Bloomport U

The “The Brand You 50” by Tom Peters was a quick read, but the overuse of exclamations!!!!!!, bold type, ALL CAPS, font changes, and h-y-p-h-e-n-s was tedious and kind of juvenile.

Once I got past that, it was a solid read that gave me a few new ideas.  I recommend this book for the person that is just realizing that it’s not just what you know, but WHO you know and WHAT they know about you.  I picked out the most relevant pieces by identifying what I wanted to remember (which I added to my learning journal), and what actions I wanted to take.  Both are outlined below.

Why I selected this book:

I selected this book because Mary Anne Gale suggested in her book “Running for Office” that we get clear on your own personal brand.  Based on her input, my action was to think more about this, thus I found this classis and bought it for .99 cents on Amazon.

Was the “The Brand You 50” helpful?

Yes.  It helped me to think about what was most important in the work and I do and try to cut out the non essential items.  It also helped me to think about “who I am” and “what I want to be known for.” As this requires quite a bit of introspection, I do not have the results yet, but the mind is working that direction.

What will do as a result of reading “The Brand You 50”

Do a Personal brand equity evaluation:

Define: What 2 to 4 things am I known for?

Define: Next year, I will be known for these 2 to 4 additional things

Start building a personal brand equity statement (brand priorities)

• Start with skills, attitude, and character
• Develop a quarter page advertisement
• Synthesize down to an eight-word positioning statement
• Ensure the calendar reflects 1, 2, or 3 of these priorities each day
• Do an after-action-review (AAR) each night, was the day focused on one of the three brand priorities?

Look at the “to do” list, does it have a off brand topics on it?  Can you 1. Kill it, 2. “Wow” it 3, postpone it

Ask, is not on-brand, stop it!

Focus on 100% on the on-brand work

Develop a contact list and manage the heck out of it!

Last contact, next contact, score each contact (in touch, neglect, etc)

Invite the project killer to lunch

Develop a visibility plan

Construct a formal word of mouth marketing campaign (see Read: Regis McKenna’s “Relationship Marketing”)

What did I add to my learning journal after reading “The Brand You 50”

Re read Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people”

Read: Brad Blanton’s “Radical Honesty”

Read: Regis McKenna’s “Relationship Marketing”

Try 1 thing really different each month

Go to the bookstore and skim through 20 magazines you typically do not read