The Rynge Blog

Thursday, July 12, 2007

You do not have a personality!

When talking to friends or introducing myself as working with Personal Branding, many responds that they do not want to appear as someone they don't are. I totally understand that and would never suggest someone to pose as someone they are not. However, this arises another interesting question:

Who are you, really?

As Steve Chandler once said in his 100 ways to motivate yourself: "I am sorry if this offends you, but you do not have any personality", referring to that the personality you "have" is created by many different factors such as environment, peoples opinions, etc. and that you can change it if you want. Just as you can change career, you can change who you are, and so, there is nothing wrong in working with altering your personal brand into something new and something that you want to be. Actually, imagining that you are something else, often is a great way of getting there. Ask any psychologist working with athletes how they picture their self in a position where they want to be in the future.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Are you defined by your network?

When talking about personal branding, there are a some experts that says that you can be defined/described just by looking at the network you have. The studies in the field are mostly conducted on off-line social networks, but of course this applies also for on-line communities (or even more) such as Facebook, Xing, MySpace etc.

The Swedish business newspaper E24.se has an article today about a recent study at Berkley in California, which shows that more universities students prefers Facebook in front of MySpace, which is more populated by persons starting to work right after high-school.
Even BBC covered this story in this article.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

10 PR commandments and how to use it for Personal Branding (7--10)

7) Thou shall embrace blogging - It´s not a fad, it´s here to stay. Be part of it.

If you have the time and the ability to write a blog about what you like and what you stand for in an interesting way, it is an excellent way to promote your brand and it does not even cost anything more than your time. However, it could be good to develop a blog strategy, so that what you write is actually in line with the brand you want to build.

8) Thou shall use a simple language - People want to hear from you in a human voice. Don´t hind behind advanced words. It will soon sound like ye olde English (or whatever language you speak).

Maybe some professor or government official will be impressed by your advanced language, but to get the point across it is much better to be clear and specific.

9) Thou shall tell the truth - If you don´t tell the truth, it will come out anyway.

This is the most important thing in both business branding and personal branding. If you lie, your trust will decline and no one will believe you later on when you are telling the truth. Branding is all about trust, make sure that you are consistent in your trustworthiness.

10) Thou shall thinketh in 360 degrees - Ask not what you can do for your fellow humans, but also what your fellows humans can do for you.

Spreading and building your brand is in your hands, but that does not mean that you can not think of how others can help you in your quest. Word of mouth marketing is the most powerful marketing tool. Make it easy for your trusted ones to help spreading your brand.

Monday, August 07, 2006

10 PR commandments and how to use it for Personal Branding (4-6)

4) Thou shall not be fake - Keep it real; don't hide behind characters and phony IDs.

This should be obvious, but many persons try to be something that they are not. A strong brand consists of honesty and trustworthiness, none of which will improve if you do try to be someone else and do not walk the talk.

5) Covet thy customers - Don't sue your fans. You will alienate them.

A basic rule is that if you help people, something good will come back to you. Some call it karma, some networking. For me it is just common sense. The customers in the commandment represent the people around you, so be honest and friendly with the people around you. No one likes a grump.
Just remember, it is not wrong to stand up for your self, but there are good and bad ways to make your point.

6) Thou shall be open and engaging - Involve your customers in the PR process. Invite them to help you develop winning ideas and become your spokespeople.

This is also common sense, but as someone said "common sense is not that common". Jesus had his apostles to spread his word and build his brand. Was he successful in this strategy? Did he come up with all the answers himself and told people what to think, or did he leave the thinking to the people so that they could draw their own conclusions?
Basically, do not be a know-it-all, be humble to others convictions, that's the only way to win their trust and in the end letting them convince themselves.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

10 PR commandments and how to use it for Personal Branding (1-3)

Steve Rubel has come up with 10 commandments for public relations professionals. I was thinking of how to use those commandments in the work of personal branding, so I have written some comments to each of the commandments. Here are comments on the first three commandments.

1) Thou shall listen - Utilize every avenue available to you to listen actively to what your publics have to say and feed it back to the right parties.

How do you handle the feedback you get from people around you? For starters, begin with writing down the positive and negative feedback you get. Then look at it and see how it matches the way you want to be seen. Maybe the negative feedback is in line with what you want to communicate and maybe you are getting positive feedback that communicates something you don't want to be associated with.
When people starts talking about you in a way that matches the personal brand you want to achieve you have laid the foundation of your personal brand.

2) Remember that all creatures great and small are holy - It doesn't matter if it's the New York Times calling on you or an individual blogger, both have power. Take them all seriously.

Word of mouth is a powerful tool, and works in both directions. With the right approach you can build your brand by stating your principle to people that does not agree with you, no matter if it is your neighbourhood or the head of the company you want to work at. With the wrong approach however, even upsetting your neighbour can have devastating consequences if he/she talks about you to the wrong person.

3) Honour thy customer - Create programs that celebrate customers and they will celebrate you.

This does not only apply to your customer, it applies to all things in life. I have covered one aspect of this in the earlier post about brokeback entrepreneurs, simply meaning that if you get help from others, be generous and repay the favour. This way you will build you brand and the respect for your person. There are many ways of creating win-win situation with your customers/friends/colleagues, be creative and find the ways that suites the situation.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Personal Branding experts

Since I live and work in Sweden I tried to map out who are the experts in the field here in Sweden. Not an easy task, since they are not easy to find on the Internet. I thougth that those experts should walk the talk and position themself on the web. Anyhow, here are the ones that I found that works with personal branding or similiar activities:

Isabel Werner Runebjork, Ditt Varumarke (has written the only published book in Swedish about personal branding)

Marie Sammeli, Appareo

Jimmy Wilhemsson, Attach Information

Peter Sackemark, Drivkraften kommunikation

Anna Olin, Anna Olin Business Communications

Matts Heijbel, Storytellers

Kim Rydeheim, Rydeheim PR

Lottie Knutsson

And of course, me:

Ola Rynge, Liquidice

Internationally I have to mention the following as great resources for personal branding information:

Peter Montoya
Tom Peters
Fast Company (search for personal branding)
ReachCC
Branding personal Blog (Spanish and english)
Marca Propia (Spanish expert Andres Perez Ortega)

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

To what extent do your personal contacts refer to you the way you would like?

The other day I visited my father and helped him prepare the new beauty centre for my mother. When introduced to his friend, a business man in the area, I was presented as my fathers "youngest son". Nothing wrong in that, but frankly I am not very keen on being referred to as the "youngest". It kind of sounds like that I am inexperienced and new to whatever I am doing. It just does not sound trustworthy.

So after we where done at the centre, I asked him how he would have presented me at a business meeting if I would be an employee at his company, responsible for the business development processes. Guess what, he would not have presented me in the same way.

Do you want you family to refer to you as "my baby girl" or "my daughter who is an expert in public relations" when meeting with their friends and colleagues. Most people has a limited network and does not work to expand it very actively, so when they hear that their friends daughter is known as an expert in public relations, guess who they will call when they need to market their new product line.

By the way, this does not only concern your family. It is even more important that your friends do not present you as a "couch potato" or "party animal" to people they meet. You probably want them to describe you as a fun, driven person with social skills as well as expert knowledge.

Maybe you want to separate your personal and private life. If you are presented as a public relations expert or a social skilled person and the other person wants to discuss that topic after the introduction, spend a few minutes discussing the topic, trade business cards and kindly point out that you would love to meet to discuss the subject further over lunch some day. The other person is most likely not to keep talking about your profession.