Personal Branding is Forming Associations
Welcome to Edition #15 of THE BLUEPRINT!
TL;DR: Building a personal brand is about intentionally associating yourself with the people, places, brands, habits, activities, and anything else that strongly reflects what you believe in. In an attempt to sell, people and businesses will associate with things that trigger your primal instincts and prey on you; be careful! Also, keep watch of your own associations as they can quickly destroy what you have built.
Today is all about how associations can build (or destroy) your personal brand.
Personal branding is the act of creating intentional associations to create a cohesive perception of an individual’s image.
Associations are anyone or anything someone could correlate you with. For example, if you play golf often, someone could easily associate you with golfing. If you hang out with the same group of friends, someone could easily associate you with that friend group.
Associations are what make or break a brand. It is important to associate yourself with the people, habits, activities, and brands that represent you well. Even more important, it is crucial to NOT associate with the people, habits, activities, and brands that represent you poorly.
A favorite podcast host mentioned this - an alcohol brand offered them a large amount of money to advertise on their channel, and they turned it down. Why? Even an advertisement builds an association with that channel. Important to note, the podcast is catered to creatives and entrepreneurs, not recovering alcoholics or something more relevant. Alcohol is a topic that carries negative and positive attention surges with its Gen Y and Gen Z audience, and is something that could negatively affect their brand image.
Associations are why many of us understand branding to be logo design and the color template for a business. Logo design helps with recognition, and it often paints the first picture for someone before they walk through the door. Humans use pattern recognition to associate colors with feelings and emotions. And businesses tap into this. The financial industry uses blue and green to establish trust, and fast food chains use red, yellow, and orange to capture attention and promote urgency.
Let’s take another example that brings to life what association really means in branding: the network of veins and arteries within your own body. Your heart should be the core of your brand's messaging. These are your deeply held beliefs, around which everything else you do revolves. The veins and arteries are everything else that you bring life to. Because you associate with it - whatever it is - you are now connected to it. If a lot of blood is being sent somewhere other than the heart, there is a good chance you have a problem! Pour too much attention towards something that is not aligned with your core messaging, and something about you begins to feel fraudulent.
For your own personal brand, here’s what I would take away:
Be hyper-aware of what associations people are making
There are plenty of social media gurus who make money by selling courses. Instead of showcasing the impact or validity of their product, we see this: a young guy driving a McLaren and making videos from a sky-rise apartment in Miami.
If someone were fully invested in making a quality product that makes a significant difference in someone’s financial status, they would look to attract quality clients. These individuals are attracted to evidence often portrayed through testimonials and professionalism.
Instead, the fast, rich life is catering to the impulse buyer who craves quick status elevation. What looks glamorous is meant to prey on your mind’s built-in craving for success and what it could do for you. Compared to the outcome, a one-time high-ticket cost sounds reasonable.
If you are buying, understand how associations are being used to influence your purchase activity.
If you are selling, understand your target market and what they desire. Associate yourself with those things.
Be cognizant of your own personal brand
You are building a personal brand right now. You are actively making associations every day of your life based on how you act, what you talk about, the way you dress, where you shop - everything you do! This includes your friends, activities, habits, and brand usage.
To begin intentionally forming associations around your personal brand, begin to ask yourself this question:
“[If people saw me right now,] would I be perceived in the way I would like to be perceived?”
Simply, am I associating myself with things I would like to be known by? Better yet, if someone made a nickname out of your current state, would you be okay if everybody called you this?
Right now, someone could pin you as a newsletter reader. I would be okay with that because it means I like to learn and develop myself!
The aim of asking yourself this question is to provide awareness. Can you identify areas where you are successfully aligned with who you would like to be? Maybe there are areas less aligned. This should be a key focus for you in the next week.
Cheers,
Spencer A.
P.S. I used the word ‘associate’ 19 times in Ed. #15
“Everything Matters”
