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You Are A Brand

Written by: James Chan

Article Overview: Developing a strong sense of who we are takes both introspection and courage, but it is the core of finding our own brand.

You Are A Brand

It~{!/~}s not enough for the entrepreneur to be a creator, a manager, a salesperson, and a strategist. You must also be a brand. You need to let others know that you exist, and that you stand for something meaningful.

Being a brand need not be as expensive as it sounds, however, because we already have a head start. Independents can often establish our brands as effectively through our presentation and behavior as through costly advertising or public relations.

Large corporations devote a great deal of care, time and money to formulating and projecting an identity. At a time when giants seem to be swallowing even larger giants daily, these business entities try to convince us that they have the qualities that we would expect to find in individuals; indeed, in our friends.

Thus, they take pains to establish a particular character. Many insurance companies, for example, seek to impress us with their old-money rectitude and conservatism. Disney evokes the memory of its founder Walt, and the many characters the company has created, from Mickey Mouse to the Lion King. Volvo has even been able to capitalize on the pessimism that seems endemic to Swedes. Automobile accidents are inevitable, the company tells us, and we work obsessively to be sure that you survive them.

Many companies exploit a myth of their origins. Apple Computer, for example, trades on its entrepreneurial origins in a garage, and presents itself as the computer company that takes interesting, exciting chances. For years, an actor playing Charles Merrill, founder of Merrill Lynch, harangued the viewing public with common sense; and even the ambiguous figure of Henry Ford, seen by some as a hateful genius, has been expensively celebrated for realizing the dream of a car for the masses.

Millions have been spent on such campaigns, and what is their purpose? It is to make giant businesses seem more like individual people. It is to give these companies a personality, perhaps even a soul.

Guess what? We entrepreneurs are individuals. We do possess character. We have personalities. And each of us is more soulful than Unilever, Exxon, Coca-Cola or Nestl~{(&~}, any day of the week. Our businesses embody our real identities, not artificial ones.

It is important for those of us who are in business for ourselves to have a strong sense of who we are. For the most part, I think we do. Nearly everyone with whom I spoke saw their business as an outgrowth of their own talents, their own interests, their own values, their own commitments. While we need to refrain from identifying too completely with our businesses, we do see our businesses as, at least, a reflection of our identities. This sense that we have of ourselves can give our businesses an integrity that bigger companies can only envy.

What the giants have that we don~{!/~}t, however, is the ability to project their identity in the world. They can conduct massive advertising campaigns. Few of us can do the same. (One entrepreneur I spoke with stopped advertising when he realized that he was doing it simply to assuage his own ego, and make his friends view him as successful. He decided that it~{!/~}s cheaper and more enjoyable to take his friends out to dinner.)

We do have ways of projecting our identity, nevertheless, and they are very important. Our clothes, our letterhead, our manners, the professionalism of our behavior, and the care with which we clean up after are all ways of projecting a positive identity in the world.

The other way we express our identity is by joining together, by volunteering and becoming known to large numbers of people. We may be on our own, but nearly all of us belong to several different communities: our neighborhoods, our industries, people who share our problems, our interests or our pleasures. We discover and express who we are when we interact with other people. And who knows, some of them may turn out to be customers.

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Article Tags: ambiguous figure, apple computer, automobile accidents, business entities, car for the masses, charles merrill, computer company, example trades, henry ford, insurance companies, large corporations, lion king, merrill lynch, mickey mouse, old money, pessimism, realizing the dream, rectitude, salesperson, swedes



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