I like to use flash cards.

If a salesperson can bring in $1,000,000 in revenue in the two years that they are with the company, isn’t that better than the salesperson who takes 5 years to bring in as much? And if you have a fair comp plan, you tend not to lose the person.

Of course, that’s sometimes the problem.

That’s exactly it! If companies live in fear and don’t support and develop their people because they don’t want to lose them, they will get long-term average employees. If they are willing to let their employees be their best, sure, someday the employee will leave, but they will ensure they are getting great value from them while they are in the company. And when the employees leave, they will do so with a positive image of the company.

I work inside companies helping people build their personal brands and I have found that their are companies who wholeheartedly embrance it and others who have no interest at all in my personal branding programs. The ones who embrace personal branding also happen to appear on lists like ‘The best companies to work for’ and ‘the world’s strongest brands.’

Thanks for your post!

I couldn’t function as a salesperson without a personal brand, and can’t imagine trying to sell without social media tools.

I even have a training DVD and a presentation based on Sales 2.0. The evidence is now incontrovertible. You make more sales and easier sales with social media.

That scares a lot of manager/owners. But they have to decide if they want more sales now from a great salesperson who may leave, or less sales from a mediocre salesperson they may have to fire.

And then of course, there’s the question of contacts, and who owns them. Social media erases the advantage of database and client lists.

It may not be so great for the company, but it sure helps you land that next gig.

It is unfortunate that you think we’re about “self awareness and self fulfillment as reasons to cultivate personal brands.” But no harsh feelings of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I just wanted to inform you that once again you have inspired us to write another article and would like to share it with you. You can find it here http://tinyurl.com/6xsztq.

“People don’t like being sold, but they love to buy”

Best,
Trace

Tom Peters was certainly the first to talk about personal branding as a term. Since then there have been a number of excellent additions and lead ons from his work where the great work and excelling in your field continue to be encouraged.

Most of the person brand practitioners I know are doing just that. It’s those that are choosing to jump on the social media ‘brandwagon’ without looking at clarifying their brand foundation (or those of their clients) who are clouding the issue and generating many of the misinformed anti-personal brand mantras that think all personal branders are just advocating building false personnas online or elsewhere.

Great to get your perspective and see the debate is still alive and well and willing to be discussed openly and cordially. (well most of the time! ;))

Tom Peters wrote “Brand you” in 1999. Indeed its a great work as its not really about “branding” as something that may be false or misleading or not authentic, its all about excelling in your field and doing great work

Perhaps a new term is called for, “personal bland” maybe, for the people who would seek to turn us into automatons all preaching the same thing about how authentic we are.

Mike

@Rich: I think the core issue is the word brand. And most people don’t know what it means. It should not be used in this context, IMO (everybody’s got one).

@Walter: Making it OK for people to be “personable” is one thing. Adding a contrived personal brand to the mix is another.