands tell you who you are dealing with, what they may be selling, and predispose your thoughts about the quality and price you should expect.

Try these definitions on for size:

Any message communicated by any means that creates an expectation is an act of branding.
Everything you do impacts the value of your brand. If you manage a company or even a department you need to be thinking about how the individual MicroBrands of the players impact the overall brand.

Any brand intended to dominate a micro-market is a MicroBrand.
For example, think about your local auto dealer. Outside you’ll see the global brand of Ford or Toyota. Underneath the logo you are likely to see the name of the dealer principal. But what brand carries the most weight when you are deciding where to go for service? Probably the MicroBrand of the service writer who is your initial point of contact.

A micro-market can be as small as a one-on-one personal relationship.
Think about your brand as a professional at work or even as a partner at home. Your appearance, your language, everything about you serves as your logo and influences your MicroBrand in the mind of those you want to influence. Do you own the mental real estate you want to own in the mind of your boss, your spouse, your children?

Powerful MicroBrands are usually not built by slick marketing with high-dollar graphics. MicroBrands are more likely built with strategic networking, clever public relations, and sometimes event marketing. We’ll save the details for another time. For now, to put the power of MicroBranding to work for you take these three steps:

First, take an inventory of all the brands that may be associated with you. In addition to your brand as a professional at work, don’t forget the brand you own as husband or wife, a mom or a dad.

Second, decide if your brands are in harmony with one another and who you want to be.

Third, stop letting your brands manage themselves and start being proactive about the mental real estate you want to own in the minds of the people you know and love.

In an over-messaged under-communicated world it’s getting more and more difficult to stand out. The good news is that you don’t have to conquer the world to succeed. All you need a clearly defined micro-market and a powerful, personal MicroBrand!

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T. Scott Gross is the author of Positively Outrageous Service. You may have seen him on CNN or The Wall Street Journal and you can always find him at www.tscottgross.com

T. Scott Gross is more than the creator of MicroBranding… he lives it! His best known MicroBrand, Positively Outrageous Service, puts him in front of nearly 100 business audiences each year. Read his books, try his ideas, and you’ll become a MicroBrander too! www.tscottgross.com.

Books & CD's

“Getting it Together” People can tell you how to organize, but you need to find your own style. Getting organized isn’t about being perfect – it’s about finding what works for you. “Getting it Together” utilizes the Enneagram to help you determine your personality style and goes on to explain how to organize based on preferences and Enneagram personality. Available at www.aricialafrance.com. “Thank you for your CD ‘Getting it Together.’ I’ve learned to stop fighting with myself, to go with the flow and have found an organizing system that works for me.”